SC Coupe Restoration

[tperazzo]

A few of you may remember my restoration thread on the 356 Registry's website named, "My coupe project, made by hand again..."

It's been a while since I updated my progress, so I'll slowly add some things here now

The background story is like many other restoration projects. Bought the car 16 years ago, drove it around for almost 5 years, then took it all apart to "fix" some rust....and I'm still at it. Sure it will take longer than anyone could have imagined, however the journey has been educational for me and I actually enjoy doing the work.

After I stopped posting on the registry, I finished the drivers door repair. Justin featured the repair here on the front page of this website. Many thanks to Justin!

Since then I've been working on the Passenger side rocker. I decided not to to repeat the factory lap weld where the rocker meets the fenders, so the first order of business was to remove the joggle. The photo below was taken from the inside of the reproduction panel near the front. I rolled the edge back and trimmed the wire so that the original fender wire would extend down past the new weld joint.




Same picture but from the outside now.



Here's that fender wire I mentioned earlier.



Now that I have the posting figured out, I will add to bottom of this thread.
Thanks
Tom

[JTR70]

Hey Tom!

Glad to hear that your back working on your car! Thank you for adding your project build here; really looking forward to some updates! BTW:the Captcha code will be gone after your 5th post. Don't forget to hit the "insert" button your attachments so they will display large. If there is any questions just ask. Thanks again for letting use your door repair on the blog. Great stuff! Justin

[tperazzo]

Justin, I can't find the insert button. I tried to "add file", but I'm not sure what to do after that. Thanks in advance.
Tom

Glad you got the photo glitch dialed in Tom! Justin

[JTR70]

Hey Tom,

So you're eliminating the original step-flange joint from rocker to fender? Are you butt-welding this joint instead? Justin

[tperazzo]

Thanks Justin, yes I butt welded the rockers on. Mainly to avoid any future problems with moisture or corrosion developing in the seams. When applying undercoating I may lay a strip of rubber on the back side to look like the original lap seam, ha ha.

Here's a picture with the rocker clamped in place over the original.





If it look to narrow or short in the picture, its because it is. I've come to expect that repro parts won't fit right. Yes, I'm grateful parts exist, but like I tell me kids, "You get what you get and don't throw a fit"

So I decided to section and stretch the rocker to fit my car in the middle. But before I show that picture, here's one just before welding.




Here it is welded in a metal finished. You can see where I cut the rocker. It was almost 3/8" too short.





Lots more modification was required on the rocker too. I hope to post that work soon. Any comments or suggestions welcome.
Many Thanks
Tom

[Restomod]

Looks great, my rockers were different also. One was to long the other was to short!! To bad they were already welded in so I had to trim and refit them on the ends.

[JTR70]

Tom, really nice job! Great finishing work on your weld joints at your fender to new corner section. I understand completely all the splicing and modification required to get these aftermarket panels to fit correctly. They never fit even the factory original parts can have issues. Smart choice modifying the part to fit the car and not the other way around which I have seen done. One question: have you set and gapped your door before committing to this current rocker elevation?
Keep up the great work! Justin

[roy mawbey]

Tom,

Very interesting work, I still have my original rockers on my car, but have worked on them years ago. The sections I looked at when once I thought I would buy and install were complete lengths. How on earth would they have fitted to match up with the existing front and back wheel wells. In my mind never thought at the time there would be a problem matching to the original factory front and back fenders. How wrong I would have been, the chances for the part to match up I guess? would have been minimal?

Then at the time ( and still now if I am honest ) the thought of the 'wired ' edges to connect up with the 'wired' wheel wells frightened me. I could not and still cannot envisage how to correctly do that wiring. The crimping of the wire on my still factory body shows no evidence of how they did it so neatly? I would need a master class by you guys telling me how to do it. No wonder modern cars don't have wired edges.

You see Tom, this forum has so many interesting threads, maybe someone can give me a short description of how the wiring takes place. Is welding involved? I have looked and can't see that. Its as though the outer metal is perfectly blended around the wire without kinks? I was a press toolmaker by trade should have the ability to see this process in my mind but can't.

Look forward to seeing more Tom. Your door repair I should have seen 36 years when I welded mine. God, I went through hell doing that without knowledge, never again without finding out first methods that actually work.

Cheers

Roy

[MMW]

I don't mean to sidetrack this thread but I had asked Bruce Baker about repairing a section of the wheel lip with the wire.

You first heat the sheet metal lip with a torch & carefully pull it back (unroll it) until your free of the wire & can get to the repair area. Replace/repair the sheet metal as needed. Prep area & then hammer & dolly it back around the wire. If you don't wish to unroll it you can mix up some stuff (por 15 or similar) & dribble it into the crevice/wire area to try to seal it up. This is just a paraphrase of my 10 minute lesson at Hershey.

[roy mawbey]

Mic,

Thanks for trying. I would really like to know how it was done on a new wheel arch 180 degree of wired edge. Did they make the pressing with a flat extended lip then perform the wiring separately? But that is where my mind loses it. Sure, bend a length of wire to required radius but as we all know that will flex out of shape. Take that and enter that into the inner side of the fender tack weld? the bottom L/h corner. Bring the wire radius round by hand until it reaches the R/h side bottom. The wire should be following exactly the right postion for the metal lip to be turned over the wire. Tack weld the wire at the bottom R/h side.

Now you have the problem! How to turn over and crimp without deformation of the lip material. Could there be a special hand held device that would perform that task. I cannot see they would have heated the lip although of course it would form the small radius much more easily.

Then how would you not deform the outer fender panel?

This is where I start to lose it It must be an easier solution 140,000 fenders times 4 = to me a headache. I bet the solution is easy it has to be.

Roy

[roy mawbey]

Tom,

I am so sorry if I took over your thread, I should have done exactly what Mic has done for me and started a new thread. Your work made me think again on how wiring is done, no doubt it will interest you as well if look on it.

Please keep us informed on your next steps on your car, its very interesting.

Roy

[tperazzo]

Roy, Mic, and Justin,
Thanks for the nice comments and seriously, don't worry about hi-jacking this thread....I'm honored to that you found something interesting in my project. I did see the video that Justin posted and that is really cool. I don't have experience with wire seams, but I did have a heck of a time with the trailing edge of the front fender. That part comes with a 90 degree flange, but it ultimately gets crimped or hemmed over the inner fender bulkhead (if that's what its called???maybe closing panel???)

When forming a hem or wire edge across a curved edge as in the fender or wheel wheel there is a tremendous amount of stretching and shrinking going on. This is where the power tools come in handy. Everyone's heard the saying that a man is only as good as his tools and I believe that to be true in my garage. I do think the fender edge can be done with only hand tools, but it would be tricky and require lots of hammering. I understand that the wire isn't constrained in the seam, rather it's allowed to float in the seam and the sheet metal must stretch and or shrink around it.

Is my splice, I wanted to offset the sheetmetal weld from the wire weld. Since welding can cause the metal to become brittle, I thought the offset may prevent cracking in the future. Don't quote me on that, but I thought it was worth the effort.

I'll continue to post pictures and progress on my car, and I hope lots of fun dialog will ensue. Any comments or feedback is welcomed. It boring to have a one way street

Justin, my passenger door repair was completed years ago and I did finalize its position before welding the rocker in. My next post will describe the work to not only get the lower door gap close, but also match the curvature of the door to the rocker. Not easy!!!!

Cheers,
Tom

[Trevor]

Great to see you posting progress again Tom!

[DG58INNM]

Roy, I would imagine that when these fenders were made, this was a two step process with the giant presses/dies.

One stroke to form the entire fender, with a turned up lip for the arch. Then a worker places a wire along the lip, anchored at either end to hold it in place and against the curvature of the arch flange, all while the fender is still in the die. Then the press comes down again and swedges the lip the rest of the way over the wire. No possibility of the arch being deformed since all is still in the die. At least this is how I envision it. Amazing what can be done with industrial strength metal stamping facilities, as opposed to the hand tools the craftsman/restorer must resort to.

And I'm pleased also to see Tom posting again!

DG

[Carrera_The_Kid]

Tom,

Great to see you posting. I always enjoyed your posts over on the registry. Look forward to seeing updated.

best,

Joris