65 C hood kink, new projct

[Jbrooks]

Well still waiting for Terry to complete his coupe floor replacement, we have a new interim project. A friend on th south end just picked up a 65C. Good solid southwest car, but the Oregon gas station law has bitten the hood. Bob and I get another hood to play with. Now there a seven 356's on the island. Almost enough cars for a mob.


Both sides are the same, 1/2" gap and collapsed doubler.


Not too bad but ugly

Original paint, no flexibility left. Flaked off on both sides
Will try to remove the bent section and put it back in and refit the hood. The car will get a repaint next winter but for now it's get it back on the road safely.

[Don C]

Please keep posted on how you repair that section. Mine's kinked too.

[Jack Staggs]

What was the gas station guy doing under the hood?

[Jbrooks]

Was back in N. Carolina for a month but finally got around to the hood repair. The hood must have had 4 coats of paint and primer on it and about a corvette's worth of plastic. Thought it would be pretty easy fix looking from the inside, the inner doubler kink was as expected, but wow the amount of paint and plastic in the nose was impressive. The more forward you went the thicker it got. The entire car is now probably 25-30 mm shorter than when we started. Trams correctly now.





Gaps look good after the repair, much better that before



Now the real fun begins taking back to bare metal, removing the 70s insurance repairs and little plastic worms inside the body, welding up all the holes then repainting it back Irish Green.

[bbspdstr]

That area on a Karmann hood has the lovely added bonus of the need to protect the underside texture coating or blend it or re-do it altogether.
Nice underside frame repair, BTW.

Happy Christmas,
-Bruce

PS, Jack, the 356 hood thing ("raise to lower") is or was a big deal in much of the eastern part of the US where an attendant MUST fill your tank. Our nemesis locally is NJ. PA is a fill-it-yourself state, but NJ is typically cheaper for gas. There, in an atypical gas filler situation like an early 356, one could get out to expose the filler but not actually pump the gas into it.

In the lacquer days, I had done a really nice originally black S-90 Coupe for a local guy...in black lacquer. I remember him because he inspected my paint work at night, with a flashlight, finding tiny specks in the paint that could not be seen in daylight!

He and his wife went "down south" in that fresh 356 to visit relatives and on the way back, the man had to "use the facilities" at a rural gas station after opening the T-5's hood so the young attendant could fill the tank.

He came out to find the young lad hanging from the nose of the hood, trying to close it even though the man had expressly told him not to.

This customer told me the kid ran off when he yelled, so he closed the lid as best as he could and used a wire clothes hanger and his belt to hold it down until he could return to PA....and didn't pay for the gas.

When I got the car soon after, it was as bad as I'd ever seen. The hinges and their pockets were hurt and the lid was nasty. Back then, there were plenty of used lids around, so I fixed the pockets and used a...gasp...un-numbers-matching lid and of course, the black lacquer was the easy part......and he was back to driving rather quickly.

Now, that's one of the things most people know to be careful of, but we still find the residual signs of damage from stories such as the above.

[badsix]

come on Oregon pump jockeys do a fine service and 99% will let you fill your own tank if you want. in the case of a 356 I just did my hood I had to remove the skin to get it fixed. after that no one is going to touch my hood but me. I don't care if a have to piss right at the pump. i've often thought about disabling the hinges and using a prop rod to hold the hood up. it wouldn't be oem but might save a hood from being kinked, a very awful situation.
Jay D.

[bbspdstr]

Yep, easy to disable the three-pointed star and use a stick OR, as I have done a couple of times many years ago....add the makings of a later hood with the gas struts. Get the geometry right and those are what Porsche should have done. My daily driver, a 2014 Subaru, still has a prop-rod reminding me that yep, I've done that too....back when the dreaded "originality" was laughed at!

Maybe a niche market product could be developed...even a banner/cloth sign that hangs down when the lid is opened that says "lift to close" and tucks inside as the lid is closed.
https://images-na.ssl-images-amazon.com/images/I/51u3NgnZXPL._AC_US218_.jpg

-Bruce

[Jbrooks]

Don.
To answer your question Bob used a stud puller on the stiffener kink. He has a marvelous eye after 40 years of collision repair. He can look at a kink bend or fold and see how it formed. He says " you just pull it out in reverse from the way it went in". Last in first out. On the hood it was two studs on one and three on the other side. A couple pulls while tapping it on the side and the just popped out. It happened so fast I did not get photos. It's a German tool and I guess it speaks 356




He put the hood back on and with a twist and a elbow brake straightened the skin out. Fit is well, gaps equal, and the hinge pins both line up now. Lots of old repairs to redo now but the major kink and deflector from 10 feet is done. Fitting the doors and repairing the previous errors now. But lots of paint and bondo to bring through.

Here is a shopping cart dent, right at the pinch weld repaired before with mud, about the size of your thum and 1/4" deep. One stud, two pulls and shrinking the crater rim. Less that a minute start to stop.

[Jack Staggs]

Jack, the 356 hood thing ("raise to lower") is or was a big deal in much of the eastern part of the US where an attendant MUST fill your tank.

Bruce, it's a T6 car with outside filler on the right fender (some rt hand drive cars excepted). Clearly seen in the pics. Again, what was the gas jockey doing under the hood?

[John Pierce]

Very nice repairs.

[bbspdstr]

Jack, you wrote: "Bruce, it's a T6 car with outside filler on the right fender (some rt hand drive cars excepted). Clearly seen in the pics. Again, what was the gas jockey doing under the hood?"
Yes, correct-a-mundo. My kinky story happened to be about the hood of a T-5, but all through the models of 356s, the 'raise to lower' was out of the ken of newbies or anyone else who needed to know that quirk many times after it was too late. The hoods all had tremendous leverage on the weak area at the forward end of the hinge blades and the bending was far too easy to do.

I have dealt in many ways with the wear of the hinge mechanisms as well. Welding the tips and filing them back into tolerance works best without total disassembly. Also repair including removal of that three pointed star and created an alternative propping method. Most of those were for frustrated customers who wanted something cheap or just unique in a repair, back when the 356s all were. (Cheap-er)

Imagine....'outlaw' hood holding-upping.

Many forced hinges got out of sync, so the operator of the lid latching needed to develop a routine of giving one latch the finger (of choice) to set the wheel or relax the wheel...T-0, T-1, T-2, T-5, T-6, T-7...whatever......

Point is, Porsche ignored this quirk for the whole 356 era, I suppose because it was something in German stubbornness that wasn't, to Porsche, as egregious as bottom senders on early T-6 tanks and the plethora of other changes in design that happened often in 'official' model changes or mid-year or mid-model changes, like electric tachs, smooth curved windshields and disc brakes, etc, etc. Some changes were too make the 356 experience better...some didn't work so well. That then carried over into the 901/911/912 versions of evolution.

When a 356er 'knew' how to deal with a vulnerable hood support mechanism, they then graduated into a veteran status....but even now, I look first at that area of a hood underside and if it's not sprung, kinked or showing prior repair.....I get all excited, point to the usual scene of the crime and say "Hey look, it's a virgin.!"

Now, let's get into the opposite hood issue.....unlatching for some reason and blowing up at speed. Like JB's friend with the nail gun, I use that tool too often on a crescent-groove in a front cowl. I don't particularly like the leather hood straps, but they were born of necessity, especially in early 356 racing. Now, they are more a fashion statement.

Happy, Merry,
Bruce

[Phil Planck]

Foam Cars hood fits pretty well, but is a little high on the drivers side. Dents on both sides but not as bad as shown above. Was Assuming would have to remove the skin to repair(and also de-rust hem), but that stud puller looks like another option. Thanks for posting.

Phil

[Jbrooks]

Front end now in primer, doors and hood gaps set, now for the long boards, my favorite part.

[Jack Staggs]

For best results, install the doors and block across the gaps.

[Jbrooks]

Thanks Jack. We do that, they were on when we did the fenders and removed all the old plastic, got them flat and gaps adjusted, then took them off to prime and work the shipping cart dings and old repairs in the door skin. I have about 15 pounds of plastic remnants for years of old insurance repairs from the 70's. Some of the plastic was 1/2 thick and cracked because some one did not want to do hammer and dolly work on the metal, they just scuffed, smoothed mud over the dents and repainted it.

But it does have good bones, under the 5 layers makeup.