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The Matador rounds the corner, continued…

When we left the Matador in last month’s article things were about to get ugly. I was armed with dangerous tools and surgery was about to begin. As I moved through the next few weeks of the project I learned many things. One of which was to let the project speak to me and guide me along the way. Some things you just don’t know until you get in there and once you have learned something new a directional change may be in order. This happened a few times with the project.

I made two big decisions early on with the first one being a big one. The Matador was hit hard in the rear and the damage extended all the way to the trunk floor resulting in some crinkled metal. The good news was that my donor section had everything I needed to get all that bent-up metal replaced but the problem would be the work required. There was one small wrinkle in the trunk floor sheet metal that was in front of the spare tire well. No problem, I had that piece. BUT, and this is a big but, that wrinkle was right above the gas tank. If I wanted it gone then the gas tank would have to come out. Okay, no big deal, I have dropped tanks before. Ah, but not on a transaxle car, and guess what? Porsche is determined to use every ounce of space when they design their cars and in the case of the 944/968, the tank is wrapped around the transaxle itself which means the transaxle needed to come out in order to get the gas tank dropped. OMG. And on top of that, Porsche uses a ton of glue on the tank to make sure it is in there good and will never rattle. Looking at the tremendous amount of work needed I decided a scope adjustment was in order. I would leave that small wrinkle behind and do my cut in the spare tire well. Yes, the wrinkle would still be there but I decided that reduction in work scope was far worth it. Besides, I felt that the wrinkle would just be a small leftover of damage, giving the car a little “character”.

The next decision centered around where to make the cuts for the grafted piece on the donor section and the Matador. This was another major learning point: Porsche builds these cars well and they are extremely solid. In my previous non-Porsche projects I would typically just go to the 2-layer body panel seam and separate the two so that I could apply the new part. Not with the 968. The seams on these cars typically have 4 or 5 layers of metal sandwiched into a weld and I was looking to remove layer number 3! I had started working at the joint locations but quickly learned that separating the panel at the joint was not going to be an easy task so I decided to do what others have done and made cuts beyond the factory seam, with the intention of welding the two pieces together. You’ll see a photo example of this later.

Drill, drill, drill….

So I went to work. Some of the repair areas were straightforward. I had to drill out spot welds and then separate the panels. I started with the donor section and drilled out many spot welds.

Easy access to the rear storage

As I made cuts on the donor piece I then moved back to the Matador to make similar cuts and visa versa. Remember the old saying, “measure twice and cut once”. It was true here as well so I went slow, often making multiple cuts before calling an area complete. You can see at this point the spare tire well is now halved and the panel removed to expose the passenger side frame rail which was in good shape. 

Carnage

The cuts kept coming. Off came the wrinkled and battered quarter panel and my scrap metal pile started to grow. My welder Jim visited on occasion to approve my direction and provide guidance and slowly the damaged metal was removed from the Matador while the matching needed graft piece was cut from the donor section, just like a big puzzle piece!

Talk about weight reduction…

This was about as ugly as it got. Notice the rear hatch was left on during the entire project. This would ensure that the new graft piece was in the correct location once installed. Another funny observation was that the Matador remained drivable during the entire project due to my decision to leave the gas tank and transaxle installed. This was kind of like being awake during surgery!

So close!

Finally, with great anticipation, the day came to marry the grafted piece onto the Matador. Everything had been removed from the Matador that needed to be and the grafted piece was cut just right with just a little bit of overlap to allow for the final welding that would come next.

A match made in Porsche heaven

I had my friend Paul come over for the big day because it would take two people to maneuver the grafted piece into position. Also, when the grafted piece was finally cut from the donor section it lost much of its rigidity so care was needed to make sure nothing was bent while handling it.

Finally, the grafted piece was placed into position. Holy cow! I couldn’t believe it when I first saw it. What a journey it had been to get to this point but it looked great! Now don’t get me wrong. As you see it in the photo above it looks great but really it was only sitting correctly on the Matador about 70%. After all, I was taking a part of one car and putting it onto another car. They weren’t going to match up perfectly. The remaining 30% of the adjustment was where I needed Jim. He would work to make all those final tweaks and cuts to get the grafted piece to fall into position perfectly before final welding but boy did it look good!  

Off to Jim’s we go!

Next up, the day came for transport to the body shop. Wow! I still couldn’t get used to looking at the car with that straight rear sheet metal despite the fact it was only being held on by clamps and a strap but it was certainly exciting. The flatbed showed up and the time had come for the next chapter of the project. We were off to Jim’s to make these two big puzzle pieces into one!

To be continued……

4 Comments

  1. Chris Fesenmeyer

    I’m really enjoying this series of articles! I also enjoy DIY car work and find your story energizing.!

  2. I admire your vision and stamina…and courage!

  3. Frank Sena

    After the story has been told, you should submit it to PCA for publication in Pano!

  4. Great article! You’re a brave man!

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