Coupe into Speedster Conversion

[Phil Planck]

Bruce
Great points for the repro parts producers. Would be nice to have a panel at a Holiday with 3 long time restorers and 3 panel makers to hash out some of these issues, or maybe a thread on this forum if we could get them all to participate.

I should have heeded your advice on my flat rockers and ditched them. A real pain to get the curve to match the door.

DG - interesting observation on the forward attaching flange of the rocker. One more thing to try to look for on "original" cars.

Phil

[ALEX.RDI]

Interesting... currently RD does not manufacture the rockers that we sell. We do produce the short and long sill of the rocker, but not the complete one.

We have been searching for an NOS rocker so that we can manufacture these parts closest to the original as possible. But no luck as of yet.

So...if anyone has an NOS rocker panel they would like to lend/sell us, we could make this part to original spec.

Cheers

[Jack Staggs]

Right here!!!
http://www.thesamba.com/vw/classifieds/detail.php?id=1650188

[ALEX.RDI]

Thanks Jack!

They're on their way!

[Phil Planck]

Those NOS rockers even have the deco holes punched in them!
Phil

[Jack Staggs]

Hmmm..... Not good for the GT cars

[Rusty Tubs]

close up pics

[Rusty Tubs]

factory 356 A t2






Justin, we had discussed these factory versions for comparison. Here are the images.

[ALEX.RDI]

If anyone has a rear chassis section (around the torsion tube) that is NOS, we would be interested in purchasing them.

Actually...any NOS parts that are out there... who wants to sell some of their stash?

[John Pierce]

All right!! More repro parts. Sounds like they'll have a good chance of fitting too Thanks Alex.

[JTR70]

Thanks for posting those Ric! I feel much better about the new corner I added onto that splash panel after seeing your NOS repair section. Interesting how those two pieces came welded together? Seems much easier to install them separately?? Thanks again Guys!
Appreciate your last post Bruce!

10/30/14
Left Rocker almost ready to install.
Spent the last couple of sessions tying up a lot of loose ends around the longitudinal so this rocker can be installed.

Felt confident enough to stitch up the new corner on the splash pan.

Welded the spur in the rest of the way.

Dressed down what seems like a hundred plug-welds along the upper longitudinal flange and this spur. Glad that's done!

Stitching up this relief cut I made to get the rocker to get it to profile inward toward the rear like I needed. Will finish that and just few other things then I'll finally be able to get this part on for good. Thanks for looking! Justin

[JTR70]

10/31/14

Rocker finally fitted and ready to install.

With most of the loose ends tied up I remounted the door just to make sure the rocker didn't change on me before I put the first tack weld down.

My original fitment concern and now also my last concern is the seemingly excessive width toward the end of the rocker. Because the body is being built from thin air I could easily be off and not realize it until much later. The lock posts for instance could easily be mounted a little too wide to compensate for the rocker etc.

To make sure I was close I sight marked it from the chassis using the forward spring plate boss as my landmark. It took a little more work but I got the back of the rocker to come in right around 10 3/4 to match the originals on my coupe.

Both sides of my coupe come in right at 10 3/4. Close enough..

It took some doing but I think its a go. tacking it on tomorrow. Thanks for looking! Justin

[JOP]

Justin, I really like all the inputs that gets done on this tread and ABCGT.
You learn and get a new angle of attacking a problem that somebody has solved and are nice enough to share with the rest of us weired 356 nutz
So keep showing us more photos of your build and progress.....you cant take to many pictures
Oh, and of course you are doing a swell job justin
/Per

[Phil Planck]

Looks like a nice fit. As the carpenters say, "measure twice, cut once" or something like that. For 356s it is better to measure 4 or 5 times I think.

Phil

[JTR70]

Thank you Per! That's very nice of you to say and I greatly appreciate that! Again I am relieved to hear that its not too bogged down in detail as to create boredom.
Thanks Phil! You know exactly how quickly things can go wrong with these cars if you're not at least triple checking along the way.
Thank you again guys! Justin

11/2/14
Right Rocker panel installed.

I finally tied up the remaining loose ends that were holding up the installation.

One of several chores to finish was welding and dressing this really long relief cut I had to make.

Another was pounding out these drain reliefs along the lower flange. Its a good evolutionary addition for B&C but not correct for a T1A car.

Another was establishing the diagonal reinforcement with a pair of set screws (for now). These are left loose so the rocker face can be adjusted to continue the contour of the doors profile.
I had adjusted it as best as I could here to continue the profile line of the door.

And the final loose end detail was adding in the spot-welds along the spur's mount flange.

Trusty old panel-welder to the rescue.

After all that the rocker was remounted and finally tack welded into its final position.

The bottom gap is set at about 3mm or just shy of the thickness of a standard paint stick in this case. I really had to fight my urge and desire to make the gaps tighter. I had to remind myself several times that this is now an open car subject to chassis flex and not a coupe where a tighter gap can be tolerated. Anyway the gap is now set.
11/3/14
Today I finished up a few more welding chores on this rocker install.

Trimmed off the excess on both the new longitudinal and rocker back to even with the original flange so I could weld them up

Small interval welds which join all three flanges together as done originally along the threshold.

Plug-welding the forward drain pan from below.

Templating a filler section that will join the hinge boss to the new rocker threshold as it was done originally.

Done. Just about gone as far as I can on this side for now. Starting up the right rocker tomorrow. Thanks for looking! Justin