904-068
May 7, 2004

Tuesday of this week, we started back on 068. We will stay with it until it's finished! We will try to give you two updates a week. Remember, I said try. In these photos, we're joining the original front of the car to the new floor.

The areas are sanded with 36 grit for the new mat patches. While Jack is attaching the body, I am repairing all the crash damage in the complete front end.

There are spider cracks everywhere. You could imagine a race car hitting a utility pole at any speed is going to shock the shit out of the fiberglass. All these spider cracks have to be removed.

Every flange and every joint has to be looked at. If they have separated as a result of the accident, they have to be repaired.

In doing this, the fiberglass has to be ground to about nothing and then built back up. Around the headlight, the shiny areas are where I have repaired all the cracked fiberglass. And I mean all because if you miss one crack, it will re-crack and no one wants to hear about that. I use the masking tape to flatten the repair on the left front fender. If I didn't use tape, it would take me three times more sanding to achieve the smooth surface.
Peel ply would work, but not as good because it will not bend convex-concave.

As you can see, the tape follows the radius of the fender. To make the lip underneath (upside-down) the tape holds the material up in place. Peel ply would not achieve this. The headlight bucket has had at least 30 repairs (cracks) and is now ready to be sanded.

Off comes the tape, next comes the grinder.

More detailed shots.

The left fender is ready for filler and the right fender is ready for sanding.

Look close and you can see the cracks in one of the fenders.
These have been ground away and recovered with a layer of mat.

I am using the hog (8" DA) to block the surface cracks away. While resin is drying, I will take some pictures of Jack or at least Jack's hands, attaching the body to the chassis in the front end.

Remember, glass does not stick (structurally) to paint or shiny surfaces, metal or fiberglass.
We have to grind every surface with at least 36 grit before any laminating.

While I am skinning the front fenders, Jack has indexed the rear pod and is attaching them to the chassis.

A little tuning on the chassis rails before attaching the trunk area to them.

Again, we use black pigment in the resin to keep the scratches to a minimum.
The front trunks of most non-racing (factory) 904s were black.

All the repair work is finished after four days of itch hell. Now, I have applied a thin coat of body filler and am now block sanding the fenders. Remember, we use a thin layer of filler to keep the pattern of the mat from bleeding through to the surface of the final paint. We will also use duratech primer, which will guarantee the areas that aren't covered with filler will still be held from bleeding through. There is nothing worse than to do all this glass repair and have the car sit in the sun (which shrinks the materials at different rates) and see the mat pattern. All 904s were made using silver gel coat and they sprayed a lot of it on. If you have an uncrashed or never been stripped 904, guaranteed, you will never see pattern bleed on a good hot day!
We will update 068 again next week.

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