Porsche Kremer 935 K3 - Crawford
May 15, 2007

I know these pictures are kind of small, but it's the thought that counts.

The reason why I am showing all of these little pictures is so you all can see how ugly the blue paint is. Even if it were painted nicely, it's still dog patch. I included these photos because you can see Jagermeister orange in the areas that the body guy didn't actually grind the orange completely away. These are great for photo documentation.

This is unusual...you can see the pastel pink writing on the left and right front inner fender wells. I always steam clean the bodies before sandblasting because, as I explained before, sandblasting eliminates the paint or bondo instantly. You cannot see any of the layered surfaces. During steam cleaning, you can watch the layers disappear and the layers are not pulverized by the sand, they are just blown all over the parking lot. This way, we can inspect the different colors of the applied paint through the years. So, back to the pink...the picture on the right clearly says "On" and an arrow points to the rear of the car. That would mean that this is the right side of the car. We have a saying in racing which I learned from Hans Mundt, ex-Peter Gregg mechanic, in 1977..."Front loose, rear tight". If you say this before you go to the wheel during a pit stop, you never need to have an arrow pointing to the direction of the rotation of the wheel nut. Most of the time, the little letters and the arrows say "Off". For some reason, these guys chose to write "On". Now, why am I explaining all this shit? It's because the writing is on the inside of the fender. So I guess, the bodywork must have said "On" above the wheel on the fender and if the car crashed, and the nose was missing, the mechanics would still know which way the wheel came off...duh! While I was typing this, Drew Slayton, who was one of Max's mechanics called on the phone. Drew is still a very dear friend, but I told him I couldn't talk because I was telling a story about one of the 935's that he worked on while working for Fitzpatrick and Crawford. Is that the Twilight Zone or what?

The steam cleaner gets off what isn't stuck on. As you can see in the picture on the left, it's pretty clean...the picture on the right is only part clean. Most of the blue will blow off.

The smuggler's box. This is where the two main oil lines (aluminum hard pipe) come from the engine compartment. Hoses connect to the engine and the oil tank. This area is normally full of oil and nothing ever sticks, so unless it's really clean before its painted, it will look like this in a few years. We clean our paint surfaces. This smuggler's box will look new forever.

Now that the chassis has been sandblasted, it is now in the spray booth. Andy and our old pal, Jack, are preparing it for paint.

The little white tabs, marked with the arrows, are areas in the tub that are cracked. We don't want to paint the cracks because they'll disappear. Surely, the big ones are easy to see, even with 5 coats of paint. So, the tape seals the crack, then the tape is removed, and we will weld the crack up and prime those spots after welding is completed.

You ask why we don't weld all the cracks first. The reason is, in Florida we have a little more humidity than most other state so we have only about 20 minutes before corrosion starts. We try to prime the bare metal, or aluminum, parts just as soon as we can clean them, in preparation for paint. So many times, you can see surface rust bleeding through the paint. This is because the preparation was not timed between clean metal and corroded metal.

You can see little tape spots everywhere. This is normal for any Porsche racing 911 race car. The 935 gets a few more cracks because more power, more tire, means more stress.

Andy and Jack are still cleaning.

A few hours later, I am applying primer. This urethane primer is matched to the original slate gray color.

The fiberglass is bonded to the roof, including the intercooler ducts. These parts are lightly sandblasted and will be re-skinned in original material, but not removed from the car.

The fiberglass is masked off in the raised roof area, because a layer of material will be added to it later and it won't stick to the paint.

It's a tough car to prime with all the tubing. Normally, the 935 is a simple uni-body constructed car. But, Crawford did the tube frame to strengthen the car and change the angle of the floor for the wing (early tunnel).

Brackets are being cut off the car now to be replaced with new. As you can see in the pictures, the metal is a little bent up from various fender benders. We will replace all these crashed areas.

The picture on the right shows a pop riveted panel covering some holes. That panel will be removed and the holes will be metal finished.

You can see the holes, which probably had a purpose at one point, but we're not using them.

Everywhere you look...damage. This baby is a lot of work, but we love a lot of work. It's the customer that doesn't love the fact that some of this shit takes time. Oh well, they always get over it.....I hope!

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