The Resurrection of Foam Car - 63 T6B

[bbspdstr]

Phil, as one whose own restorations sit and sit while 'life' gets in the way, I wish you well and thank you for the pictures of the 912. Good luck with that and all your endeavors. Hope to see you at the 912 gathering this coming year.

"Idle hands..." came up with the cartoon below. I got a Brad Ripley 'sales for the holidays' email, so I printed that to get a 356 I could cut out and insert in an old Frank and Troise piece I've had for many years, out of R&T. To me, it is ironic that a Speedster VIN, max of 5 digits, could be the total bill for a Speedster restoration. Then and now, it is one of the few 356 models that can be worth more finished than the cost of the restoration.....unless, of course, I start wearing a white lab coat.....

[Phil Planck]

Thanks Bruce. I missed that cartoon. Great one! As anyone with a new toy, I am spending some time going through it and fixing a few things(all shifter bushings were laying on the tunnel floor except one in the rear linkage). Checked and set valve adjustment. Looking for a new rotor for the 050. Ordered a Weber carb book (Harry's Webers were made in Italy on this car). I am sure I will be spending some time on Foam Car yet this winter as I would like to get the nose finished up. The 912 will have to go in our regular garage to make room to switch engines in the PreA. That's why I wanted to get the shifter working better. Plus, if we get a nice, dry, salt dust free day I would like to take it out for a run.
Phil

[Jack Staggs]

Phil, I think the rotor for the 050 is a common one. The cap is the weird one. Does the rotor have a part # on it? I think the original was black (non resistor), but the brown ones fit.

[Phil Planck]

Here are 050 part #s:

Cap-231 081 413
rotor-231 081 628
points-01 011

Caps are readily available but only possible source I have found will be Zim's for a rotor. Will call Monday to find out. Apparently rotor is a different height from what I have read. I have not compared the one I have to other 356/912 rotors yet.
Edited 11/30: rotor is about 1/16" shorter than the one in Foam Cars distributor. Will post pics tomorrow.
Phil Planck

[Phil Planck]

Let's see. Where was I on Foam Car before this long intermission. Ah, the drivers nose area. I now have my shop rearranged with some new shelving under the stairway where I had the PreA engine stored while sorting out and enjoying Foam Car's engine in the PreA. The 1500 is being cleaned up(been 25 years since I rebuilt it - wow) in preparation for going back in the PreA:



I bought a Harbor Freight motor cycle jack, as I will be removing and installing engines several times this year, and it is much more stable than my floor jack. Good helpers are hard to find up here, so this will give me some peace of mind.

I tackled the dents along the edge of the hood opening fore and aft of the nose to fender joint. Nasty area and harder to work on with the convex curve. But(no after pic yet) it is about as good as it is going to get. So I can now move to the lower outer nose to smooth that out.

The blackened area at the top left is what I got smoothed out tonight:



Even bought some Lava soap, per Jack Staggs comments and it worked well after coming in from the shop. Been years since I have used Lava. Have been a Go-Jo man mostly. Enjoying all of the other resto posts and hope to get some work done this month as not much to do outside when the temp is in single digits as it has been a lot.

Phil

[John Pierce]

Glad to see you back at it, Phil!

I hope your garage is heated. We've had some bitterly cold weather and LOTS of snow. So I haven't been in the garage much. Great for skiing though.

JP

[Phil Planck]

Yep John - got heat. After about 2 more hours these 2 areas are much smoother. This area near the hood opening took a lot of time for me as I was not used to working on concave areas as much and I had to fabricate a special slapper since my flat one would not work. It is a lot better than before, but you can see one area that is not going anywhere right at the joint to the fender. Looks worse that it feels:



Now on to the lower outer area. The bottom has been smoothed and about half of the remaining rough area was smoothed today. Still a few little areas to work on, but a couple more hours and this should be much smoother. All of these dents were filled with lead and left very rough.



Here's the slapper(top part is the slap part):





Phil

[Jack Staggs]

Phil, a large half round mill bastard file can be heated and bent into a shrinking slapper shape to give good results on those concave areas. A worn file will work just fine.

[Phil Planck]

Jack
Thanks for that tip. I have read of using files as slappers on the metal working forums. I have resisted trying this as at this point I am just trying to raise dents and not shrink metal much. Although I did use a torch on 2 high ridges in the top pic. This would be a good area to try the file(I have several old ones that would work) as I do plan to go over the convex surfaces with a shrinking disc, so will give your tip a try on that concave area. Is that one of your old Barris days talent acquisitions?

Phil

[Jack Staggs]

Phil, the problem with using the torch is that the metal can become work hardened from changing the temper of the steel. After one or two trys, the metal can become brittle, and crack. Further welding exacerbates the problem. Shrinking discs can only be used on the edges of the disc on concave areas, not allowing them to generate enough heat.
I didn't learn this from working at Barris, but an old school genius from Mexico showed me some tricks. One thing that he would do is, when he wanted to lead fill something, was to make his own lead compound. He would take a bunch of wheel balance weights (which we always had alot of), and melt them down in a pot. Then he would take a few old dead "D" cell batteries and peel the outer skin off, minus the paper, (tin content ?) and toss that in to the pot as well, until it melted. Next he would take an old door handle (die cast metal?) from an old car at the local junkyard and heat it up with a torch until it dripped into the caldron to his satisfaction. This concoction made the most beautiful hard compound, but filed easily!!! I have never seen anything like it since. It might be toxic though, ya think???

[bbspdstr]

One thing that he would do is, when he wanted to lead fill something, was to make his own lead compound. He would take a bunch of wheel balance weights (which we always had alot of), and melt them down in a pot. Then he would take a few old dead "D" cell batteries and peel the outer skin off, minus the paper, (tin content ?) and toss that in to the pot as well, until it melted. Next he would take an old door handle (die cast metal?) from an old car at the local junkyard and heat it up with a torch until it dripped into the caldron to his satisfaction. This concoction made the most beautiful hard compound, but filed easily!!! I have never seen anything like it since. It might be toxic though, ya think???

Wow, when I run out of my remaining stash of lead, I'll need to try that concoction......NOT! However, those old boys did have some tricks. Ironically, in my early days I got to re-restore a Speedster that had been done across our southern US border and I found more than a few 'tricks' I had not seen before or since.

I remember not noticing at first glance that the engine lid grille was made from a chromed piece of maybe 4mm thick steel that had been shaped, cut and filed to resemble the original grille. It had to have been a huge involvement of time and effort, but it looked great as a substitute.

Much of that Speedster was done in that way. (Jack, I couldn't tell you about the lead formula used, as all the work I uncovered was done in various bright colors of plastic filler....green, pink, blue, etc.) It was a good/bad Speedster that drove well but as far as today's criteria, was a "50-footer" or more.....without your glasses.

Thinking about this Speedster reminds me of George Wallings' Speedster touted 'over there' with pride. I don't think his Mom was Mexican, but that interior and color combo she created may have been influenced by a trip south of the border....and maybe (some?) Tequila....meaning that in fun, no disrespect.

Back in the early '70s, that was good enough. Get to the end of your Speedster project....and find a worm.

-Bruce

[Phil Planck]

I did some googling on this concoction of lead and zinc. According to a plumbers forum, only up to 1.6% zinc will alloy with lead. More than that and the zinc is separate chunks intermixed with the lead. They even have a process to re-purify there solder pots to get the zinc out.

Phil

[Phil Planck]

Not much progress, as spent 2 months in our small camper in warmer climates. I did get the upper drivers fender nose pretty smoothed out and put some self etch primer on it before leaving. Lower front has more work needed and a bad spot at top center of wheel opening. Focused now on getting the PreA engine back in the PreA and cleaning out the fuel system on the new 912. Tank had lots of fine rust sediment in it, so will be cleaned and coated. Then there is turkey season going on again.

[John Pierce]

Phil,

You made the correct decision to escape the north! "Winter is coming!" as they say on Game of Thrones. Working in the garage these past couple of months has been COLD. Even now the NorthEast isn't warming up. Highs in the lower 50's and lows around freezing.

I'd like to see some pictures of the 912 if you already haven't started a build thread. How are you going to clean the gas tank? Phosphoric acid? Radiator shop steam clean?

Work has gotten in the way of any progress on my end. Plus I'm getting our '71 VW Super Beetle convertible ready for summer. When and if that arrives Changing out all the original fuel lines and gas vapor lines.


John



Out front door.



Back lawn.



VW

[Phil Planck]

John
That's a fair bit of snow, and one nice looking family and beetle. There is a pic of the 912 on pg 23 of the 911/912 section. The silver one in the wet driveway when I got it home.
Phil