1959 356A S/R coupe project chassis # 108625

[JTR70]

More spur:
All synched down into final position. Ready to dismount and seal the inner surfaces.
Inner surfaces coated and now ready to mount for the final time. Every plug weld hole is drilled to both ensure a tight fit but also to allow the weld to catch an edge for a thorough bond.
Begin plug welding from the center outward.
Plug welding completed. Now onto dressing the heads flush for a detail follow up with my spot welder.
Spot weld detail now completes the spur installation. Also added in a run of spots along the longitudinal where possible at the moment.

[JTR70]

Onto the next deal.....
Splash pan lap joint patch repair. Paper template first
Onto to steel
Stitched in and now the fun part of dressing all this down.
Dressed and followed up with my panel spotter. Gas welded seam detail at the bottom edge replicated. Not completely finished here but done for now.

Thanks for looking!

Justin

[JTR70]

Upper trunk floor under tank repair.
I was going to begin fitting the front half of the floor pan but....
But this car has some upper trunk floor rot so I decided now would be the best time to address that while I have open access to the underside of it.
This being a coupe and with both longitudinal members repaired structural integrity is secure enough to remove this sub-frame jig. Now is the time as its in my way for those under dash repairs to the trunk floor.
Subframe now removed giving the clearest shot at the underside of the needed repairs.
Most of the rust damage is to the left side but both upper corners have rust. I know they make this panel new but this one is very savable and besides it would be far more work and time to replace this panel when you consider all the accessory brackets and attachments on the underside of this panel. Patch repairs coming up next.

Thanks for looking!
Justin

[JTR70]

upper left corner prep:
Planning out how much to save and where to make the cuts.
At the floor I decided to make the break under the reinforcement plate to both conceal and support the eventual weld joint.
This gets me past all the compromised metal along the floor.
Removing the remains of the old plate.
Then it as onto cutting and carefully removing the upper corner. Its pretty intricate and layered in through here so I had to take some time to drill a few spot welds and carefully unpeel this onion to get this old piece out intact as its needed to provide the pattern for the new piece that has to be fabricated.

[JTR70]

Part 2:
Corner section carefully removed. Of course there was additional rot found on the inner wall it was sandwiched to.
Still have some remains to clean out before its ready to accept the new piece but I'm close to touching bottom here.
It took some care to get this now very delicate section out in one piece but the contour and shape info was now too valuable to just hack out.
Experimenting with some heat and drive axle section as a hammer form. Getting a plan together to build this part cleanly.
While that marinates in my mind I dug out an old trunk floor /bulkhead section to harvest my patch panels with the needed relief shapes for the floor.

[JTR70]

Trunk floor repair patch:
My donor is every bit as rotted down low so I'm taking the upper portion and will be flipping it over.
Because I'm flipping it over the reliefs are now mirrored and on the wrong side in relation to one another. The skinny rib will have to be cut and moved to the other side of the big one.
Lots of prep work like removing the column brace remains etc. but as you can see the relief shape's shoulders have a gentle taper so replicating these cleanly from scratch would be far more time consuming to replicate versus any prep work needed to make this section work.
Planning out how much of the donor needed to get past the rot.
Initial mock ups with donor cut and skinny rib moved to the other side. Its short in front of the fat one so I'm also still adding as well as trimming.

[JTR70]

Part 2:
The rot runs up the side so I'll slide this section down and put a 90 in it to cover that.
90 installed pretty much finishing off the skinny section prep. Now onto adding a small run to the end of the wide section.
Tacking some more on here...
Now I finally have my basic patch set. Will finish up the welding on my work table.
Cutting the big piece in first....

Thanks for looking!
Justin

[JTR70]

Patch panel almost complete:
Ready to begin joining these two new pieces together.
Just have to establish the final cut line to remove the excess between the two.
Cut and tacked. Mocked up one more to time to be sure the ribs still line up.
Welding complete to finish out this repair patch.

[JTR70]

welding it in finally...
A bit of a process but it was now ready to be tacked in for good.
Tacked and beginning to lay down some seam welds. This turned out to be a bit tricky as the metals are thin on both sides so it was a balance of getting it hot enough for a proper weld all the while trying to avoid it blowing through which it would do in places at the drop of a hat.
All welded in with lots of grinding and a few holes yet to back fill.
Have to dress this side as well, again not having the floor pan in my way makes life much easier.
Going to grind back a little at a time but in between I'm going to fabricate this corner. That next...

Thanks for looking!
Justin

[JTR70]

Corner at trunk release repair section.
Basic profile bends first. Corners had to be more sweeping so I found a pry bar handle that was just the thickness to make these soft turns. I learned from my first attempt to put these bends in ahead of the arched relief.
The arched relief was hammered in next.
A bit of deformation afterwards to straighten back out.
Went ahead and added a pilot hole now to make straightening this lower section easier.
flattening and re-bending where needed as it went.

[JTR70]

Part2:
Deformation all hammered smooth and by sessions end I had my basic shape.
Opened up the hole to accept the Original rubber grommet.
Cautiously trimming more excess away and adding in more bends.
Part was now close enough in shape for a trial fit.
A ways yet to go but closing in on the final shape.

Thanks for looking!
Justin

[JTR70]

Upper Corner of floor repair patch:
That new upper corner actually has to lay over top of the eventual floor repair section so I set it aside and switched gears to begin paper templates.
In steel and trimmed to basic shape with a soft radiused 90 to continue the original profile.
I have my basic new sections but as you can see there remains a lot of fine tuning and shaping to get these two to not only fit the car but to also fit and work together cleanly.
Just as I was thinking how simple this part was to make I realized that I had huge gap at the vertical wall that I couldn't account for.
A quick look over to the right side showed me there was a drop down stepped profile I was lacking.

[JTR70]

Part2:
Top side view. This shoulder runs down hill and fades as it moves downward witch puts a bit of a curve ball in there. As you can these corner rusted out too; not as severe and without the complication of a trunk release arch but it will need some unpeeling and repair.
After some careful templating I settled on the bend lines and began heeling it over.
Adding this relief shape definitely complicated things. I had to add the 90 back in just to be able to test fit and my angle was of course off ever so slightly throwing the whole part off. It took 4 attempts of bending and re-straightening to get that sucker to fit right, I was getting worried about metal fatigue. BTW turning that corner down in the step was a bridge too far. I had it bright orange and it still tore apart.
It fought but I had good fit before the night was out.
Easy fix though...

[JTR70]

Basic repair sections at last though the upper section still has some work yet before its ready.
Floor section ready to install.
Installed for the final time and ready to begin stitching.
Crude "V-shaped" cutout detail for trunk release clearance replicated. Welding next....

Thanks for looking!
Justin

[roy mawbey]

Justin, this needs a more than a few words to say how well you have done one this part of the repair. Really exceptional effort to get that all looking as original. I have followed this repair every step of the way and you should be proud of yourself. For any one not ever having attempted this type of work as I have said before so many times ,you make the fabrication of new sections look easy when that is not the case. It takes ingenuity to find and use, metal forming items that will work. I was for the early part of my working life a press toolmaker, all those difficult shapes were machined on to the punch and die and its not easy to replicate those items manually to make it look original. Likewise, you have to understand when the forming is almost beyond what equipment you have at hand.

So its looking good my friend !

Roy

[JTR70]

Hello Roy, Thank you for that really nice and thoughtful comment. You're right I had to do some hunting to find various shaped items around my shop that were going to give me a close enough shape to hammer form into. I seem to just squeak by with what I have on hand. If the shapes are small and complicated enough, as these were I'm hard pressed to make it in one piece though that is my intent; but a relief cut and weld is usually the only way forward most times. A dedicated press and die would have been quite a luxury. Thanks once again for your keen and thoughtful observations. Stay well! Justin