Coupe into Speedster Conversion

[bbspdstr]

Capt. Jack? No need for evaluation. He may have a Porsche Pirate logo, but he does not talk to himself...it's that parrot on his shoulder! "Awwwk...99 bottles of beer on the wall...awwwwk" could just as easily have been "Awwwk...forty-some spots of weld on the floor...awwwwwwk!"

.........but I digress.

The original floor I'm removing is a shame to lose. The repair was done by true European craftsmen who restored this A over 30 years ago but were not fluent in 356. The car had been hurt on the underside and the damaged floor 'quilted' in so many places with so many details missing and so many post-op welded closures and some trapped rust now evident, the best thing is at least the front half be replaced.

We could start a whole new thread on floor pans and details and sourcing and the drama on early floor supply right now, and digress there....but I need to get to work.

-Bruce

[JTR70]

Yeah, Captain Jack, I like that.. It is a shame you couldn't save those original pans but after its all undercoated and beautiful I doubt they'll be missed much.

8/27/14
Finished the last of the plug-welds this afternoon making the tunnel now fully installed!

Since the front was more difficult to access I worked forward beginning yesterday. All the conduit brackets are welded to the tunnel as well as the forward diagonal members. A lot weld dressing and detail yet to do but its all sewed up.

Finished off the last of the plug-welds this afternoon.

Several loose ends still to tie up and a lot of detail weld cleaning to do but as of this afternoon with this thing finally all welded in the major structural repairs to this frame are finally complete! What a long and winding road this has been!

The day it arrived.

Same frame as of this afternoon; finally a structurally sound base for a speedster. Aside from weld dressing my next mission is to get the lower door hinge bosses re-installed so I can set the new speedster doors in their final adjusted position. I know some may disagree but I am a firm believer that you build the body around the set doors and closing panels not the other way around. It is by far much more work and heartache to try and fit a closing panel to an opening especially when your starting from scratch as we are here. New door striker posts have been ordered so I'll get everything staged for their arrival. They will be coupe version strikers(all they offer) so the upper section will have to be profiled for the Speedster. I've done it once before and the conversion goes pretty quick. Thanks for stopping by! Justin

[Jack Staggs]

AAARRR!!! Only 17 welds on that center brace matey! AAAWWKK! It's a walk on the gang plank for ye!

[bbspdstr]

Aside from weld dressing my next mission is to get the lower door hinge bosses re-installed so I can set the new speedster doors in their final adjusted position. I know some may disagree but I am a firm believer that you build the body around the set doors and closing panels not the other way around. It is by far much more work and heartache to try and fit a closing panel to an opening especially when your starting from scratch as we are here.

To support Justin's comment, here I go again (yeah, "groan.....") with another story: A 'D' was brought to me from very far away for a "paint job," all bare and in primer. Seemed odd that the shop or person who did the work to that point couldn't get it painted somewhere in the 1000+ miles between us, but hey....

Sanding and finally getting a handle on what the car really had done to it showed a 356 that was Frankensteined, BADLY.

The replacement floor that was to be slightly lower under the tunnel was actually raised a bit. The...(wow! lead!) filler was found under the primer to have been pulled cold over rust, so that had to be melted off, etc, etc. Couldn't trust ANY of it, even if that was random spots.

Basically, the shell was totally done over.

We had trouble with measurements and to make this longer story a little less long...the doors had been re-skinned and the car was an uneven 26mm too wide! (That's more than a half-inch on each door and a big 'WTF.')

The 356s are widest at the door skins outside the hinges, gently curving in towards both front and rear...the rear narrower (because Herr Komenda's art and cd success was deemed more important over rear engine access....but that's just the mechanic in me and I digress.)

The adjacent panels had been built to the doors, a la Justin's advice above, so ALL the geometry was off. Contours were off, rockers were off, everything was off and out-of-kilter and only some ex-ten-do plates and plastic filler was making it look somewhat smooth. It was 'chisel-it-off-first' thick.

The work was credited to a fairly well-known Canadian, but I know he knows better. He may have subbed this one out, but the owner claimed to know nothing....so the background is unclear, but I felt 'set-up.' I was "too expensive"....but gee, when EVERYTHING is re-done after the disassembly of crap work and re-set on a jig, new parts are needed in most cases and very careful measuring is needed to make an increasingly valuable 356 actually worth something....so it's the second shop's fault?

Another one of those situations that make ya go...'Hum-m-m-m.'

If I had more time for such fun, the pictures of this debacle would make a good thread of 'what not to do.'

-Bruce

[JTR70]

Thanks for the confirmation on that Bruce! Man, what friggen mess that car was. A situation I am sure you have had to deal with on more than one occasion. Thank you for sharing a few of these old war stories.

8/31/14
Prepping for left door installation
Absolutely nothing glamorous in the last few days. Just small parts and loose ends to tie up so the door can be mounted and established.

Cleaning and shaping the lower hinge boss. A later T2 detail was the addition of pressed shape into the boss extension for added strength. T1 were just left flat but identical in every other way. In keeping with the T1 theme I hammered it back out flat again.

I don't think I'll go after the upper ones since they are not loose or accessible without cutting and this area is concealed with the door installed.

The other loose end before the lower boss can be remounted was this lower flanged section at the threshold.

This is area is one of several loose ends that is so hard to get yourself motivated to address until you absolutely have to.

paper templates began.

Moving onto steel.

A secondary template to be made so I could trim the excess off the new part and into correct profile.

New piece just before trimming.

It fit. A very small but complex little patch. Again not something I wanted to fix until I had to. ready for plug-weld holes now.

Before the session was over it was tacked in and shaped as it went. Will finish this off tomorrow. Thanks for looking! Justin

[John Pierce]

I hear you, Justin. One of those areas that NEEDS fixing, but is very tedious to do. It seems these cars have lots of these before you can get to the more glamorous jobs. Looks great.

JP

[JTR70]

Thanks a lot John! I figured you might be able to identify with that by now.

9/2/14
Left door mounted for the first time.

With that annoying patch all welded in I was able to move forward to remount the lower hinge boss.

Due to the new patch, the cleaning and rebending of the hinge boss I had lost all of my original "locating" marks or reference points. Had to rig this deal up to relocate it. A lot double checking and remeasuring before I felt comfortable with it.

It eventually got to the point where I was confident enough to throw on a few tack-welds.

It was now time to test the new speedster door.

The job fitting these doors is made so much more pleasant with the ability to be able to just pull the pins out versus screwing with bolts over and over again. This top pin of course fought hard and required several rounds of heat and hammering before it finally gave up.

door on for the first time. To create a baseline its mounted here with no spacer shims.

Of course some mild tweaking, wiggling and shaping yet to come but its at least promising.

The tacked on bottom looks alright too and I think I can go ahead and weld it up now.

First fitment issue here. Door is bound up at the forward inner substructure and will not travel in just a touch in further to align with the threshold leading edge. Meaning to create a uniform gap with the edge.

The secondary step of metal down in there is colliding with the inner A pillar face. A shim or two will quickly remedy this. What I learned with my coupe a few weeks back is that not only are the spacers used to level align the body panels but they are equally as important in creating space between the door jamb faces to allow the door to engage fully.

So I'll be adding a shim or two tomorrow to see what happens.

Not a bad start for today and will carry on making this chassis and door fit just a little bit better together tomorrow.

If you squint hard enough you might be able to see the speedster that its ever so slowly becoming. Thanks for reading this! Justin

[Phil Planck]

Justin
This is way beyond Door Fit 101. Great documentation and planning. BTW, I thought you lived in Vegas. What's that big space heater doing hanging up there? That's bigger than the one I have up here in Northern MI.

Phil

[911quest]

Justin,

Great job... I check out your progress every morning it gives me hope for some of my projects.

[JTR70]

Thanks a lot Phil! Just wanted to document all the hoops that have to be jumped through, as you well know there too many! Yeah, that is a big heater unit and because I do live in Vegas its never been used. The gas isn't even hooked up to it.. Thanks again!

Hey Tony, Thanks for taking the to look through all of this. I hope it will help to motivate you to get started on your project! Appreciated you guys! Justin

9/3/14
Left door adjustment and getting ready to mount the right door.

One thick and one thin shim at the top did the trick and the door was now free to swing all the way flush against the threshold seam. This is of course all very preliminary and there will a lot more adjusting and perhaps shimming as the body panels are slowly introduced but it "closes" for now.

Repeating on the right side. Should have this boss tacked and the right side door mounted tomorrow. Thanks for looking! Justin

[Jack Staggs]

One suggestion Justin. Fit the aluminum hinge covers to the posts to check for clearance to the door when closed to the jamb. I am seeing more and more that chafe the paint there.

[JTR70]

That is a great suggestion Jack, In fact I'm going to double check the clearance on my coupe project as well since I've messed with both doors. Thanks for the tip! Justin

9/4/14
Right door mounted for first time.

procedure went pretty much identical to the left side.

heat was next here to free the pins and hinge halves. By the looks of them I thought they'd fight but actually came out a lot quicker than the left side did.

Again mounted with a baseline of no spacer shims.

Its been a nice change of pace to be on body panels versus all the months I've spent bogged down with chassis repair.

Same problem as with the left side and will need spacers up top to allow the door to swing in fully. Working on that tomorrow. Thanks for looking! Justin

[bbspdstr]

"One thick and one thin shim at the top did the trick and the door was now free to swing all the way flush against the threshold seam. This is of course all very preliminary and there will a lot more adjusting and perhaps shimming as the body panels are slowly introduced but it "closes" for now."

HA!!! "one thick and one thin"? Let's play "what's wrong with this picture."



When I bought 84255 in the middle '80s, it was a stripped wreck. It had slid into a wall at Bryar, NH during an SCCA race and was flattened 6" on the left side almost equally front to back. I rebuilt it to be...a race car, thus the compromises in details and a concentration on getting the 4 corners of suspension to be right, as even the rear torsion bar tube was shoved over to the right about 13mm.

It was not Justin-fied to spend a lot of time and money on anything but 'fast' even 30 years ago. Looking back now, Justinizing a real Speedster would have made it MUCH more valuable than the $3K I paid for this:



I already had a pair of NOS Speedster doors but didn't want to "break up the set" and besides, it was to be a race car....so the left door is based on a used C Coupe door that I made into a 'Speedster' door. The fenders were from a badly rusted (underneath) A Cab. The original floor was not kinked (or at all rusty), as the hit was center-up, so I just needed an outer rocker, and then- out came the box of hinge shims collected over the years.

Back then, thankfully, we had "parts cars" that donated themselves so other 356s could live. 84255 still gets driven...but not raced. It's "retired."

[JTR70]

I was wondering what sorts of old battle scars might still remain on your old race car Bruce. Each additional shim is like a medal of honor for this retired old soldier. The history behind of how those stacks of shims came to be is really cool. I wouldn't "fix" that; its part of its colorful history. Thanks for sharing this! Justin

9/6/14
Right door fitment continued

Added another thick shim to the top and it helped a little but its still a long way from engaging fully. To buy more room I began melting out the old original solder in and around this area.

While I was at it I went ahead and removed the rest of the leading edge of solder as well. This forward line that was created to fit it to the speedster it originally came from means nothing to me now. I want to fit the new front fenders leading edge to the true steel edge of this door eliminating as much required solder as possible once its all set.

Once the lead was gone it fit a little better still but its still crowded. I'm not adverse to cutting and re-profiling this part of the door for more clearance if necessary. As you can see its already up to Two thick and one thin shim.

While I was melting old body solder I turned my attention back to the drivers side and noticed this door was a factory replacement which was never assign to a chassis. Its lack of a number stamp here, with no signs of tar to the inner skin reveals that. It also had no leading edge of solder to create a door gap.

I did however find this old school patch of solder which was used to level out some damage to the upper corner of this door.

Not sure how this happened but this corner took a good hit at some point. This old weld and deformation to the inner structure bears witness to that.

I've also noticed too that new replacement door skin leading edges are not crimped as tightly as the ones mounted to actual cars. This one is left a little fat like the other NOS doors I have seen.

The fitment is slowly getting better but more messaging is still ahead.

9/7/14
That was yesterday's progress that I didn't get around to posting and below is today's progress

Tying up a loose end and continuing the final established fitment of the left door.

Went ahead this afternoon and cleaned up the welds on that lower patch and welded the lower hinge boss in the rest of the way.

Getting these little tedious PIA welding chores in the done column sure helps to brighten up an afternoon.

To orient this door to the frame my literal base line reference point is the levelness of the doors bottom edge in relation to the threshold leading edge.

Both must run very close to parallel if not dead on parallel with each other. As you can see they are getting very close but the back of the door needs to come up a bit..

Of course as I try and do that I'm running into that initial A-pillar clearance issue once again. I may have to cut and relieve this side as well...

As you can see by the scuff marks only the very leading corner of the door is contacting this face. I may just need to soften the corner of the door's jamb a bit to get what I need. Anyway that's for tomorrow. Thanks for looking! Justin

[John Pierce]

Great information, Justin. This will come to good use when I'm ready to reinstall my door hinges on my A pillar. The Intricacies of replacing the longitudinal and door at the same time are quite complex. I'll be perseverating on them for months to come.

JP