Coupe into Speedster Conversion

[JOP]

Justin, She looks beautiful with her new "armour" from Trevor

It is hard to belive that you have HANDBUILT this beauty from the rusted and twisted pieces that was dropped off @ your Werk....but it didnt take 8 months to fix

It is like Xmas 4 U again when you receive a new box of goodies from the Tin Master in Ohio!

Keep on Showing us how to built a Coupster
/Per

[DG58INNM]

Very impressive Justin. I can't tell you how much I am enjoying watching this project. Happy for you it is finally starting to look like a car. Must be very satisfying (and perhaps a relief!)
DG

[Jonesy_356]

Justin, many thanks for your detailed and faithful capturing of your journey. It helps me, and I'm sure many others, on track with our own projects. Which, I can safely say, will not be as complex as yours!

Jonesy

[JTR70]

Thank you Per and also thanks for reminding me what a canker sore this thing was the day it showed up. It was certainly fun and exciting getting this most recent batch of panels in from Trevor. So very pleased with his armor work.

Thanks a lot David! Definitely, It has been a relief to see contours and shapes ever so slowly falling into place but certainly not without a great deal of ceremony along the way.

My pleasure and thank you Jonesy! Very happy to know that this may help in some small way with your project.

Thanks again you guys, your comments are always greatly appreciated!
Justin

3/31/16
Begin stitching cowl and quarter panel.

Slowly tacking this joint evenly.

Both sides were sprung up so it took a bit of downward pressure to get them in line before I could give the area a quick zap.

PIA to depress evenly on both sides flip my mask down and pull the trigger. This were the MIG allows me a free hand to operate the "depressor" though.

I'd take a few inches then grind the heads smooth so I could check for panel alignment across the joint. I had to cut a couple free again to re-tack as one side would be just a touch lower than the other. I've learned the hard way that if the joint is tacked uneven you won't be able to hammer it back out flat after the fact. The tack weld is very hard and unforgiving and the metal will just dip and bend ahead of the weld and the more you chase and mess with it the bigger the "mud hole" gets. Life is much easier if you just cut it back loose and retry for level. This one I had to learn the hard way and several times over before it sunk in.

Joint seam tacked and teed up for the TIG to take it the rest of the way in.

Don't let the pic fool you the joint is very detectable and needs picking and filing but will have to wait until after the TIG and its inevitable heat warpage.

Happy with that roll and transfer onto the deck lid.

Removed the top frame(yet again) so I could heat and shape the top and inner flange to the cowl and finish out the missing section of lip.

cowl and fender are now one and double checking and eye-balling for general shape and contour.

Happy with the way it continues off the door then up and around to the other side. So far so good or so it seems.

One more with the lid closed. With this side pretty much set I'm onto fitting the right quarter panel.
Thanks for looking!
Justin

[John Pierce]

Looking so nice!! The TIG will go smoothly with that small gap you've got there.

I like the pile of scrap metal in the corner in the last picture. All from the coupster?

JP

[bbspdstr]

..........at least now I will know how to turn a Speedster into a Coupe by reversing your process. Thanks!

Seriously, this has been shown to my guys for guidance as we rebuild a 'real' Speedster that was an old racer and really crashed numerous times AND corroded. Bad 'racer repair' to be overcome as a 'bonus.' More than a "few" parts from Trevor and others.

A rotisserie can be what Porsche would call "of local manufacture" but I do not know what I'd do without a chassis jig. I have had numerous Celette units and morphed one I made in '76 for straightening two 904 frames into one for a 356, so I have been 'spoiled' in that regard. I would just hate to put all the work into a 356 like many here on this site and not know the 4 corners were true and held true while the connecting major work was done.

BTW, the best gap for a good TIG weld in thin metal is..... none. Melt the edges together and not need filler rod. Look at Trevor's parts (if he made the part himself).

-Bruce

[JTR70]

Thanks John! Yes, that pile is the accumulation of old and new tailings and remnant sections. I get tempted to toss it away at times but I have rummaged through there on more occasions than I can remember when in need of a small section or filler strip to complete a given task.

Bruce, it was really nice speaking with you and I greatly appreciate you taking valuable time out of your day to council me. This is exactly the point where your years of first hand knowledge and experience provide the roadmap for yahoo's like me smack in the middle of personal uncharted territory; chest high in quicksand. So I thank you and am now heading your warning by expediting a Cellete frame table. After we spoke I got on the horn with Rusty Tubs. He's the one guy who has always come through for me when I'm in need of anything 356 related. He closed a deal on a Cellete bench a few months back so we are working on a plan to get it here a little quicker. It doesn't have the fixtures but I'll get copies fabricated.

BTW: With the arrival of this little beauty a few weeks back a proper frame table was always in the works but I'm just moving its delivery up a little quicker to cross check this build. As you can see this donor coupe "chassis" is in even worse condition (severed front beam) than this current project started out as if you can believe that. This is one eventually, will also end up as a speedster though a 1955 pre-A this time. So, I'll need both A and pre-a fixtures before its all over. Anyway I'll introduce this project in its own thread here shortly. No end to the fun in sight.

So following your advice Bruce I'm going to switch gears while I get the bench lined up and slow down on hanging the rest of the body panels. The plan now is to handle all the little tedious details like the front closing panel above.

Finish out the engine compartment...

finish out all the plug weld heads etc. Just crap work that needs to be done anyway but wasn't near as fun or interesting as hanging a fender. Plenty to keep me busy for a while. The plan now is to finish everything that needs addressing while on the rotisserie then finish hanging the body on the frame table from there on in.

Bruce your last post about concern over all four corners being equal really frightened me so I did some rough basic checking this evening to see how the torsion tubes where relating to each other from front to back:

After a good cleaning of any grime on the tubes I set my protractor to "0" at center of the top torsion tube to establish a baseline.

Moved over to the right side it held at zero degrees.

Bottom right held at negative 1 degree.

Top left settled out at negative 2 degrees

Bottom left held at negative 1 degree. So definitely some slight variance across the front tube assembly itself side to side from the center zeroed out reading.

Jig cross member settled out at positive 1 degree(again in relation to the center "0" reading at the top front tube) In the beginning of this build front and rear tubes were set to level along with this jig as it was constructed.

Couldn't get a clean center shot at the rear tube so its just a rough approximation side to side. This right side settled at 2 degrees positive.

Left side was the same at 2 degrees positive.
So there is some very slight twist across the frame but its all with in 4 degrees +or - in total across the span of the tubes front to back so the Jig has done its job and kept it pretty much in square. Now once the "jig is up" and its removed from the cock pit it will most certainly settle out further (which way? we'll see)not to mention the variable of flexion as well as twist which was all I could measure tonight but at least I know as it stands now the frame is not a warped potato chip. Again all rough measurements but within the margin for error... I hope Looking forward to cross checking on the frame table here soon.
Thanks again Bruce!
Justin

[JOP]

Justin, U need to see the Doc asap!
U have become a "Porsche Horder"

I thought I saw some signs earlier in your photos

It will be a really good unofficial Porsche Werk with all the collection of tooling and a Celette that you are getting.
Will U have any time to step outside your workshop ?
Seems like you have your hands full from now on.

Good luck Jr Tin Meister
/ Per

[roy mawbey]

Justin,

I looked at the beginning at the braces you welded in and thought that should be fine, it seems the stability of a 356 or rather the positional accuracy of the torsion bars is much more difficult to maintain once box sectioned area's are removed or in fact body panels too. I can see flexing is not ideal if then body panels are welded in just assuming all is correct. I have seen of course the Celette fixture in the workshop manuals and that must help considerably.

So good of Bruce to speak before you went down the road of welding but the as you say the twist is slight really. He is a good guy to have in the background looking on !!!

I don't know how you do it Justin all these 356 cars 40 years ago would have been melted down. I bet though you will just get faster and faster repairing them with all this experience!!

Roy

[Don C]

Justin,
Isn't your protractor reading tenths of a degree not full degrees? I had a digital protractor many years ago and after the decimal point it read 1/10 of a degree. It seems to me you are reading 1 tenth of a degree then 2 tenths in the other shots.

[bbspdstr]

Roy, you posted: "I don't know how you do it Justin all these 356 cars 40 years ago would have been melted down."

It is we who melt down and it is therefore we who should enjoy these old cars as we get older too. Below is the funeral card for a terrific gentleman who also happened to be a Porsche fan and racer. He picked up 84255 at the dock in '58 and drove it home. That's a story in itself. The story of the Speedster was chronicled in a Registry magazine issue a few years ago by Tobey Ross, to the right in the picture of Nagle in his old car. I chose that picture as it looks similar to the picture on the card of him racing in '59 or '60.



His family displayed their understanding with the card and mention of his racing in other funeral literature as well as his widow and son leading the funeral procession to the cemetery in his pristine C Coupe.
He was "only" 85.

Nagle was the first to have a racing wreck in 84255 while it was silver, '58. Wrecked again while silver by Ed Parlett. Then it became black with it's third owner when wrecked again, then yellow after I restored it. Then I restored it again for the fifth owner who returned it to silver. Below is the car being brought back the last time with all of the...OK, most of the old racing damage undone. Thank goodness for a chassis jig!



It had been hit and rolled and twisted all over and it was just a "cheap race car" so the repairs were less than anyone has done in any of the threads on this site!

Nagle took great joy in being reunited with the car in silver in 2008.



The proof that we age with less chance of the "restoration" as given our cars is a picture of me in '92 having a talk at a race with a guy I had known since '66, another Bruce, Bruce Jennings. He gave me many unneeded parts from the 4-cam Speedsters he raced ...... (and I'd suppose those who have those cars now would love to have them back!) I 'raced' on his hand-me-down tires! He has been gone for a few years now. See the cigarette in his hand? Lung cancer got him.

My point is, we should take care of ourselves like we care for the cars so we have a chance to last (almost) as long as our cars. If all of it is fun, we can't ask anything more. I applaud Justin and all who take the hard road to make bad cars back into 'like new' condition...even if it's just one or one at a time. I did that for myself and now do it for others but it looks like I will need to 'retire' to finish the 356 I have now...and no, it's not another Speedster- I sincerely can't afford a 'Speedster' now unless it's made of fiberglass!
-Bruce Baker

[JOP]

Justin,
I do belive Don C is correct you are reading 0.1 degrees which is the fault up to 90 degress on these.
It aint 1.0 degrees.....play with it and see like 45 and 90 degrees to see how it will display it.

[roy mawbey]

[bbspdstr]

Roy, most of those tools that came in our kits are gone because we used them or gave them away. We got better tools than the cheap junk Porsche supplied if we used them at all. Aren't we sorry now. I'll look to see if I have one more Hazet brace and let you know.

Now, back to Justin's regularly scheduled program.........and yes, I use a digital protractor all the time and am thrilled to see a dot in front of a 1 instead of after. Usually a tenth of a degree is almost "close enough."

[JTR70]

Hey Per, Consider me terminally ill at this point.


Thank you Roy! I was always hoping that the subframe would be enough to hold it in square but after repeated warnings from a long time 356 authority(B I got very spooked. What little experience I do have always tells me that if its given a chance to go side ways it will most assuredly take it so it only stood to reason. Yes, it is amazing what now qualifies as a viable project car. No more parts cars for sure!

Don, Thank you, yes I was reading that wrong. See how much trouble I'm in? I can't even read my instruments right. Well hell reading it that way this frame just got a whole lot better.
Thanks again to both you and Per for pointing that out.

Thanks for posting that great bit of history on old 84255 Bruce. I really love the looks of that H-beam frame table you fabricated. Looks every bit as capable as any Cellete bench I've seen so far. WOW! That old speedster frame was definitely stripped down naked at one point. I guess that's how far you had to go to get past all the old crash damage. Looks like a coupster build to me. I was glad to hear that you're comfortable with those basic readings I was getting with the protractor. BTW: I love that thing (even though I don't know how to read it)and could not see myself without one again. Best 40 bucks I've spent.
Thanks again you guys for all the great help and input on this thing!
I sure appreciate it!
Justin

4/2/16
Installing lower engine compartment perimeter cross member.

Changing gears from body panels back to inner detail work.

Just a touch too wide to fit down between the panels.

clamped to table, with flange spaced away the thickness of a metal ruler. Then hammered over to make the turn a touch quicker to use up that extra length.


A couple of MM's worth on both sides.

A snug fit but now a fit.

Just about ready to weld but a few details to add first.
Thanks for looking!
Justin