Working in the Hell Hole

For those not familiar with the Porsche 914 saga it is quite simple. Porsche didn't do a very good job with protecting the frame from rusting out in the area of the battery rack. Apparently the battery leaks drips down the inner body and onto the frame members and in combination with rain from the engine compartment hatch creates a rusting situation which can virtually make the car useless. In my case it is almost useless. Interestingly enough the remainder of the frame and body is in reasonably good shape and worth restoring. The hell hole however is depressing. The further I get into it the worst it looks. I had plans to start the restoration of this area today but only got as far as uncovering more rusted out areas.

My plan is to recreate the frame members using reinforced carbon fiber. This is very simiplar to fiberglass except in stead of using fiberglass cloth one used carbon fiber cloth there are a number of suppliers of the cloth and it has proven to be equally strong as steel when used in the right thicknesses. My testing has confirmed that it has the strength. The problem is finding enough virgin steal in the right places to bond the RCF to. My plan is to both bond it as well as bolt it to the existing frame.

My problem to day is determening if the epoxy bond is adequate without going down to bare metal. I am in the process of doing some tests with bonding to rusted areas which have beentreated with POR 15. We will see tomorrow if the POR 15 can maintain a bond with the underlying steel and with the RCF . More later.