'63 356B T-6 Rebuild

[John Pierce]

So satisfying to put new metal on the old rust bucket!



Once the reinforcement piece was removed, the patchwork of repairs could be seen. Unfortunately, the rust extended into the areas of embossment.



A few hours panel-beating, planishing and using the brake ended up with a nice repair patch. I made it oversized to to ensure the correct bends and concavity were in the correct spots.



Patch cut to size and installed, leaving the lower flange and curved concavity to make next. Filled in a few screw holes along the way.


Front longitudinal flange bent, fitted and welded up.


Welds ground down and hand planished. It's nice to see the correct bends all matched up Pictures always make the grinding marks look really bad! Is the hole in front of the steering large hole original or can I weld it up?

Happy Labor Day and thanks for looking!!

[DG58INNM]

Looking good John. I'm following along with your, and other's, progress but have been refraining from commenting too much. That little hole at the front of the large tie rod hole is supposed to be there. There is a little bracket that bolts on the inside there. I'm thinking it is for the brake fluid line from the reservoir to master cylinder, but my memory may be faulty. In any case, something goes there.
DG

[Phil Planck]

John

Nice work on that latest repair. Gotta consider those parts as challenges. And here is what was in that hole on Foam Car:








The fabric strap is 3 1/2" overall with grommets. Very similar to the hanger straps at the rear of the car only much shorter. I think the speedometer cable went through it, but will defer to Bruce & others. I removed it about 10 years ago. Will see if I was a good restorer and took a "before" pic.

Phil Planck

[Jack Staggs]

Yes, speedometer cable strap

[Phil Planck]

Ahh, long term memory still half decent.

Thanks Jack

Phil Planck

[JTR70]

Great job on those lower forward repair patches John! You did a nice job replicating the embossment and stretching the new perimeter flanges to shape. It looks much more civilized than my splice cuts; having the right tools sure makes all the difference! Keep up the great work! Justin

[bbspdstr]

Found a front floor half, not Sorensen but Restoration Design, and it's been trimmed and fit (including some medieval movement of the formerly replaced inner rocker that was tapered too far inward- John Pierce's latest effort's area). Will likely finish welding the floor and create the bulkhead repair today to get the lower front of the chassis wrapped up, unless a repro is found to be a decent fit...

Phil's long term memory of a specific small hole forward of the large steering hole and a clamping strap for a speedo cable was reinforced by Jack.....but here's a second part of that quiz: what other use could that hole include? Dave?

Great work, John!

-Bruce

[John Pierce]

Bruce,

Looks nice. What's your thoughts about installing the floor pan before vs. after installation of the lower pedal bulkhead? Pros/cons?

Thanks.

[bbspdstr]

John, much easier before...either way- floor or bulkhead repair. The floor first for the fit of it, the bulkhead lower then to that....with both in only temporarily in most cases. Normally, I'd finish the bulkhead first after a combined fitting due to ease of access. However, in this particular case, the floor is screwed in, but cannot be taken out and reinstalled with the bulkhead finished with the rear half already in place. A rube-ic's cube sort of game we play.

Dare I say how important a rotisserie is to all this?

Keep up the good work!

-Bruce

[bbspdstr]

Yep, you never know where that circular depression will end up!
The previous work dictated much of the positioning with the new panels. Having to narrow the bulkhead repair was the least of the issues, as the diagonal covered that. The pedal cluster had to go where the original holes were for the master cylinder, etc.

-Bruce

[John Pierce]

Thanks for sharing, Bruce. The installation steps make more sense knowing that you had to work around an already installed rear pan.

Very nice work!

[JTR70]

Nice! Aside from the round embossment being off the rest of its details look pretty clean. Who's floor is this Bruce?

[bbspdstr]

Nice! Aside from the round embossment being off the rest of its details look pretty clean. Who's floor is this Bruce?

It's from Restoration Design. The Stoddard pan (I've heard the dies are owned by Stoddard and made by K&K) is good EXCEPT the tranverse clamshell "hump" where the two halves overlap are too pronounced, especially toward the outer ends.

My personal theory is that no one who has any clue about this area of a 356 should be able to just glance under any 356 and say "Yup, this one's got a replacement floor...." I strive for- 'Keep 'em guessing.'

Also, I am very happy to see "nice work" mentioned for mine, thank you all, but I BETTER produce good results....I do this repetitively for a living! I am conversely MORE impressed by the work I see on the various threads here. It's as good as it gets! Congrats to all and thanks for sharing.

Also for Justin: I heard again from another 'convert' who enjoys the hell out of your site. Has, he said, for quite a while. I do not think he participates (yet) but really likes the diversity and 'aura' of the participants and topics, especially the pictures and 'back-in-the-day' stuff.

Thanks,
-Bruce

[JTR70]

Thanks for sharing that Bruce, made my evening!!!!!

[roy mawbey]

Bruce,
I think you are absolutely correct in saying the normal guy would look under and say 'ah new floors' only those who have done it would know where all those pressing details are on the perfect ' to drawing' example. Its like door and bonnet gaps, because of Justin all I look at now on a 356 I have never seen before, is those gaps. For 40 years they never really worried me now, its so important to my eye. Of course I could see that one side of my front lid, was slightly off even though I thought I had got it quite good a while back. I released one hinge side a week or so ago and fiddled. Made it even, but know a little lead would perfect it.

The 'normal' person never comments on gaps, if the colour is nice and its clean the shape is enough to please them. My brother for example is the opposite to me, just not car pratical, but very 356 orientated. I just found a pic of his 1951 356 split screen he sold after running it for 10 years. Just look at the front indicators how did he live with that and other glaring items your eyes will see?

Roy