The Resurrection of Foam Car - 63 T6B

[Jack Staggs]

A customer came in just yesterday with a broken torsion bar needing a replacement for his C project. I measured his good right side bar at 22mm. Looked around and had a good used left 22mm. Funny, each time Porsche made a change in torsion bars, they went to a softer spring rate. The old Automotion catalog has a spring rate chart, showing the progression, huge PreA bars excepted (made my own calculation there).
Nice job on the coat hook!
PS: Be sure to cover your bars with a thick layer of axle grease over the entire length before insulation.

[Phil Planck]

Jack

The bars will definitely get greased up good once I examine for scratched off paint and recoat with Glyptal.

I got the tach cable out and took pictures of all the routing and attachment points for future reference. Pulled it up through the front as the big foam wrapping at the front would be hard to pull through the rear.

Removed the clutch cable and will use as a spare as I have a new one from Stoddard. It is about 1/2" longer which should be okay.

Finished removing surface rust, foam and a little undercoating on the passenger side. Bruce, when I come to work for you I do not want the job of removing the harness up by the brake line that exits the body and goes to the junction. That one tab is a bear to open up, and I don't see any way to unhook the brake line except cutting through the tab, as it appears to be welded closed. Anyway, my last hour of serious cleaning. Will get up in there with an air gun and blow out remaing sanding dust and prep for recoating.

Phil

[bbspdstr]

Each and every step has it's challenges, doesn't it? No one understands until they do it themselves.

Had a BBQ today with friends/vets and 356ers. We know each other due to our affinity with the 356, each of us owning one or more before we went in the service during the 'Nam time and meeting soon after, if not during.

One has a 904 that is back on the road and track after I first met and began work on it as a crashed racer in '75. He was black-flagged at Summit Point recently for too much smoke after it warmed up.

He remembered that he had thought ahead and slosh/filled the 4-cam's muffler with drain oil back then to protect from further rusting while it was restored and got out as much as he could...and with on and off spurts of work, 40 years went by until it was self-motivated again and the remaining oil heated to the smoking point, finally, and it took 2 more laps to finish the clean-out.

It's always something.....keep going.....(ha)....you are "almost done." 904 owner Tim said today that his to-do list gets longer as he checks items off....sound familiar?

-Bruce
BTW, my "second father" while in Lackland is 92 now and told me last year for the first time that he had owned not just Porsche/VW dealerships, but appropriately for this weekend, three Indy-winning race teams. Bill Jones, a great gentleman.

[Phil Planck]

Bruce
Thanks for the, uh, encouragement. Okay, gotta know what the 3 winning cars were and years at Indy. I grew up 40 miles from the track and went to many practice and time trials, but only 1 race.

Got the undercarriage rusty areas coated with some acid to blacken it, then sprayed with zinc coating.



After the zinc was on it showed a pinhole in the rear seat bottom that I had not seen. In order to get to the interior side of the hole, had to remove a lot of boxes from inside, and the last remnants of foam:



Drilled it out to about 1/2" and made a dime size patch.
Showing 2 pics to get you oriented where the hole was. There was surface rust and light pitting near the hole, so coated that with the acid.







Got the patch welded in and smoothed down. Re-coated the patch area with zinc and then put my rust tuff latex paint over the whole undercarriage with a brush. Will touch up if needed when dry, then time for the undercoat.

[Jack Staggs]

That's the last of the foam??? I'll guess you've been picking on that infernal stuff for ten years. Congratulations!

[Phil Planck]

The latex Krylon has dried so I put seam sealer in the troughs on both sides where the rear seat bottom meets the frame rails. Next step, undercoat.

[Jack Staggs]

Phil, I approve of your use of seam sealer to protect moisture from the underside. In my local, rust is more prevalent from the inside-out, with water leaking at the window seals and other places, soaking the interior and creeping through the seams. Perhaps you could use a little spray foam on the inside to preserve those areas.

[JTR70]

"Perhaps you could use a little spray foam on the inside to preserve those areas." That was mean Jack...
So true though, the rot takes root from pooling moisture from the inside.

Looking good Phil and nice to see you made it past the bottom side of that seat pan area.
Justin

[Phil Planck]

The only good thing about all of that foam was that the car was really quiet. Unfortunately it wasn't structural foam and my foot finally literally went through the floor. This Michigan car suffered from quarter window leaks, as the qtr inner panels on both sides were unrepairable. Got donors from EASY years ago. Fortunately the rear seat area was okay, except for that one pin hole. Beside the qtr inners being rusted out, the water worked its way back along the shelf even with the bottom of the window and rusted out that area. A much harder repair. Or possibly that area of rust was caused by water thrown up from the rear tires.

[Phil Planck]

Finally getting the trans undercarriage wrapped up. Used the old pieces of tar paper for patterns to cut out new sound insulation using Dynamat:



Installing both pieces was a bear. This is where a rotisserie would have really been nice. I used 2 coats of heavy duty spray adhesive. Very hard to get it placed just right, as once it is on it is hard to reposition. The Dynamat also tore open in a few spots rather than stretch to conform, so had to cut some small filler pieces. All installed and another coat of undercoating to cover the Dynamat advertising:



It takes about 2 days for this undercoat to harden(not Wurth, but Duplicolor sound and undercoating - figured it won't be seen and maybe it will help reduce noise a little). I will then coat with a sating black and start installing small parts prior to putting in the transaxle.

[Phil Planck]

After coating the undercoat with a satin black paint and reinstalling the wire harness and new upper brake line I hit the 1400 hour mark on Foam Car. I am not counting transaxle, engine, brake rebuild/repair.



After attempting to clean up the ebrake cable housing I did what I should have done at the start of this undercarriage cleanup. I removed it and the homemade heater cable, along with what looks like a homemade accelerator rod connector:



The front ebrake cable that goes through the tube broke as I tried to remove the small adjusting nut. There was a bend in the threaded portion and it broke there. I could not pull the remaining cable through the tube. I had to cut the cable in order to get it out. Years ago, with Bruce's guidance I thought I carefully aligned this tube and welded it to the bracket. At first I thought there was weld slag in the tube, but where the jam is, is not near where any welding was done. I think the problem is the tube is bent. I know John went through working on this tube a while back. John, make sure that cable will pull through the tube. I have tried gently bending the tube at the front, outer end and I think that is helping, but am afraid I am going to brake it. My son is coming up this weekend, so he will get to hold a penlight at one end will I look at the other to try to see what is going on.

[Jbrooks]

That accelerator coupling looks pretty stock to me. The newer style is a metal cylinder but the older ones were a solid rubber cylinder with a washer glued to the ends. Just look for cracks or de lamination of the end washers.
A new one is pretty cheap, if you reuse this one put some safety wire around the ends so when it brakes (and it will) you won't be stuck on the side of the road.

[Phil Planck]

Sorry, bad picture JB, it's all steel with welded on end pieces.

[Jbrooks]

Save it it will never brake

[Jack Staggs]

Phil, that throttle connector is a "B C" thing. That is a common repair back in the day. Early cars used a solid rod. Use what you have.
RE: E brake tube. I have had many opportunities with various obstructed tubes in the tunnel, (check ALL your tubes, you rusty welders, BEFORE installing your floor pans. Nobody does...). I can only imagine all of the water, salt, dirt, (foam?), etc that has collected in your tube, Phil. After all, your tube has a bell shaped scoop at the front, perfect for introducing all that junk in after the rubber boot fell off long ago. I have had good success "snaking them out", like a plumber, with a long spring steel headliner bow from a giant American car, procured from a boneyard. Shame they no longer exist (junkyards and headliner bows). That's ok, get 3 ft long pieces of 1/8" & 3/16" piano wire from your local hardware store. Hammer one end down flat, spreading the tip, and sharpen the widened tip to an arrow head point, like a drill bit. Attach the unmodified end to a moderatly powerful drill motor. Oh, before you go any further, find some rubber plugs that fit tightly over each end of the tube. Fill the tube with AeroKroil, and allow to soak for at least a week. After this, start with the snaking, using the 1/8" wire, on the end that allows the wire to be as straight as possible. You can follow up, feeding the snake on the other end of the tube if possible or needed. Go with medium speed, and light pressure. When obstruction is felt, retract the snake slightly, and bang the wire snake lightly against the obstruction, in stucatto fashion. Don't get greedy! If you snap off that hard wire, you are done! New tube is the only solution for that. If obstruction is egregious, I will remove the drill motor, and clamp large Visegrips very tighltly to the end of the wire and just TAP the end of the wire toward the obstruction, while rotating the wire manually back and forth with the Visegrips. Again, DON'T GET GREEDY HERE! Excessive hammering can compact even further already swollen iron oxide in the tubes! If the wire gets stuck during this process, hammer the Vicegrips the opposite direction to release. Use multiple Visegrips stacked against on another if extraction is difficult.
Repeat as needed with the larger size wire, until cable passage is possible.
It's interesting to me that this topic of clogged tubes rarely comes up. I suppose that most folks are more concerned with major issues, than those of minutiae, but this can be a major problem on a nearly finished project.
I recently had a finished award winning 356 at my shop, with clogged heater tubes. Despite multiple attempts over several months, I can not completely clear them yet, my first failure. I'm afraid he will have to cut in to his brand new floor to correct this, so check this stuff you guys, before you have to cry again.