The Resurrection of Foam Car - 63 T6B

[Phil Planck]

Tacked a little lower on each side. Bout time for upside down welding. Also, new passenger nose does not quite butt up near bottom. Will have to make a filler strip.



Overall profile looks pretty good to my untrained eye.

[bbspdstr]

As for Jack's admonition about stresses moving around side-to-side, I would hope I'm not too late with my suggestion to clamp and/or Tec-screw parts to each other to be sure you can average those stresses with the eye-balled contours before welding. Only then should one fasten a side and that should be the side that looks the best. The other side is then the challenge, usually dealt with by way of your shrinking disc.

As I age, the more I revert to how little of all of these details are seen when in motion.......and besides, small contour 'differences' are not flaws or defects, they are "characteristics"....... and completely meaningless if all the numbers match.....body, engine, trans.....

I just returned from 5 hours in truck with trailer, dropping a Roadster at an intermediate place near Hershey from where it will be shipped to Montana. I've been assured by it's owner since '71 that even though it is rough around it's edges and it has a replacement engine from a C, it will be allowed in Montana......and then the "Is that a Karmann Ghia?" questions will begin.

-Bruce

[Phil Planck]

Bruce
Never too late. All tack welds which can be cut through easy enough. A little history. This is the original nose that I removed as it was full of lead with many small dents all over. Lead has been removed and dents dollied out. So, the top old plug welds and drain holes, along with 2 trim screw holes were all lined up to plug weld back to inner. The drivers side cut line was good as originally cut until about halfway down, where I slight overlap occurred. Could be from stretched metal after all the hammer dolly work on both sides of cut. I'm not quite sure what to look at other than the bulge Jack referred to at wheel opening. I don't see bulge, but can post pics from front and behind on both sides if that would help those with experience on more than one 356 see how it looks. As I stated a page or so above, passenger side front of wheel opening is pretty rigid and would be hard to move in or out. I will take some measurements and double check before finishing welding. As for the vertical butt joints, they are nice and smooth cross car.

[Phil Planck]

Both wheel openings measure 30" wide at bottom. Distance from bottom front corner to corner of torsion tube frame is within 1/2" of each other. Years ago, when I lived near many 356s I made a template of the bottom of fender from front of wheel opening toward center of car, with a ref. line where fender brace was. Original template was damaged sometime over the years so made a new one. This was used to get, hopefully the proper curve around the bottom of fender. Template matches both sides very well:






Here is what each side looks like now:

[Phil Planck]

Tack welded new, heavier gauge latch bracket in. Was off center by 1/4" so repositioned and retested location:



Close enough. Also made sure new bracket was square in both planes to striker.

[Phil Planck]

Next was modifying the safety catch. Many pages back, when I was making the latch bracket, Jack Staggs pointed out that 1 reason for hoods flying open was the safety hook could slide off the bracket when moved laterally. You can see the openings at each end where hook can slide out.



My solution was to weld a filler piece on each end. Catch is 14 ga. Thickest I had on hand was 16 ga.



Fillers welded in, wont be visible installed:



With that finished I positioned in original place and checked where hook hit catch. Surprisingly it is almost near the inboard edge, so a slight jiggle of a popped hood could easily cause the hook to slip off. The hook is 2" from center of stiker. You can see the mark as to how close it is to the end of the flat catch surface:



The catch is 1/2" too outboard if it is to be centered on the hook. Movingcatch in does not appear to be an option as it will cover a latch bolt. I will look at moving hook outboard, or just forget it knowing I now have an extra 1/4" or so of catch surface, with no way for the hook to slide off.

[Phil Planck]

Trying to understand why the T6 had/has many more hoods fly open. Look at my old PreA safety catch. 1st it does not have the open ends, and 2nd, its on the curve, like A and T5B, so even though the catch is at an angle, the hook is closer to the center. Same hook mechanism used from Pre A(not sure about Gmund, and American Roadster had no safety catch, thus the leather buckle) thru T6B. But, the T6 opening is not curved like the others, so this moved the catch location inboard.

[John Pierce]

Looks great Phil. I'll have to modify my latch when I go to install it. Your fenders look very symmetric with the correct amount of bow.

JP

[Phil Planck]

Moved secondary hook 1/2" outboard so it is centered on the catch. Other solutions I found were:
1) bending hook outboard - while that will get it more centered, under a hard jar as when primary latch fails, it will want to bend back straight.
2) moving catch inboard - makes latch removal difficult or impossible as it now covers one bolt.


Back together and now centered on catch:

[Phil Planck]

Hood latch system is completed and latched for first time in years



Top 2/3 of nose welded in:

[JTR70]

Looking great Phil! I felt the same way after getting my trunk lid latched after 25 years. Keep up the great progress!
Justin

[Phil Planck]

Got the bottom third of upside down welding finished on the nose:


On to the h/l buckets. Both were pretty dented up. How can that happen?. Passenger side in pretty good shape rust wide but drivers side needed some repair:







Note the foam remnants in old conduit.
Ready for the media blaster:

[roy mawbey]

Phil,

Some nice work there for sure.Nice to see the bonnet lid in place!!

Roy

[Phil Planck]

Thanks Roy. Lots of work yet to go, but after 18 years on this project I have learned that 356s dont heal themselves, you have to do it for them. Laying in bed I realized why the h/l buckets were so dented: from pounding them out several years ago.

[Phil Planck]

Took several days to blast the h/l buckets. My cabinet is behind my 20 ton press, so had to get that out of the way. To do that, had to back the 912 out of the way, which was going to stay outside during blasting. Even with a vacuum, this cheap Clark cabinet leaks, and also is too low for my heigth as I have to stoop to use it. Cant raise it higher without relocating it. Anyway finally got old paint and surface rust off:

Primed:


Next was repairing flange these buckets get welded to on drivers side, which is original. 4 sections need repair. This is section 2 tacked in:





Primed: