SC Coupe Restoration

[JTR70]

Nice work on that hammer form Tom, like to see how it worked for you!

Bruce, thanks for sharing that! Honestly the thought of bumping the metal more after applying the lead never occurred to me but it makes perfect sense. I think the lead too would deaden the hammer taps making the steel a bit more agreeable to moving in the right directing. I will keep that in mind on the next one. Thanks again! Justin

[tperazzo]

Thank you Justin and Bruce,
Great information on the lead. I did hammer some on the lead on the door skins to fix a little bit of distortion near the lower patch area. Just a little heat in that area caused the metal to expand and shrink a lot. Lead is great to work with, but super tedious! Definitely not my favorite thing to do.

Those Karmann details are kind of fun to play with and will hopefully cause those curious enough to do a double take. Are those original floors and longs or not?

Here's a picture of the original floor drain holes at the rear of the tunnel. Seems like a good idea, but certainly didn't save my floor from rusting.




This is the tool I made when punching holes in the longs.


Result:



Here's how the newly radiused rear impressions turned out.




Also check out that huge hot dog shape for the transverse tube.




That was a lot of fun to hammer down according to the original shape. I took this down to the beach and whacked it in the sand for a while with various dollies.

I also softened the front impressions some. The result is kind of a middle of the road effort compared to the original. My original front floors had very washed out impressions. If I can, I'll take some more pictures of my original floors too so Bruce and I can compare notes. I ended up with fairly strong impressions, that kind of match the rear......At least I made an effort.

I wish I had more pictures, but I don't. Here's a shot after the floors were installed.



If anyone wants pictures, I can shoot a few more while visiting my car at the shop periodically.

Those front triangle impressions were completely re shaped to match the angle of the inner longitudinal and to avoid intereference.

I did get lucky on the pedal mounting bracket. It lined up right on the embossed circle. Thank you Jack for recommending trial fitting the toe boards! I don't have my original floor matts or a repro yet though, so I will have to pray it fits.

Thanks again for following along. Sorry about the lack of pictures. I was pushing hard to complete this thing over the xmas break.
Tom

[John Pierce]

Tom,

You definitely got a lot of work done over the Christmas break. The drainage holes in the most dependent portion of the rear tunnel are an interesting idea. I do have to wonder though, how much water collected there over time without the holes? I'm wracking my brain to understand how the water would get there in the first place. Condensation? I would think that the holes would allow more ingress of water than the amount that would egress.

Great work!

John

[bbspdstr]

Floor tunnel (boat) drains? Lowest part of 356 due to angle down from longitudinals. Window left down in a rain or plastic plugs in Karmann lower front and rear window openings leaking? Oil from nasty trans neck leak getting up there (seen all that happen) or just a nice idea from Karmann to help with 356 longevity.....diss'd by the accountants at Porsche.
Let's not forget the discs in the squab seat lowest parts of THAT pan.

Here's a picture of an original floor pan with some of the remaining longitudinal on one side, showing the 'special' details particular to Karmann bodies. I'm surprised that (Alex, if you are still lurking) a company making the floors doesn't offer a Karmann floor option for an added two or three hundred dollars (or whatever) for the additional details installed prior to shipping...same for the rear seat bottoms. (That's approximately what my shop will bill if it is a customer's request.)

[JTR70]

Karmann sure was ahead of the curve weren't they Bruce..

Great detail work on your floors Tom! Guys in the know will surely question as to whether they are original or not. There aren't too many who would put this kind of effort into the bottom of the car, so they must be original! Did I read that right, this car is at a body shop now? Looking forward to your progress! Justin

[Don C]

Question: Were the seat mounts in a "C" spot welded to the floor or was there a more substantial weld used?
Mine were replaced,along with the floor,in the 80's and the heights vary over 1/4" making the seat rails not in the same plane.
Got new ones on order and was wondering how to attach them, thanks!
DC

[JOP]

Don,
If you look in the picture then there is the frame Porsche uses to get the seat mounts in correct position plus they have just done some spot welds to the mount with their giant spotwelder.
I hope this helps you out
/ Per

[tperazzo]

Question: Were the seat mounts in a "C" spot welded to the floor or was there a more substantial weld used?
Mine were replaced,along with the floor,in the 80's and the heights vary over 1/4" making the seat rails not in the same plane.
Got new ones on order and was wondering how to attach them, thanks!
DC

Hi Don,
Here's some pics of my cars original seat mounts still attached to its floor. No special welds except maybe a gas weld tying the floor to the longitudinal sandwich.







If you need any height measurements, I can take whatever you need off my originals.
Is your plane twisted or just slanted?

Thanks Per for that picture of the cool factory jig. That's a time saver for sure!
Thanks,
Tom

[tperazzo]

Here's some pics of my original floors to back up Bruce's great photos.






Fairly "soft" impressions if you ask me. The front was really battered so I can't vouch for how original it is.

Hopefully pictures like this will be around a while for those who don't have originals to compare with .

Hi Justin,
Yes my car is at Chris Ashworths shop, although it's just sitting in the que to be honest. Not much new to report yet. I'm collecting and fixing all the exterior parts to trial fit before paint prep.
I'm so glad you are about to pull the trigger on your coupe. It's going to be amazing! Would love to see it in person some day!
Tom

[Don C]

Tom & Per,
Thanks for the photos, they answer my questions.
Tom, the mounts are so screwed up that the plane is twisted. Will cut both forward and rear out, set the heights relative to the tunnel, then re-install.
Thanks again!
DC

[Don C]

Tom,
We haven't heard from you in a while, how's the "C" coming along?

[tperazzo]

Hello everyone,
Thanks for thinking of my C Don. Here's where its at: After hustling at the end of last year to finish the metal work, I rushed it to a local shop to finish. That meant that I didn't properly fit all the parts back on the car. Several here have stressed the importance of trial fit, so I planned on bringing parts to the shop as needed. As it turns out that service was more than I wanted to spend, so the car got kicked back to me. Money always causes trouble.
Chris was awesome and it was a great experience to have another set of eyes evaluate the car. He discovered another thin area near the head light bucket that I will fix. I've been fixing all the broken parts and stripped bolts on bumpers, window frames, lights, etc.
So next time it goes out it won't come back until its Irish Green. It just doesn't pay to rush it at this stage. I spent so much time on the chassis, that some areas of the outer body got overlooked. I will put everything back on the car except the interior before it goes back out.
Chris may be too expensive for me as well, so I'm still looking for a good fit with a painter that isn't 1000 miles away. Please email me if you have any good recommendations in the southwest US. My budget is about $20k.
The past month has been busy with work and I've taken on a few extra jobs to pay for this sucker. Perhaps I'll start a new thread for some of my new 356 product related ideas.
I've been silently cheering everyone on here at abcgt. Plenty of excellent work here and its fun to watch.
Thanks
Tom
tom.perazzo@verizon.net

[Phil Planck]

Thanks for the update Tom. Good to know you are still plugging away on it.
Phil

[Don C]

Ditto!

[JTR70]

Hey Tom,

Sorry to hear that but that sounds more realistic to me. Last we heard you were just wrapping up the nose then all of the sudden it was on a trailer out to paint. I thought how in the world did he get every aspect of that body sorted and ready for the body shop in such short order?? It's never gone that smoothly or quick for me, I'm still finding little things.
I have a suggestion since you've included the South-West as your radius...
My buddy Rick just down from me is an expert painter (and general fabricator) and is the paint shop general manager at Extreme finishes (its dedicated paint shop for heavy equipment) here in Las Vegas. He is up on all the latest paint system tech. and has educated me quite a bit since I've been talking with him; bottom line he knows his stuff and I am very impressed with him both as a fellow gearhead and all around good honest guy. He's been watching my coupster build and has mentioned if anything 356 related comes along to let him know. He's not "in the business" as he has his full time gig at Extreme but he's interested in some side work. So this could translate into your 20K budget as he is not a "shop" that has a monthly nut to cover. He's not versed in the 356 or its details but I'd be on hand to help with any of that. He's the one that got me the paint for my car and will be the guy shooting my coupe here in just a little while. Its another option for you. I guess the worst thing is that its about 350Mi away but being in the great state of Nevada we can still get and use oil base paints here. Unlike CA. where you are now restricted to the waterbase stuff. Something to think about...
Justin