'63 356B T-6 Rebuild

[DG58INNM]

John,
This is shaping up very nicely. Any time you feel like coming to New Mexico and taking over on my projects, feel free!

I think #17 in the e-brake relay diagram is a bushing. From your photo I think it may be in place over the pin already. I'll look at one of mine this evening to be sure, but probably others will chime in before then.

DG

[Phil Planck]

Very nice John. Lot of work there, but it really looks great now>
Phil

[tperazzo]

John that flared tube turned out great! Nice work everywhere and superb attention to detail. Always look forward to these update posts.

[JTR70]

You're really nailing all the details, Beautiful job John!!

[John Pierce]

Buttoned up the pedal bulkhead bumpout. It took much longer than I expected due to necessary remodeling.


The bumpout measurements were spot on side to side, but were off by 2-3 mm front to back. I had to rebend the flanges to get it to sit correctly.


A bit of welding and grinding and things are complete.


I ended up TIG welding the funnel onto the 12 mm tube and everything lined up nicely. TIG is so nice to work with. Congrats Justin on your purchase. There are a lot of spot welds to mimic so I'm still using MIG mostly.


The bulkhead and bumpout provide a lot of strength to the front end. Things are now much more solid.


The next job is to start working on the pedal bulkhead supports.

Thanks for looking.

[JTR70]

Thanks John, really looking forward to taking delivery of it. You're doing such a clean job on this bulkhead; beautiful work! Keep going!
Justin

[John Pierce]

Installed a bunch of fiddly parts on the front end I want to get these things installed before moving onto the diagonal cross brace.



Tow hook. Everything epoxy primered. I bought rivets, but wanted a real tight fit so ended up using 1/4"-20 button head bolts and really snugging them down.


The areas under the tow hook parts were epoxy primered, inside and outside the battery box.


I then put a dollop of weld in the bolt head hole and top of the nut then ground them down to look like rivets. As Phil said: a faux rivet.



Battery holder installed with the spot welder. The rear top of the holder is 7 1/4" from the rear wall. Thanks guys for the measurements. The inside was epoxy primered as that area is not going to see the light of day again.



Onto the front longitudinal reinforcement piece for the later 356's. The area was epoxy primered as was the inside of the reinforcement as these pieces notoriously rust out. The flanges were primered with zinc weld-thru.



I looked at a few of these reproduction pieces and found that the Simonsen piece had the nicest curves and just looked right.



Everything buttoned up. The extra piece of metal near the torsion support will be removed when the diagonal is installed.


Thanks for looking.

[Phil Planck]

Quality work John
Looking better with each post.

Phil

[JTR70]

Beautiful John! The curve you're describing in the lower reinforcement piece is there to create weakness or a crumble zone to try and localize potential accident damage. Keep up the great work! Justin

[Jack Staggs]

That dip near the lower torsion bar bore is there so that the lower leg of the shock absorber can be slid on or off of the stud on the control arm. Without this relief, the control arms would have to be pulled off of the torsion bar a bit for shock r&r. Bad scene, Bix.

[JTR70]

Definitely Jack, it does provide as a side benefit additional wiggle room for shock-absorber service but that isn't its only purpose.

Late T1 Speedster with original first gen. reinforcement strut without recess shape.

It was tight but the shock was removed first.


Fast forward to 1959. Like you said a lot more wiggle room but at the same this new profile relief has compromised its strength. Its designed to fail and buckle right there first. If shock clearance alone was its only purpose it would have been far more structurally prudent to lower the entire profile of this strut and eliminate this relief. A while back we discussed the various "weaknesses" both fore and aft of the front torsion housing that Porsche was beginning to introduce from T1 to T2. Its starts at the bottom of page 2 on up through page 4. http://www.abcgt.com/forum/4-356-Forum/5072-Evolution-of-the-356A-T1--T2-How-they-differ.html?limit=6&start=6 See what you think of our theories.

[Jack Staggs]

Good that you were able to remove the front shocks In the past couple of years, I have had two different mid/ late '57 Speedsters in the shop and there was no way those front shocks were coming off without additional work. One with Koni, the other with German Boge. I couldn't tell you the difference from these cars to the one in your photo. They looked very similar, IIRC.

[JTR70]

Oh, maybe I shouldn't have been able to do that then. The rubber bushings were probably so ratted out that I had more maneuverability than I should have had. Never tried installing new shocks on that Speedster so I'll take your word for it... Okay, so the relief definitely serves two purposes then.

[bbspdstr]

Geez, guys....next we'll ass-u-me that the gas tank was flattened and moved forward on a T-6 as an additional 'crumple zone' and not just to allow more luggage and external gas filling.

We may be giving the engineers at Porsche too much credit. I'm guessing that the scallop for the shock R&I was done due to complaints from the field. When were "flat rate" and "book time" instituted?

I've owned, driven and serviced 356s from a '51 to a '65 and been amazed at the changes that appeared all along. Some seemed planned and some seemed random. Most good and a few bad during model evolution, some designed and some done quickly due to a 'holy shit!' realization....bottom sender T-6 tanks come to mind......but overall, we love 'em because they were a great evolution from their roots, the VW.....and most of us have owned at least one of those, I'll bet.

-Bruce

[JTR70]

Thanks Bruce. I think you're probably correct, Roy and I may have gotten too far out into the weeds and perhaps given more engineering credit than in reality there actual was. As both you and Jack said guys were having problems removing the shocks when that '57 brace was introduced and the swoop was a simple correction added for clearance, nothing more nothing less. We are very fortunate have you seasoned pro's here to keep us hacks from getting too far out of line. Thanks again Guys!

Sorry for the detour on your build post John. Keep up the fantastic work!
Justin