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Justin,
Just read through the last two pages of this thread to catch up with exactly what you are doing.
Several things come to mind.
1). Just how many people starting out 356 wise fail to realise how the rust can get into a 356 underneath and spread so far over 54 years? And this underneath is actually far better than some.
2). How many 356 cars are still on the road with these box sections rotting away under their feet?
3). How many realise the importance if they start to repair themselves the need for complex braces like you made to hold the body in one place, the ever increasing range of tools including a spit to just get at it all?
4). The 356 can still look wonderful with a rusty top half, its a nightmare if its even half as bad underneath.
I did the welding on mine when it was 18 years old, it was a pampered car from new, thank goodness I didn't buy the other rusty ones I saw then.
As I have said before ( a number of times ) you make this work look easy glancing from one photo to another, seeing how you always use old parts mocked up to check fit, even that looks easy! None of this is easy, it real hard work and even harder when you have to process something like that swaging on the heater tube entry.
I guess when you read bodywork restoration work on a rusty 356 is going to cost around the $50k figure you have to understand by looking at threads like this why its that amount.
No where else Justin can a 356 guy with rust to contend with get a better instruction than here.
Its going to be a nice car when this is finished, no hidden surprises
for sure.
Roy
Just read through the last two pages of this thread to catch up with exactly what you are doing.
Several things come to mind.
1). Just how many people starting out 356 wise fail to realise how the rust can get into a 356 underneath and spread so far over 54 years? And this underneath is actually far better than some.
2). How many 356 cars are still on the road with these box sections rotting away under their feet?
3). How many realise the importance if they start to repair themselves the need for complex braces like you made to hold the body in one place, the ever increasing range of tools including a spit to just get at it all?
4). The 356 can still look wonderful with a rusty top half, its a nightmare if its even half as bad underneath.
I did the welding on mine when it was 18 years old, it was a pampered car from new, thank goodness I didn't buy the other rusty ones I saw then.
As I have said before ( a number of times ) you make this work look easy glancing from one photo to another, seeing how you always use old parts mocked up to check fit, even that looks easy! None of this is easy, it real hard work and even harder when you have to process something like that swaging on the heater tube entry.
I guess when you read bodywork restoration work on a rusty 356 is going to cost around the $50k figure you have to understand by looking at threads like this why its that amount.
No where else Justin can a 356 guy with rust to contend with get a better instruction than here.
Its going to be a nice car when this is finished, no hidden surprises
for sure.
Roy
I can certainly understand how this chassis would have been scrapped 20 years ago. It just wasn't worth the time it takes to fix all of this. How things have changed. Peoples eyes glaze over when you tell them that guys like Bruce and Wilhoit are in the 25K+ range just to put in a floor. All they recognize are the pans themselves and have no clue as to all the prep-work that must be done before you can even think about welding in a new floor. I am sure there are quite a few "nice" running 356's with severe rot deep in the cavities I'm in the middle of here. I am glad that this is helping to shed some light on what really is involved with resurrecting a severely rusty 356. Thanks again Roy!
Finally I pumped oil into the cavities to hopefully creep into the area's I could not reach. I found the drivers side longitudinal had perforations in the front section. I cut this area out and carefully made a new section to weld in. I was able to see the front of the heater tubes on this side and again they were fine. Here again, I did same preparation of the original interior. It was not easy to get the perfect join on welding especially because of not having a spit but after scraping the complete original floor back to mostly bright metal I painted again with two coats of the zink primer.
New flange added here. This will be double thickness once complete.
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