The Resurrection of Foam Car - 63 T6B

[Phil Planck]

It took 2 old fart work sessions to strip thr rust and paint off the hood and frame, along with smoothing the kink dents. The longest and most tedious part was getting the paint off of the frame as hardly any smooth surface.





And, thi s is the original hood:

[Phil Planck]

Installed bare frame back on Foam Car to see if drivers side still high. It was:


passenger side fit is good:


Clamped a pipe in the trough which gets it pretty flush. Will see how much spring back I get:

[Phil Planck]

Still high. The drivers side hinge is not going down far enough. Bottoming on the hinge opening. Shame on me for not having already removed and refurbished the hinges and boxes. Can see worn star wheel tips.

[JTR70]

Its looking really nice in there Phil! So many fitment variables yet to come with skin installation and its tension effect on the frame and of course the seal tension which changes everything as you well know. A lot of give and take as she goes... Keep up the great work.

Justin

[Phil Planck]

Thanks Justin. Trudging along. Pulled the hinges. With hood open, drivers side was lower than passenger. The drivers side catch surface for the star wheel was well worn, causing the difference:

The star wheel contacts were also worn:


Welded up all the wear areas, filed down and now it matches passenger side, I hope. Not the prettiest welds, but functional:

[Phil Planck]

Got both hinges stripped and tips welded up:


Coated reusted areas with rust treatment and used waterproof filler to fill in pits:


Now to my next problem. The drivers side hinge is hitting the bottom front of the hinge pocket in the closed position. The pocket is bulged up in this area and is a good 1/4" to 3/8" higher than the passenger side. Does not want to be hammered down. Looking under the dash, there is a conical bulge in the bulkhead below the pocket. This exists on both sides. Supposed to be there? Also, the flange at the bottom of the bulkhead is a little deformed. An easy fix would be to remove some material from the hinge where it is hitting, but?

[JTR70]

So the problem remains that the hinge still bottoms out against that lower lip in your last shot? If this is the case I would simply take some torch heat and ball ping hammer the needed clearance. If I'm reading this right. Nice work restoring the spurs BTW.
Justin

[Phil Planck]

Yes Justin, that was the problem. I got some email advice from Bruce today and he stated to use a bfh on that pocket bottom also. However, I had already tried that, without the heat. What worked was bending the pocket with a jury rigged lever system. Bruce has made one that works in the hinge mounting holes. I went a different route. On the T6 there are 2 holes at the front of the pocket accessible from under the hood. Not sure if they were for fixtureing the pocket or for adjustment. I put 2 drill bits in the holes and ground a pry bar down to fit inside the pocket. I could then bend the pocket/bulkhead in the opposite direction that gas station kid bent the hood. This lowered the front corner of the pocket more than enough for the hinge to clear in the closed position. Not sure why it lowered, but it did. Also this fixed the angle difference of the 2 hinges so the hood was not cocked in the open position.


Now, the drivers side is even and below the fender:

And passenger side remained the same:


I'm guessing that with the hinges installed that the pocket can b adjusted in one direction with the pin in bottom hole and other direction with pin in top hole:


The rust coating from 3M I used sais to only cover with oil based paint, so I painted frame and hood where it was coated with black rustoleum. Should be able to put hood back on frame when that dries.

[JTR70]

Great trick! That's the kind of stuff that only 45+ years in the 356 resto game can teach you. Thanks to Bruce for sharing that one...
Justin

[Phil Planck]

With the rust pits filled in and all hidden areas coated it was time to put the hood skin back on the frame. Tight fit but popped in place pretty easily. I formed the flange to about 45 degrees, then used my "Skinner" tool to flatten the flange down. I have used this on new door bottoms and rear of front fender repairs in the past.


With the flange closed up, the 4 spot welds filled in, the bare metal was prepped and primed:

Now lets hope this was all worth the effort

[JTR70]

Looks fantastic Phil and just as clean and nice inside the frame; Nicely done! Who makes that flange closer? That really seemed to turn the trick.
Justin

[jjeffries]

Nice job on the hood. AND figuring how to apply force to get the required result on the hinge pocket. John

[Phil Planck]

Thanks John
Flanger is called "The Sknner" made by Wivco. It works very well, but will put dimples in the flange as the wheel is knurled for a better grip on the flange.

[Phil Planck]

Before installing the hood I want to remove rest of paint on cowl and drain gutter for hood. Finally have to remove windshield. Not too hard to do. Good news, pretty clean metal around windshield opening:


Getting new rubber on windshield was quite a chore. Figure VW or Porsche must have invented bungee cords cause could not have done without:



Windshield in great shape except for stone chip lower, center. Slightly tinted made in West Germany. Will take to glass shop to see what they can do about chip. Put the rubber on to help protect it.

Tried to remove vent box under cowl. Got the 2 clips off but box does not want to move much. Next is removing glove box to get to windshield squirter nozzle.

[roy mawbey]

Phil been following your efforts and have to say well done !!! This job was not easy by any means and some great tips there ( not that I want to do it though )
That lid of yours had been up and down so many times to get that wear, and as you say it only takes one guy to think why can't I close this and give it a really hard pull!

An aside, I see you are getting to the squirter nozzle. I had a problem of poor water delivery so a few years ago bought some new washer jets and fitted them and had to remove the glove box. Now... I should have looked more closely at the rubber pipe that delivers the water. My washer pump when pressed a few weeks ago just failed to deliver water correctly ( its never really used as I only dry weather drive it ) so eventually after getting to the back of the pump in the interior bulkhead the first 6 inches of pipe from pump to squirter bag was cracked and split. I managed to repair it to good condition pipe but so hard to replace the piping if its cracked near the petrol tank as the pipe on mine seems to go under the tank. Make sure your pipes are new!

Well done on all the work you have been doing !

Roy

[Phil Planck]

Thanks Roy. Yes, lots of effort for a little bulge. I did as you had to today, and removed the glove box to get access to the passenger(USA) squirter. And there were no hoses on either squirter. Now I can remove all the paint from the cowl, leaving only the roof with old paint. Found some interesting items in glove box. One was a plastic container with different bulbs, with little sockets to hold them:


Next was a pen from Emoryville, CA. Pretty sure previous owner did not put it there:


With the squirters out I was able to strip the cowl"s 3 layers of paint. Looks like whole car had a filler coat, then red primer, then black top coat.

Some type of hard filler at right corner. Not sure if added lead or plastic steel or what. Feeling underneath its a little rough. I can get a dolly in there, so have to decide what to do there.
Next up is installing weatherstrip for hood. I left the 3 coats there, assuming that will be about the thickness of new paint, primer, etc.

[Phil Planck]

Took a while, but finally found the baggie with the weatherstrip corner pieces and screws. Corner pieces needed to be refinished and was only missing one screw. Had to drill 3 holes in new passenger nose channel for w/s screws. Also, before installing hinges and hood I wanted to remove the tar insulation from the bukhead. Did not look bad, but had swelled up, preventing removal of the cowl drain without scrapping some of it off. Had to remove the fuse block/relay plate which is fastened under instrument panel. In process of making new insulation to install before putting hinges and hood back on.

[JTR70]

Looking good Phil! Your new journey begins!

[Phil Planck]

Today was a big day, as I was finally able to reinstall hood with frame and hinges repaired. Took a while to make up new bulkhead insulation. Used Dynamat covered with sheet of tar paper and installed repaired hinges:


16 year old granddaughter helped me install hood. The bulge on the drivers side is gone - YES!
Passenger side still good:
Here is overall fit with hodd just laying on trunk seal. No latch plunger installed yet:

[JTR70]

Looking great Phil! Now onto flowing it back in with the body. Cowl to hood transition looks promising.

[Phil Planck]

Installed latch striker and could not get it centered, as it was before repairing hood frame and installing rubber seal. Had to remove latch base and move it 3/8" toward passenger side and weld back in. For some reason, hood center and where striker hits is off. Now latch is in center of adjustment range and striker is centered. Now that I could fully latch hood I could get a good check on the gaps., Very even on the sides but a little tight. I removed the 3 layers on the channel wall and gap opened up nicely to 4mm. But, the front was very tight with no paint. I used Justin"s trick with a ball peen hammer to open up the gap. First I set my Sharpie compass to 4mm and scribed a line clear around the hood opening. Pretty good except at the front and corner radius. Removing seal I carefully worked my way around the nose of the opening:



I had to go over the area several times to smooth it out, but am happy with the results:



Side gaps are now 4mm:


Rear gap work will require hood removal, a 2 person job for me, but it is good except a little large on one radius where will need some filler.

[JTR70]

Coming along nicely Phil! Moving and reshaping the shouldered edge is such a pain. I feel you; keep up the great work!