'63 356B T-6 Rebuild

[bbspdstr]

John, you may have this thought-out, but I'll say it anyway....don't fasten the front half until the rear half is jockey'd into place, as well.
Only Porsche could get away with a pre-welded whole floor as that and the rear bulkhead were where the chassis began on the jig.

I got a whole NOS pan from Dick Milstead to install in his Cabriolet and had to cut a bit off the front and weld it together again after it was in.

If the inner longitudinals are installed and complete, the "shoehorn" of the floor is difficult if not impossible if it's complete or one half is welded to the tunnel. For one thing, it's easier to get the slight 'V' one half at a time and secure those when the transverse upper/lower 'tube' mid brace is located in the notch in the tunnel's both mid-sides. Cleco or screw before welding and begin at the mid tunnel, both sides and then left and right mid-edge and lace it from there, holding the floor up under the center fore and aft as the edges can be pressed down by the drill or screw gun as you cris-cross your way from middle to front and back sequentially.....but you already had that down, right?
I thought so.
Great workmanship!
Bruce

"How long can that take?" "Why does it cost so much?"

[JTR70]

Looking great John! Make gravity your friend; roll the car upside down and lay the pans on top to center, locate and etch in the preliminary base lines at the flange leading edge. You have to crawl inside and look up but I have found it far easier to make slight shifts and changes as it goes. Just my 2 cents; a hundred ways up the same mountain.

That's a really nice car Per!

Thank you Bruce!

[John Pierce]

Thanks for the recommendations, Bruce and Justin. I've been reading lots of your old posts on this subject and I'm DEFINITELY not welding anything in position until I've got it all mocked up: Pans, pedal cluster, toe boards, seat rails and mounts..... I really don't want any surprises later on.

JOP: you're killing me!! I've not seen that before, but it definitely looks like a Karmann plug in the floor of the battery box. Some people speculated these holes were there to help drain the primer out while others have said it's for a jig. But in the battery box? It is a low spot so maybe the paint draining does make sense. Just one more thing to add to the list. Tom: you too? Great picture and thanks for sharing it!

[JOP]

Sorry John for making you work harder

But what is the 2 "round holes/bolt looking" spotted on the rear floor pan under the tranny connection ? ( just in case you have not welded the rear part in yet.... )



Sorry that I do not recall whom Credit it is for the photos that has been shown....found a couple of years back.

[John Pierce]

JOP: Those pictures are really great and thanks for sharing them!

The plugs that you are seeing are holes/plugs in the 2 seat bottoms that are also a Karmann thing. Tom Perazzo made some replacements that are exact replicas. I've got a pair, but don't know if I've got the energy to install them as the repro embossments look pretty good.



Here is a picture of an OEM plug juxtaposed to Tom's plug.



Here's another picture from Tom showing the drainage holes in the bottom rear of the floor pan.

Cheers,

John

[tperazzo]

Thanks John,
Those are impressive pictures of that C per! They cleared up a few questions I had, but also created new ones such as the battery floor plug. Now I'm wondering if karmann put two in the battery pan. The car pictured had rust under the battery but karmann certainly liked punching holes in the bottom of things. Before I add that plug in my car can anyone confirm if there are one or two plugs in the battery pan. I don't know anyone around here who has a Karmann C with the original battery box.

Here's a post suggesting two.

http://forum.porsche356registry.org/viewtopic.php?f=13&t=32593

I'm also curious how they got the undercoating off but left the factory primer! Cool stuff. I wish I would have bought that car 18 years ago instead of mine.

Tom

[John Pierce]

You're a sleuth, Tom! I've searched the R several times for Karmann holes/plugs, but never saw that picture. It would make sense to have another hole on the opposite side as everything else in the car is symmetric.

Here's another quote from the R, which backs up the hole(s) in the battery box: "Karmann bodies were dipped in primer so they had numerous holes to allow the primer to drain back out, floor pan, battery box, longitudinals, etc."

I think I may no reproduce the Karmann holes in the quarter windows and windshield as they seam to cause water ingress issues.

JP

[JOP]

Morgen John,
I did not dare to point out those Karmann holes directly 4 U.....afraid U would kill me !
But great that we atleast get one Karmann built back to factory standard
Those photos U showed were really nice to show more detailed "how to recreate it".

Tom, the 356 was ice blastered that what saved the primer and the rubber parts plus no streching/heated areas.
The battery box question.....there must be a nice untouched Karmann parked somewhere to be inspected!
We need to spread the word that everyone kneels in front of a Karmann to have a look

Happy I could help U with some more "work".... I mean information....
/ JOP

[bbspdstr]

For what it's worth, please allow me to put a practical perspective into the battery box K-hole dilemma. There is no "gospel" in any of this, just individual experiences and observations. I nor anyone I know has seen ALL 356s made, so we must be careful to not jump to any conclusions and turn those into "facts."

Before this OC interest in such details became so focused, I had a big shop in the late '70s and early '80s that took in an average of 35 Porsches at a time, primarily 356s and for restoration. I do remember seeing original Karmann cars with at least one plug in the front box, but not all, certainly not most. We ignored that back then as we were seeing anomalies and realizing that no two 356s were ever EXACTLY alike, even 'sister cars.'

I have not noticed any of those holes on the K-cars I have been involved with since the early '90s. I have only one T-6 K at my shop now, and it didn't have batbox holes when it arrived from garage storage in Wyoming since '71, so it got the generic replacement batbox floor as most have over the years, even in those few where the other more supportable/predictable details have been added to it's now-replaced floor. I have been able to procure more than just repro parts over my career and those included non-holed NOS main floors and battery box floors. As a matter of fact, no replacement floor, chassis or body parts had the holes and their over-engineered plugs of Karmann, so it was just a Karmann trait done in-house for whatever reason.

I also cannot say I have noticed any sign of 'dipping' when tearing these apart for restoration. I did notice that green primer was on the insides of some later cars' boxed panels such as lonitudinals, but it had been obviously lightly sprayed, not dipped...so they had been assembled as partially primered parts.

The C-2 (Reutter) I am working on now has "out-dimples" on the outer longitudinals (that I posted long ago here somewhere) that I had not seen before on any 356, even other C-2 models I have restored.

Welding I had not seen done "as usual" has been randomly noticed through the years and all of this I have called "the Heinz and Fritz principle" of hand built cars. Different people on different crews at different times in different manufacturing facilities.

There is more predictability in counting the dots trailing after Jim Liberty's name on an R-post than the number of spot welds on any given 356 part.

Jus' sayin,
-Bruce(.x42)

[John Pierce]

Bruce,

The Liberty dots are like Karmann plugs.....randomly placed. The least is 16 and the most is 60. (Just a quick count) They're not trailing though, they're leading Hope you know I'm just yanking your chain

I agree that the level of detail does seam a bit obsessive at times, but it's a nice diversion from my regular job. It's a great hobby, especially working in the garage for an hour after work to relax and unwind. I also understand for the restorers in the thick of it, day in and day out, this type of detail is fine, but not the end-all for a car in the shop. The insights and knowledge that you provide are invaluable and appreciated.

It would be pretty quick and easy to cut 2 plugs in the battery box floor and also replace the 2 plugs in the seat bottoms. Who knows....maybe....possibly.....

............................JP

[John Pierce]

Another repro piece to modify to allow better fitment. My car came with no "C" bracket pedal cluster support and Bubba had welded the pedal cluster to the pan. So I bought a repro piece from Stoddard, which is very well made, but the bolts weren't in good locations.



The left-most bolt did not sit against the rearward portion of the pedal cluster. Also, the bracket did not sit underneath the pedal cluster to give the best support when pushing forces are applied to the pedals. The bracket needed to rotate clockwise and be moved forward.



I dremelled out the bolts, drilled new holes and welded the old holes closed. This allowed the "C" bracket to fit tightly around the floor pan embossment. The picture shows the original holes and the amount they had to be relocated.



All the bolts now sit against the rearmost portions of the pedal cluster cut-outs and the bracket now sits directly under the pedal cluster to give the most support.



Complete and one less thing to do as the pans are fitted.


JP

[John Pierce]

I took a break from fitting the pans and worked on my pet project.....the Karmann drainage holes and plugs. Tom Perazzo and I have research it a bit more and found some more pictures and got measurements from an OEM battery box pan. So......



The left plug is centered 50 mm from the left side of the pan and the right plug is centered rearward of a pan embossment and is 600 mm from the left side of the pan. Both plugs abut the bottom pan flanges.



Looking pretty cool. The plugs are just like the K-plugs in the floor pan.


JP

[JOP]

John, that is good that you now have a " plug reference" Karmann 356
Now I dont feel that bad for giving you extra more metal work
Bye the way you need to rebrand your topic ha ha ha
/ JOP

[John Pierce]

Just a quick update as I had to work all weekend......the OTHER job!



Spot welded in Tom's replacement plugs which have a raised rim, which is different from the floor and battery pan plugs.



Looking good from the bottom. You can also see the Karmann drainage holes in the the outer rear frames near the torsion bar and also in the outer longitudinals.



Seat pans.

Thanks for following.

John

[JTR70]

Not just the plugs but the entire rear seat tray looks great! A lot of hours spent there for sure. Nice work John!