The Resurrection of Foam Car - 63 T6B

[Phil Planck]

Thanks Jack
Will see how it lines up with the chassis hole. Hopefully with good lube the Stoddard replacement will last a while. I have only brazed a few things. Not enough to attempt the repairs you have done. But sounds like a permanent solution.

Phil

[Jack Staggs]

Phil, I don't like to use typical lube there, as under the car dirt and grit can collect. Perhaps graphite powder?

[bbspdstr]

If you guys are referring to the tight curve that wears thin on the accelerator pull rod, I braze those as well. Or flux with siver-solder. It may be fine as done and cleaned or need some small file touch-up, but it does last longer than the steel-on-steel.

As for the offset of the one arm of the bellcrank, yes, they have been all over the place. Made by Hand becomes Made to Fit.

To peen or weld? I've not done 1 of those as I still have some good spare originals and hope to retire before I need to get that esoteric for cars that get 75 miles a year now after working on those same 356s when the typical mileage exceeded 10,000 miles a year. Most of what goes bad on those cars now is what's in the gas tank.

Bruce

[Jack Staggs]

quote="bbspdstr" post=33585]...cars that get 75 miles a year now after working on those same 356s when the typical mileage exceeded 10,000 miles a year. Most of what goes bad on those cars now is what's in the gas tank.

Bruce[/quote

That's a sad but true commentary about today's investment (un)driven ownership. I'm afraid that the ship has sailed where few (young?) enthusiasts can afford to by a usable as is car to enjoy. I hope that I am wrong here... 356s are quite robust, and almost infinitely repairable, as seen on this and other forums. Even ones that "Bubba" patched together, and we should thank them for their efforts. I've actually got a few cut up/crashed/rusted/parts car with Ca. clean titles that I am considering putting on the market after seeing the Hurculean efforts here. Bravo, you guys!

[Phil Planck]

The Stoddard part peened over quite well, without deforming the working end. I looked in "Neil's Book" at this part on an A and it has an offset lever for alignment to the hole. If you look at the pic above, there are 3 washers(shims?). Maybe by 1963 this is how the factory adjusted rather than bending the lever.

Ref. affordability and driven mileage: I think most of the younger generation are going to gravitate to affordable old cars/projects. You can still get MGs, Triumphs at reasonable prices. Many American iron at reasonable prices. I would personally not pay the going rate for a nice 356. I think a lot of us here like to do the work as a hobby. I have close to 2000 hours in body repair on Foam Car. Hard to work those hours in for a young, working, family restorer. Even for me, hard to work in as I have too many hobbies.

If I can't drive my running/finished cars, I will sell them. We went for a 200 mile run in the 912 last week. Used it yesterday to take wife out for Mother's Day dinner at a nice lakeside restaurant. Yeah, it's fun working on them, but when they are finished, it's time to use them.

Phil

[Phil Planck]

Got 2/3 of the rear tar paper removed today, along with a thin foam coating. Not the best pic but did not feel like crawling back under:



Got out the coat hook and someone had brazed it(Bruce, Jack?):


Got the bell crank painted and assembled:


Had to file down the bushing flanges as way too thick(.100"). Here is situation before filing:


Tried to reproduce cotter pin shape as the one removed(original?).
The eye is circular and the ends are at an angle instead of offset:

[Phil Planck]

Got all of the tar paper off and most of the undercoating except a nice clean area covered by slate gray. May leave it as metal is clean around the edge. Took about 3 hours with the heat gun and a putty knife to get this far:









Forgot to take pictures of my planned new undercoating. I have a can of the solvent based undercoat that Bruce referred(Shutz?) and a can of bedliner coating. I plan to use the bedliner on the front closing panels in the area where road debris is thrown, as on my PreA the undercoat wore off in this area.

Got my front drums relined by Martin Willis and the shoes relined by an outfit in Ft. Wayne, IN. Will take all the drums and shoes to Vic Skirmants for arcing of the shoes, along with trueing up the rear drums, as he also has a drum lathe.



Ordered 24mm rear torsion bars from EASY, as no new ones are available that I could find. Talked to Automotion and they referred me to a salvage yard. These will replace the 23mm bars and camber compensator.

Ordered FAG front wheel bearings. A little hard to find but found a source with a few left.

Got some small parts cleaned, primed and painted. The ebrake nuts are 14mm atf and all of the new ones are 13mm atf that I could find, so will reuse the old ones.



Time to get the wire cup brush out, put on a mask, and de-rust and finish de-undercoating the undercarriage. Fortunately just surface rust. Tough work without a rotisserie but at least everything is falling on the floor(or in my hair). I double up a pillow on my creeper which really helps the neck strain problem.

[bbspdstr]

I just found a shoe-arcing machine in storage above a local machine shop, cheap. "No call for that anymore" said the owner.

My concern is floor space vs need. I have a business neighbor who lets me use his old drum lathe if they can be trued and they are still within spec and don't reveal "hot spots" of bi-metal corrosion.

I can then see how close relined shoes are and better that using the belt-sander. After that, I apply sticky 80 grit sandpaper from a roll on the drum liner and just sand the shoe in place until the friction material is concentric with the drum lining, off only the thickness of the sandpaper.

Just had another unusable 'A' set of drums and shoes relined and arced by Don Booker at J&G, under $3k and looking like new upon their return. (Good) cores are getting scarce, so we are lucky to have established companies providing these specialty services in regard to safety.

Phil, your endurance is impressive...but making me glad I fabricated a few rotisseries about 35 years ago to allow me to do what you are doing, standing up! (Truth be told, I now hire younger guys to do that for me!)

[JTR70]

Phil, I admire your staying power in finishing that seat pan by hand and on your back no less. Like Bruce after a few minutes of that old tar and dirt falling on my face I would have been out of there and been onto planning my rotisserie. The drums and shoes look beautiful! Congratulations on the forward progress just the same, keep at it! BTW: how many times did you hook your knuckles on those metal tangs for the wiring harness?
Justin

[213532]

I thought I had read that either Stoddard, NLA or International Merchantile had 14 ATF nuts.

Mike

[Phil Planck]

Here are some of my coating products. Bruce recommended the liquid nails for the sound padding as I recall. The other stuff I have had for years, being an optimist that I would have used it up a long time ago:



I used the wire cup brush on a lightweight angle grinder for about an hour and got as much of the surface rust and undercoat off as it would reach. Wore a mask, face shield, ear muffs and thick leather gloves. Lots of fun. Are you hiring Bruce? Those gloves have protected me from getting cut by the metal tabs Justin. Will have to resort to other tools to reach the rest of it:





Assume these holes are Reutter unigue:


Here is a plastic plug in another of the holes. Anything available to replace these?



Phil

[JTR70]

Phil, I might be tempted to leave those holes open so they'll "drain" if any water happens to find its way back in there.

[bbspdstr]

I agree with Justin. I do not remember those holes specifically in those places, especially with the plugs. Any chance those were access holes for more of the Foam-man's work?

I have always theorized that almost-drain holes in later Karmann and Reutter bodies were never routed to increase longevity, but plugged by decree of the accountants at Porsche.

Those people already knew that the 900-series cars would be a hard sell if the 356s didn't rust away sooner than later. Of course, those like me in the mid-'60s didn't think the 900-series models would EVER catch on......or think we'd be still enamored of the 356s 50 years later, either.

Or that Bob Dylan would celebrate his 75th birthday.....damn, time is flyin' by! But I can close my eyes and remember exactly where and when I first heard "Lay, lady lay"....and that "Born to be wild" was on the radio in the first drive I took in a brand new '67 911S......so let's get these cars done (enjoyment #1) and driven (subsequent enjoyment #1 as well!) It took me 22 years to finish the Speedster shown in my avatar in my first go-around. That was due to "the shoemaker's children always needing shoes" syndrome. Life does get in the way....so plugs, schmugs...git 'er done!
(And yes, I'm hiring....)

-Bruce

[Phil Planck]

Thanks for the hole feedback. I am assuming then that these were for some form of rustproofing, as they appear around the enclosed frame area.

Bought some more rust removal tools today for my small angle air tool and spent another hour removing more surface rust and some undercoat. My face, except for where the mask was, looked like I just spent a day mining coal. One or two more sessions and a little use of my spot sand blaster should have it ready for primer.

No pics as they all look about the same, kinda boring.

[Phil Planck]

Another 1.5 hrs. and getting close to paint time. Will clean up cables first and wrap in foil. Need to remove tach cable as engine has full flow oil filter requiring electric tach. BTW tach cable removal instructions are in the electrical section of the factory manual.



24mm torsion bars arrived from EASY today: