'63 356B T-6 Rebuild

[bbspdstr]

The only debate would be connotation vs denotation.

The Factory books call it "New Heater" and the euphemism is "Euro heater." The thing is that the better heat comes with a price....more weight and complexity. Add to that a difficuly in sourcing replacement parts.

I would swear that Porsche designed the 356 in great mild weather, forgetting the basic creature comforts, as both heating and cooling are minimal. Gasoline heaters and turn-in vent windows on doors were 356 after-thoughts and the hot air was carry-over VW thinking. "Iff du bist kalt....dress mehr varmly!"

Thus, we Speedster drivers rarely erected the top and dressed in cold weather as if we were going skiing when merely going to the store for bread or milk and eggs. Same as winter motorcycle riding.

John, do you have the info on your car as to where it was first delivered? I.e., was it a delivery to a 'cold' country? It would be fun to know if that heater system could have been ordered for US delivery. (Yeah, I could look that up if I had more time.)

Bruce

[John Pierce]

Bruce,

I've been reading a lot of old posts about New/Euro heaters over on the R and theres always one person that takes offense about calling it the Euro system. It's pretty funny to read as it occurs in post after post and year after year. Though it's not the same poster each time.

Whatever you want to call it, it's a much warmer and safer system, especially regarding carbon monoxide

To answer your question: "John, do you have the info on your car as to where it was first delivered? I.e., was it a delivery to a 'cold' country?" Yup.....the cold country delivery was Massachusetts! I guess that's cold enough, especially in 1962 with the Cold War at its heyday. To be honest, the heater pieces came with the car as bought and who knows if the Euro heater was added later in the car's life.

[John Pierce]

On to hanging the doors.



This is what things looked like before any metal repair. Pretty nasty.



Even nastier!



New door hinge bosses were needed. I made a wooden buck and used 14 gauge plate with a template.



A little hammer time.



Looking much better.



Making sure both hinge bosses are in the same plane.



Tacked in place and verified with a metal rod.



The doors swing freely.



Now some questions for the experts All my original landmarks are missing due to the rebuild and I couldn't trust those anyhow due to Bubba's previous repair attempts.



Is this front gap too wide between the door frame and channel?



What about this bottom gap? The sill will be installed here, but is this gap too wide?



The rear gap is mobile as I removed the buttresses. I've seen other posts where the rear channel doesn't accurately follow the door frame. I can easily remedy that, but what should the gap be?

I haven't installed any of the rubber seals yet to mock up the gaps. When I do so, which ones should I install?


Thanks for the help.

John

[bbspdstr]

Hummm, I have not been on this site (or any) for a while and now see some of what I have been doing lately is the subject here. Timing. Also emailed alerts.

I don't have handy pictures but here are the highlights until a real expert chimes in:

Obviously, being "made by hand" the doors are all of a slightly different fit, car-to-car.
Coupled with that, various vendors of seals have those in their own rendition of what's "correct."
Thus, I buy every seal from every vendor and use those often huge discrepancies for fitting compensations.
The average vertical gap (channel) which will pass the "dollar bill test" when completed is 15mm, + or -. A "finger's thickness" that's tight without hurting.
The lower horizontal gap for the sill seal is USUALLY slightly wider, but a trial fit is always preferred prior to paint.
Details: if the sum of the parts that influence the rubber are taken into consideration by year and model, I use multiple layers of masking tape to mock-up the thickness of wraps of (and including) eventual paint, glue, headliner material, vinyl or leather upholstery, etc.
The door latch and jamb striker must be installed and the door window frame included in the pre-paint trial assembly. There are thinner and thicker door seals to try.
Often, the edges need to be trimmed here and there or thin shimming in the channels is needed to move the rubber seal inward or outward to get a good average. I use black thin dense foam rubber strips I cut from sheets I buy at a craft store.
Know that if a thin rubber door panel seal on the door's edge(s) is factored in, a few layers (at least 6) of tape will be a good idea.
This is all for a Coupe. Open 356s should be gapped and mocked-up on their wheels or at least suspension, fully loaded whether really weighted or the equal in anvils and sandbages, etc.
One last thought: some (most?) replacement door panels come with a bottom sealing sleeve containing a foam rod. Those rarely work as the original rubber tubing did, so remove those if they are interfering or replace them with softer hollow rubber tubes.

I am being frustrated right now with an A Coupe that was restored in Europe about 30 years ago. They used C doors and A chrome frames. Now, I am mad at myself for not noting how the frames sealed when it came in because now a decent seal fit would be best done with the thinnest seals for the door shell and the thickest for the chrome window frame and that has been shimmed and adjusted and shimmed at the door inner bottom as much as possible. I did have to straighten the frames where they were kinked at the door tops before re-plating with chrome and that should have triggered the thought that something just wasn't right!

There is more that goes into this step of de-Bubba-izing, but I will add if and when that comes to me. Seriously, I hope others with experience in this step, well, step forward.

Bruce

[tperazzo]

Hey John,
Here's some shots of my seal channels with door installed. I haven't installed the seals yet, but I doubt I'm going to do any more metal work on these. I plan to modify or shim the seals as needed. As Bruce says it's about a fingers width. A pinky in the B pillar gap. Index finger everywhere else. Please don't take this as gospel because my car has been through a lot of repairs as you have seen.

[Don C]

Tom, I thought your car was ready for the painter, is this another project?
DC

[John Pierce]

Bruce and Tom,

Thanks for the advise with the door to body gaps. I mocked up my rubber seals and put 6 layers of tape on the door to get an idea of how things would fit when done. There is still a pretty sizable gap between the door and rubber seal.

Bruce mentioned that "the average gap between the vertical body channel and the door, which will pass the "dollar bill test" when completed, is 15mm, + or -." I measured the distance from the door to the edge of the U-channel at about 16 mm. Is this the correct location where to measure? Someone on the R posted years ago that they got 11 mm. If need be I can remove the U-channel and weld it in closer to the door.

The "index finger's thickness" test without hurting works out fine, unless I've got really wide fingers








Thanks.

John

[Jack Staggs]

[quote="bbspdstr" post=35816]

I am being frustrated right now with an A Coupe that was restored in Europe about 30 years ago. ... a decent seal fit would be best done with the thinnest seals for the door shell and the thickest for the chrome window frame and that has been shimmed and adjusted and shimmed at the door inner bottom as much as possible. I did have to straighten the frames where they were kinked at the door tops before re-plating with chrome and that should have triggered the thought that something just wasn't right!

There is more that goes into this step of de-Bubba-izing, but I will add if and when that comes to me. Seriously, I hope others with experience in this step, well, step forward.

Bruce[/quote



All good advice, Bruce. I've been there and done that as well, sometimes in the reverse order. Ha!

[bbspdstr]

Back from a trip:

The other thing to strive for is an evenness in raw gap. John, that mid-lower front drivers gap may measure 16mm but the other parts, upper and lower, look better.... but what are they? (that's really rhetorical.)

Simple physics, or geometry, or some other class I missed while in the gym in high school insists that the front toward the hinges can crush better....but too much resistance there can compromise the rear end of the door being able to crush the seal as well... back there. A balance is needed. The thin chromed window frame is weaker and needs more aggressive contact to do the same dollar bill slide-out test. It's a lot of adjusting or you get really lucky.

Another thing is to anticipate (with tape, usually,) both sides of the opening, not just the door. That includes the 'wrap' on the cockpit side of the gap; headliner, vinyl or leather, both ......and the door top inner 'garnish rail" that may or may not influence any fit areas.

The 'wrap' of material is usually at least a millimeter if not more. The angle in the seal channel makes a need for a cut in the hollow 'bulb'/rear of the rubber seal at that point to keep it flat when glued.

So, about the same thickness as the rubber on the door under the upholstered panel, front and rear and about the same over the outer edge of the seal channel on the body, install the rubber of choice (which will be too long so as to allow a 'tail' of skived seal over the ribbed threshold mat a short way over the quarter-round door bottom seal onto the horizontal...and tape in place here and there.

Install the door latch and striker on the lock-post and adjust the door to be level with the rear quarter panel and the door front to the fender, as well. Then place a dollar bill in the closed door, with chrome channel in place, and see if the dollar can be pulled out easily or not a all....or just a smooth tug, which is what you want.

Sometimes, shims ARE needed....Porsche did that, regularly. Now, most seals are different...and we are talking about millimeters here.

I have had to remove a couple of millimeters to make room on the outer edge of a channel with tin snips. I've had really tight spots where the rear (in the channel) of the hollow area of the seal was trimmed off and that worked. Sometimes both.

Whether the door was original or the car was hit and tweaked a little, I couldn't tell....but I'm speaking of 356s already painted and the doors not closing well or have air noises or water leaks. All the fitting should be done prior to paint. Yes, it take more time to pre-fit everything, but that's what a good job requires....51 or more years down the line.

Bruce

[Phil Planck]

Thanks Bruce.
John. Did a check on foam car drivers door. About 1/2" gap at front and tighter than that at rear. Have most of the tale build up per Bruce and old rubber installed. Closes pretty nice. Will try the dollar bill test


edit - I tried doing this direct from cell phone where I had pics. Pretty bad. Will do it the old way on the laptop next time.

[Jack Staggs]

Don't count on your old seals to be an accurate gauge, unless you plan to use them again. It's not uncommon for us to spend an entire day (8 hrs) or more on a single door to obtain a reasonable fit, using new seals. Like Bruce, we have a wide variety/styles of door seals from different manufactures. The proof is always on a test drive to determine exactly if/ where wind noise originates from, using an open tube stethoscope, as some areas can fail the dollar bill test, but have negligible or even beneficial effect on wind noise. It's a game with no rules sometimes.

[bbspdstr]

Very nerdy but very long in my 'arsenal' is a transmitter that I place in the closed car and a variably silent or chirping receiver I wave or pass around the door opening on the outside. The receiver tells me where the true air leak is by chirping. If it remains silent....I'm amazed and relieved!
Needs batteries, so the latest tests have required less actual money be spent...actually just a dollar bill!

In this exercise, no one can recommend a better seal than another. Even those out there are a moving target and one example from one supplier will fit fine on one side of the car and not on the other. Just know that with patience, anyone can prevail....

Bruce

[John Pierce]

Thanks for all the replies. The front left door gap for the rubber is too wide on my car even with a numbers matching door and original front fender and rubber channel. I'm going to have to play with it some more and will probably need more advise. Meanwhile, I went to the opposite side to install the hinge standoff.




I made a new standoff and installed it. Much less perseveration after having installed the left side.



Lots of double and triple checking to ensure that the door gaps were good and the door swung freely.




Template and hinge boss cap.



Everything buttoned up.



It's always interesting to look back to where this area started.


Thanks for following and have a great Thanksgiving.

[Don C]

Nice work John! Looks like the guy who worked on your car did the metal work on mine.

[ukinusa]

yepp - Bubba got around. Maybe a new thread on ABCGT for a "Bubba Competition" around the New Year Time ....to lighten those dark nights !