'63 356B T-6 Rebuild

[roy mawbey]

John,

That welding and preparation looks so good!!!

Roy

[John Pierce]

I've owned a couple of 356 coupes and really enjoy the coolness of the greenhouse in the summer. Hah!! The OEM air conditioning (front vent windows) doesn't live up to expectations, though. I've always liked the look of a sunroof 356, so I thought: why not install one?!!



Back in 2014 Adam Wright had a 356 C clip for sale, which was not too far from me, so I bought it. It was missing a few parts, but I thought: how hard can it be to find 50 year old SR parts? Shouldn't be too bad. Right!!



Some parts were NLA, like the SR cover inside frame. I was lucky to have a local friend who had one that was apart so I took measurements and made some drawings.



It turned out pretty nice.



Over the course of several years I was finally able to locate all the missing parts



It was actually fun tracking them down and I was able to meet a lot of nice Porschephiles along the way.

The saga continues.......

[John Pierce]

The Golde sunroofs have front and rear drains. The front drain travels along the A-pillar then under the dash then out the door well. The rear drain exits from the side of the C-pillar in the T6 cars. The rear drain on earlier cars exited into the engine bay.



This the the donor right A-pillar with the OEM plastic tube inside the U-channel along the inner edge of the A-pillar. The tube is held in place with caulk.



After tube removal and media blasting. The U-channel was not in the best of shape after 50 years.



Time to make new U-channels out of 20 gauge CRS.



Finished product. Instead of arc welding the top and bottom as OEM I added 3 holes for spot welding.



Installed and primed. I added the oval hole in the lateral portion of the dash to accommodate the plastic drainage tube.



I added a hole above the speaker cut-out for the drainage tube to enter the door well.



I added a hole in the foremost portion of the door well floor. The drain travels behind the speaker cavity buttress so it doesn't get caught on the door when opened and closed. The water then drips out the bottom of the car.



The passenger side was a little tricky as the T6 cars also have a metal drainage pipe from the cowl.

Onto the rear drain.....

[Scott B]

John, interesting project -applying some nice thinking, skills and ingenuity. Good job

[JTR70]

You're doing a nice job on this conversion John! Did you buy that entire clip as pictured or just the roof. It seems you could have used those rear fenders as well. (before you fixed them)

[John Pierce]

Hey Justin. I bought the rear clip as shown in the first picture. Once everything was media blasted things did not look as good as originally shown. During the rebuild of my B-pillars and rear longitudinals I was able to use the OEM clip dimensions to help rebuild my car. The rust worm got ahold of some of the clip metal and it was better to make replacement parts with fresh metal.

[John Pierce]

Onto the rear sunroof drains.



The rear sunroof drain empties out of a hole in the C-pillar in the T6 cars.



The factory placed lots of lead in the drainage hole and around this area to give a smooth transition.



Unlike the front drains, the rear drains flow from one metal drain to a second metal drain, connected by a short piece of plastic tubing. Cars earlier than the T6's had a plastic drain emptying beneath the engine bay.



The drains are easier to see after media blasting. The inner roof edge was also cut back to accommodate the metal drain. The holding tab was spot welded to the rear window flange and sandwiched between the quarter window flange.



I cut both rear drains out of my clip for deconstruction. You can see how these were installed by the factory.



The extraneous metal was removed leaving just the drains, which I primed as they cannot be primed after installation. I had to remove a lot of OG lead from the bottom of the drains. They will be installed next.

Thanks for following and Happy New Year to everyone.

[John Pierce]

Now for the big leap. Sunroof deconstruction and transplantation.



The sunroof frame has 2 front braces and 3 braces along each side to stabilize it.



The front and sides of the SR opening are flanged then spot welded to the SR frame while the rear flange is longer and bent 180 degrees to wrap around the frame cross brace.



Ron Roland and Jim Kellogg list 4 ways to transplant a sunroof. I chose the method of cutting out the SR frame and leaving a piece of donor roof around the edge which will be flanged for welding. After lots of reading and contemplation I thought that this would be the easiest approach and least fraught with potential misalignments.



The process began by taking LOTS of measurements to ensure proper alignment.



Each 356 was manufactured with holes in the windshield which allowed good points of reference.



I then made templates of the correct roof curvature so I could replicate it on the recipient.



Template for the side curvature. A rear opening curvature template was also made.



Boom!! 2.5 cm front and side flanges with a 7 cm rear flange to incorporate the frame cross brace.



Naked frame.



Sanded and primed leaving bare metal at the areas to be welded.



Now to take a deep breath before cutting into the recipient!!

John

[Phil Planck]

John
Great documentation and we'll thought out plan of attack.
Phil

[badsix]

looks like your taking your time fit up is crucial. from your past work i'm sure it will look great.
I didn't know the drains came out the side like that. It seams crude that a manufacture would do that when it could have been run on down into the wheel well area. maybe they figured more tube more area to plug up.
Jay D.

[bbspdstr]

John, it is a treat to see your usual superlative work.

I, too, always wanted a sunroof if I owned/drove a 356 Coupe (other than my "commuter" '53s [51604 and 51605] in the '60s). When I sold my last Speedster a few years ago, I bought a '58 A Coupe and decided that I was either going to re-do it to look like a "Speedster with a Hardtop" or better yet, just put a sunroof in it. The need for more headroom and less time involved won. Eventual better resale value won over 'outlaw' as well. Bad enough it has 'numbers unmatching' disc brakes and a late, late .10 trans and a betterer C/SC/whatever-I-had-laying-around unmatching engine.

You wrote: "Ron Roland and Jim Kellogg list 4 ways to transplant a sunroof. I chose the method of cutting out the SR frame and leaving a piece of donor roof around the edge which will be flanged for welding. After lots of reading and contemplation I thought that this would be the easiest approach and least fraught with potential misalignments."

Hummm, perhaps my way of doing mine was wrong?.......I did it the way Golde did it.

I will dig up pictures, but a few years ago I took the added parts I needed from a 'clip' I had traded time for on a Cabriolet resto. The owner of the Cab had originally intended to put the sunroof in a Cab hardtop, but the costs of his standard restoration eliminated that desire for gilding of the lily.

I cut a hole in my Coupe's roof, leaving the same amount for a flange as the clip. I bent the edges over carefully a little at a time and added "handles" for leverage on my shrinker tool to form the correct contours as I went (the roof is just sheet metal), then welded in the additional pieces harvested from the old clip under it.

Granted it's mechanically operated, has a more simplistic drain system and slightly smaller panel, but it was leaded all around, here and there, originally, so.......leading (ledding ) is to me preferable to a perimeter butt weld. To each, their own, right?

I just took in an SC Coupe with a sunroof and the correct rear drain outlets and the patient long-waiting long-time owner told me he had that installed decades ago, so when it is stripped I will get to see how that was done....just curious is all.

Keep up the great work as an inspiration to all of us. Rumor has it that your next change to your shell is the rear engine surround for that 2 liter 4 cam engine you found years ago..........I can't wait.......

Best for the New Year,
Bruce

[roy mawbey]

John,

Your method is very well explained and great photo's. I would have really liked a sun roof on my 'A' but it wasn't there when I bought it and its a big job to take on if thats the case. Great though on a hot day with vinyl seats!

Good thread!
Roy

[JTR70]

WOW! Almost time to take the plunge...Nice work and planning John.

[John Pierce]

Thanks guys! I got some time to work on it this week and will post some pix.

Bruce: I read about the way you did it like OEM and Ron liked that way the best also. In retrospect, it might have been a better way to go as there is less heat introduced that results in metal warpage. I'd like to see those pix if you find them.


Cheers,

John

[jjeffries]

The funny thing is how many of the 911 crowd are removing their factory sunroofs in search of lightness and maybe, "thread cred". I love sunroofs, at least nice factory versions. John.