'63 356B T-6 Rebuild

[John Pierce]

Another shout out for a measurement as what's left on mine is not much to write home about. I'm going to have to reflange the rear bulkhead as mine has had too many layers of pans welded to it. It looks like the rear floor flange is wider by a long shot than the floor flanges along the longitudinals.



If someone could grab a quick measurement as marked where the strengthening piece indents the bulkhead it would be great.

Thanks.

[Phil Planck]

My flange there is original. Will try to get a dimension for you tomorrow.

Phil

[John Pierce]

Thanks Phil. If you can't get an inside measurement then an underside measurement from the perpendicular rear side of the bulkhead would work also.

Much appreciated.


John

[Phil Planck]

John
I get 1 3/4" on both sides, measured on the rear vertical wall between the seat belt holes. Still has undercoating up there, so probably a little less to bare metal.

Phil

[tperazzo]

Top and bottom shots for ya John. Seems to agree with Foam car.






Check out that porous and pigeon shit factory weld on the seat belt anchors! I must be a perfectionist, ha ha.

[John Pierce]

Thanks Tom and Phil!!

Tom, I can't believe you haven't fixed that pigeon weld yet!

[John Pierce]

I worked a bit on the rear bulkhead floor flange, but realized I would have to dig into the rear sidewalls if I was going to make any headway. So I went back to the front sidewalls and began working my way back.



This is the patchwork of metal that I was given. It wouldn't be so bad if the underlying metal had been removed first.....not the case though.


You can see the double layers of metal. This was the good metal after I removed the layers of metal and media blasted the remaining.


My repair patch with a 90 degree floor flange and marked where the upper indent has to be formed.


The indent matches up nicely. It's a compound concavity which I was able to form with the planishing air hammer.


Welded in with spot welds at the overlap. I'll cut the triangular piece out next after I redo the left side of the car.

Thanks for looking.

[JTR70]

Great job as usual John! You did a really nice job replicating that tear-drop embossment. Fantastic!

[John Pierce]

Thanks Justin. I'm going to work from both ends of the middle longitudinal as it's a nice long straight piece. I'll get all the embossments done on both ends and hopefully the middle won't be as tough to do.


[attachment]_MG_3477 copy 2.JPG[/attachment]
On to the left side. The patchwork is a bit worse than the right side.

[attachment:2]IMG_0333 copy.JPG[/attachment]
Interestingly, the metal underneath the patches wasn't as bad so I didn't have to make the entire concavity.

[John Pierce]

Thanks Justin. I'm going to work from both ends of the middle longitudinal as it's a nice long straight piece. I'll get all the embossments done on both ends and hopefully the middle won't be as tough to do.



On to the left side. The patchwork is a bit worse than the right side.


Interestingly, the metal underneath the patches wasn't as bad and thinned as expected so I didn't have to redo the entire concavity. The horizontal bend is too low on the patch and will have to be raised.


I was able to use the template from the right side and cut it to size. It's nice to be able to retain the symmetry so easily. The bend has been corrected.


Completed. Being able to work from both sides really helps with the hammer and dolly.

Now to start on the rear of the longitudinal with the back concavity. The problem with this area on my car is that the frame member rearward of this region has been poorly redone so my feeling is it's going to be an involved process. Does anyone know what gauge metal was originally used to make the frame that surrounds the rear torsion bar and 4 large retaining nuts?

Thanks for looking.

[JTR70]

John, the before pics really remind us just how knarly this car was. Its about as bad as it gets as fish-plating and thick welds go. You're doing a fantastic job and what's more impressive is that its your first 356! Keep up the great work! Justin

[John Pierce]

Thank you Justin. Every time I take off one of those patches the car looks a bit better. The one positive thing is that some of the underlying rusty metal was left in place so I do have some original metal to use as templets. BTW: I found that the rear frame outer member is 18 gauge and the inner frame member is 19/20 gauge. The repro pieces on the market are both 20 gauge unfortunately.

Today was a productive day. Little pieces....but productive. I started repairs of the heel panel/rear bulkhead.



This is a picture of the shift linkage hole. The inner flange is near nonexistent and the ground strap weld nut has a rusted bolt broken off inside.


Close up shot of what is left of the flange. The floor flange was pretty thinned with lots of holes so that had to go also, making it easier to get tools up inside the tunnel.


Looking a lot better after media blasting and removing the rusted pieces.


This is all that was left of the inner shift linkage flange. Enough to use as a template though.


I got this at Harbor Freight and it lasted just long enough to flange and bead the piece of metal I needed. It will be going back to HF in the AM as it is a piece of junk. It bends from side to side constantly. I had to try making the piece about a dozen times before it came out correctly.


I took a piece of 22 gauge CRS and formed the initial 1mm deep bead.


I then formed the deeper 3-4 mm bead and cut to size: 8 mm rear flange with a 15 mm center section, and a 3 mm fore flange.


The diameter is 60 mm which is the exact size of a beer bottle!


Not too bad!


The ground strap weld nut is 8 mm. One problem is that is has 4 indents in the corners to look original, but these should have been formed after spot welding. I ended up placing bead welds to hold it in place with an 8mm bolt to center it.


Final result after welding. Looking from the rear.


Looking from inside the tunnel.


This is the inner boot from International Mercantile.


This is the inner boot from Stoddard.

The Stoddard boot has the correct number of "Michelin Man" humps as shown in the Porsche manual, but the one from IM looks less tacky. Does anyone have a recommendation, or does it just not matter?



Thanks for looking.

[Phil Planck]

Nice work John. If you get on the allmetalshaping forum you can find ways guys have beefed up those HF bead rollers. Still cheaper than buying one of the good ones. I have only used mine once for a project on my grandson's car. Not a HF but similar. My grandson was the crank man.

Phil

[JOP]

John, as Phil said just get it stronger so it wont flex that much....you must have some scrap laying around that you can use for this modification.
Enclosed some photos of ways to do it....or just go into one of the metalforums or google and you will get alot more of info.
Good luck

[JTR70]

Nice work on fabbing up that flange John! I'm thinking the I.M. boot looks of better quality. The shiny-plasticky boot from Stoodard does not look long for this world.