'63 356B T-6 Rebuild

[John Pierce]

Thanks Phil! Much appreciated.

Here is maybe a stupid question, but I have to make sure before welding: is the bottom of the front longitudinal level with the rest of the car (i.e. with the floors)? If I put a spirit level there will it be level?

Also, any chance for a close up picture of the inside of the torsion bar housing assembly where the front longitudinal is welded on? My sheet metal is missing there and I'd like to do it correctly.

Thanks.

[Phil Planck]

John
I just checked both sides of Foam Car and the bottom of the front longitudinal is in line with the floor pan, not the depressions in the floor pan. Drivers side has original longitudinal. As far as detail shot at the front, the vertical is lap welded to the torsion bar housing. The panel behind this is inboard of the vertical flange of the torsion tube housing. The one picture I posted above those this overlap. I could take a picture of the original vertical lap weld on the drivers side. Here is the one I did on the passenger side:


Here is drivers side. Not the best, as was taken to show the fender patch, but you can see the vertical weld:


Phil

[John Pierce]

Thanks Phil! Much appreciated. Puts my worries to rest.

JP

[John Pierce]

"Hi John,
Have been following your progress. Not much time to write though, busy with work.

Good job on the battery box area. Nice to get a little area buttoned up, huh? For the longitudinal/toeboard/front strut repairs, I'll offer my two cents worth. For a car thats as buggered up (Bubba'd up?)to start with as yours, I'd suggest fixing the longitudinals first, then make the connection to the battery box/front beam area. There should be no elevation change in that entire flange, from front to back. So if you can work out at any point where it should be, then its just a matter of a big straightedge (a big piece of angle iron!)to locate the rest. After that done, do the toeboard area repair between your longitidinal flanges, which is also a straightedge, but at a slightly lower elevation than the longitudinal flanges. Then the toeboard flange elevation locates the the tunnel flanges at the front.

Its ancient history, but I posted a bunch of pics of my efforts with 104006 on the R site several years back. Some of those photos might be of use to you, so here is a link:

forum.porsche356registry.org/viewtopic.p...706&hilit=104006

There are some photos on page 3/4 of replacing the entire front inner fender with a NOS piece, and making the toeboard/tunnel repairs.

As for noses, I bought a Trevor nose for my T5. Though I know Justin is not a fan of Trevor's parts, I was OK with it. It is not perfect. Required quite a bit of work, particularly around the right side of the hood opening. But overall I thought it was not too bad. At the time I bought it, I was sort of kicking myself for not going with two Stoddard repro halves, but after seeing Tom's adventure, I'm feeling better about my decision.

Take care,
DG"

[John Pierce]

Thanks DG!! Great advice. Using Phil's unmolested tunnel measurements and installing my seats/rails it looks like my floor pans are at the correct height. Or at least good enough where it's not noticeable.

I've been working on taking out the Bubbadized portion of the lower sheet metal, which leaves a lot of redo work!


Inner pedal bulkhead. It's embarrassing how bad the previous repairs were


Looking from the front. The repairs aren't even symmetric or even level.


The cut-off wheel is your friend. All the previous welding removed. Now to find the best areas to weld to and cut out the remaining bad. I've got a new pedal bulkhead, which I'll cut to size and fit in and should give me the correct floor height. The lateral portions will delineate where the longitudinal flanges will fall. Just a big jigsaw puzzle.


The original pedal supports had been previously molested. The bottoms had been cut off and were hanging free The new ones are a close reproduction. Just some minor differences, which I fixed.


There is a 1" diameter half circle at the inner top which was missing, but was easy to add with a step drill.


Media blasted and drilled.


This is the parking brake tube assembly badly and incorrectly welded into the bulkhead.


A little cleaning up helps. Can someone provide some pictures and information where this should be inserted, at what angle and how much sticks out? I may have to rebuild it as the tube is rusted through in the mid section and pretty thin.

Thanks for looking.

[JTR70]

Looking better John! I did a Speedster years ago with repairs like that and I cursed the guys who did it all the way through! As the work progressed the thought played over and over in my head about what an enormous waste of everyone's time these shitty repairs were; a waste of their time to do it and a big waste of my time to both clean and cut it all back out. We all would have been miles ahead if they just would have left the rusty panels alone! Anyway great job! Justin

BTW this rate schedule (Australian I assume) says it all!

The 4th item in particular we can definitely relate to...

[JOP]

John, I found these old pictures of the tube.....but no measurements
I might be able to get some for you later.....but you see how it should look contra the rest of the panels
This one is very original without any major repairs earlier

/Per

[JOP]

John,

Here you can see that it is in level with brake bracket and also turned towards the bracket
I think you can do it with my pictures
/ Per

[John Pierce]

Great pictures! I love the rusted hole...can really see how things go together

[JTR70]

Per, are you rebuilding this car?

[JOP]

Justin, this one is actually collecting dust for the moment. To much other stuff going on
I would need to clone myself to be able to work at all places at the same time

[John Pierce]

As you've seen, my car has been butchered a bit in the past and I can't trust that the previous repairs were measured correctly to establish the floor height. I'm fitting a repair piece to the bottom portion of the pedal bulkhead and I've cut it to size using measurements from where the floor was, but the fitment is coming up funky.


Repair pedal bulkhead as bought.


I took off the bump out as I need to use all of it, but not all of the bulkhead. Most of my original bump out was rusted out and badly repaired.


I cut the bulkhead to size below the lower bend where it becomes vertical. I had to modify the width as it was 3/16" too long. I had enough left of the original front longitudinals to know this and it now fits nicely side to side.

My previous post showed the bottom portions of the pedal bulkhead supports to be missing....so not helpful for measuring the correct position of the floor. Can someone give me a few measurements? In the above picture, I'd like to get a measurement from the lower bend in the pedal bulkhead to the floor flange. And likewise to the floor flange in the next 2 pictures.


I need a measurement from the center bottom of the steering gear hole to the longitudinal flange.


I need a measurement from the front edge of the hole in the gas tank floor to the floor flange.

These measurements should hopefully establish a correct floor flange height. Part of my problem may also be that the tunnel should be about 1/2" lower than the longitudinal flanges as shown in Roland's restoration book. But, I'm not really seeing that with my car.

Thanks for the help.

[Phil Planck]

John
Will try to get you data off of Foam Car tomorrow.

Phil

[JTR70]

Looking good John! You're getting into some very familiar territory. Be careful, its been my experience twice that the pre-punched hole for the master cylinder is too low. Might be a different story for B/C but Its the same pedal cluster with a near identical floor so just be aware of it. Best of luck on this upcoming phase!
Justin

[Phil Planck]

John

Here is the data from Foam Car:
Bottom of big hole flange too bottom of long. 4 1/4"
Gas tank floor hole to top of floor flange 17 5/8"
(this hole was hard to find as I still have the vent rubber in it)
bulkhead bend to floor flange 4 3/8"(measured with a square against bottom bend metal and touching floor flange)

Also, per Justin's warning:
bulkhead bend to top of m/c hole 1 3/8"(original metal)

Phil