The Swiss Miss ('64 C #126687)

[bbspdstr]

The key to Porsche in the snow is the tire size. 5.60x15 studded snow tires worked best on my 356s, but 'micro-siped' Michelin X-stops were good, too, year 'round.

Micro-siping was done with a razor knife, the slices across each block of the tread gave what is now called a "Blizzac" (spelling?)....better grip on slippery stuff.

We did ice racing. Thought in the beginning that a big gas tank would be a great idea...add weight! Nah, ya sipped gas with a light pedal and weight meant more inertia to overcome in trying to turn. Wasted a few 356s that way, as cornering often included just bouncing off an adjacent car or driving the "outer line" where the frozen slush built up.

I drove a '97 twin-turbo in the snow one winter a few years ago....scary! The tires were too wide and too smooth. No turning OR stopping! On the Interstate, I was the fastest in the dry and the slowest in the snow and couldn't wait to get off at a tippy-toe at my exit!

Dave, have fun in the green machine, snow or not...life is short!

-Bruce

[DG58INNM]

I really have not forgotten you guys. Check in every few days to see who is doing what. But I've not been very good about commenting. And have not had all that much to crow about. Progress on the Swiss Miss has been slow. A brief flurry of activity over the Christmas holidays. Then nothing until a couple weeks ago.

Funny coincidence. As John was working on the left side rear frame/longitudinal of his T6, I was working on almost exactly the same pieces on the right side of mine. I didn't take much in the way of pictures while working. But I do have a few photos of the finished product. Nothing you guys have not seen before. Pretty much "run-of-the-mill" metalwork for this crowd I think, but here they are.

The outer rear frame repair, made from 16ga (like John noted, a real booger to hammer this into shape). I bought the official repair pieces for this. They are crap. Way too light gauge, and not very well formed. About the best I can say is that they made a decent template to make my own repair piece from. That heat tube going through the frame member is a combination of new straight tubing mated to the original curved piece.


Inner rear frame member repair. As above, made my own reapir piece from 18 ga, using the "official" purchased repair piece as a template. Anybody want to buy a set of RD inner/outer right side rear frame repair pieces cheap?


Heat tube back in place, after repair to ledge (about the lower 2" of inner longitudinal) and replacing both heat tube supports. Fortunately the paper mufflers in this car were in pretty nice shape.


Here's a small detail. I think its not correct for a C, but has been on other cars I've had. A small support bracket for the heat tube. Don't remember if I did this on the left side or not, but figured it couldn't hurt. Did not have the correct factory strap clamp. Hope you guys will forgive me for using a hardware store hose clamp.


Front section, showing the little closing piece that spans the gap in the "ledge" Kind of a fun little piece to make and install.


Fitting the jack spur to the longitudinal. Outer long. slit at the flanges to make it flexible, wrapped tight, clamped and screwed in place. Install rocker temporarily. Locate jack spur, fit and shape jack spur flange for a close fit, then install with a few screws. Weld the slits up, remove the long., then spot weld the jack spur to the long. That's the process I've settled on. Kind of tedious, but the final install is super easy then since the long. has the right curvature.

[DG58INNM]

Here's the jack spur after welding and installation of the long. These spurs were apparently dansk parts. The square receiver in them is very light metal, not as robust as original. Although I'm certain the fit and welds of the spur to the long is plenty sturdy, I'd be worried about the integrity of the spur itself if jacking the car. Fortunately, I doubt I or anyone else would ever use it for that purpose. Jack spurs are sort of ornamental now I guess.


Finished longitudinal/frame member/door cell area. What I didn't show in this series were the repairs to the door cell. When I started the right side, this is what I did first, and wasn't taking pictures.


Heres a little bit of it. All new metal in both the vertical and horizontal door cell pieces. The embossed circle was done with a press. An old 356 cam gear provided the negative, and a 911 gear selector sleeve the positive. Pressed the shape, then used the press again with a flat plate of steel over the cam gear to flatten out the wrinkled metal. A little hammer work to finish and I had a passable repair piece to use. The price was right anyway.


Another shot of door cell/front long cavity.


And what I was up to yesterday. A cardstock template for the front inner closing panel. Transferred this to steel and cut to shape. Going out this evening to weld it in place.


And one more photo, if you'll pardon the non-356 content. Charlotte and I took the funky green targa to California week before last for vacation. 2800 miles, 2000 of which were done with the top off. In February no less! Up the coast from LA to San Francisco, and back down. Kept a sharp eye peeled for Bill and the Woodie while going through Malibu, but missed him! Yeah, I'm bragging, but damn it was fun trip.


Thanks,
DG

[Jonesy_356]

Really neat work, mate. Very good results. I am pondering not fitting jack spurs, but it just doesn't look finished then, does it.

Jonesy

[John Pierce]

DG,

Looks great. You are absolutely correct about those replacement panels by RD.....only good for templates. Even with that they don't fit great. I ended up cutting mine out and making my own out of the correct 16 and 18 gauge metal. Your inner corner turned out great with a nice convexity. I couldn't get mine to curve exactly correct, but very close. Then again it'll never be seen once everything is installed

I'm working on my front left door well too. It's interesting to figure out the jigsaw puzzle and how the pieces fit together.

Sounds like you had a nice vacation.

Cheers,

John

[JTR70]

Those repairs look factory clean David! Great to see you two out driving and enjoying that Targa.
Justin

[roy mawbey]

David,

Some nice repair work you are doing. Just looked back a few pages. Those area's are not easy. By the way the sockets for the jack don't look that different to my originals. Maybe your photograph of course.

I still use my jack points from time to time maybe because I always have since the 60's. I did add some re-inforcement to them many years ago when I added a few patches to my still mainly original logitudinals. That's my trouble these days 40 years on everything works, there is no visable rust because although I am driving it a lot its never in the wet.

When I see all the guys here doing some fantastic repair work and fabrication it makes me secretly a little annoyed I am not ripping mine apart to make perfect repairs of yesteryear.

I never had a rotisserie either David but they certainly look useful to me. I attach a photo of my car raised for work over my self built pit and garage of a previous house I first mortgaged in the 1960's.

It sort of worked better than laying on my back welding but I do wonder now how much it twisted the poor old body. ( not mine the cars
of course



Nice thread David.

Roy

[DG58INNM]

Where does the time go. Just realized its been over a month since the last update. Oh well!

After the frame member/heat duct/longitudinal repairs, I went to tackle the rear closing panel. Looked pretty funky around there!



But after getting the rusty fringes of the inner fender and old closing panel trimmed away, things looked better.



Got a brand spanking new RD rear closing panel, easy job I think, right? Wrong.



This makes me crazy. Part was not even close, in any direction. How much friggin' harder would it be to make this right, compared to making it wrong? I sprang for a pair of Simonsen panels from Zims. Plenty of meat on these, so will require trimming.



Getting there



Welded



And the lower edge of the inner fender repaired and overlapped as original. Still need to repair the lower edge of the inner fender going rearwards from the closing panel, back to about the bump stop. Project for another day.



Thanks,
DG

[John Pierce]

Looks great, DG! I can't believe that RD is selling something like that. It is WAY too small. I used the rear closing panels from Stoddard, which were well made. Not as much trimming required as the Simonsen panels.


JP

[DG58INNM]

Next round. Fitting the rocker panel. But repair to the lower door jamb required first. Cut away rusty lower couple inches.



Repair piece fitted



Welded and finished



Rocker installed and welded around the rear door jamb. As close I could get to a smooth tight weld here, without it being a big fillet. I think a cylindrical burr will clean it up to nearly a square joint.



Thanks,
DG

[John Pierce]

You're ahead of me at that location, which is great. I get to see how you repaired it

Thanks for posting.

JP

[DG58INNM]

Thanks John. I have mixed feelings on stuff like those RD panels. On the one hand, its great that people make stuff for our cars, and a lot of it is really useful. On the other hand you find a lot of things that are not very good and it really wouldn't be any more work to make them correctly. Not limited to any particular vendor either. All have some stuff that is good, and some stuff that is not so good. This particular piece just really set me off because I was in the middle of a great weekend working on the car, pulled out that panel, and it stalled me out.

I saw the Stoddard parts you used on your car. Looked pretty good.
Take care,
DG

[JTR70]

Thanks for the update David, Nice finish work as always! I think that RD panel should have been advertised as a "partial patch". Rare but in the case of not needing to open those original flanged edges it may have worked out nice. I feel your frustration though, always better to have more than not enough. Keep it going, this month is going to fly by too!
Justin

[Phil Planck]

Not trying to defend RD, but if you look at the first pic on post 33000, it looks like the original metal that the closing panel welds to at the top angles down quite a bit lower than the repair piece. RD part might have just made it if that is the case. Still, should be extra metal up there.

Phil

[DG58INNM]

Thanks Justin. Yeah, if a guy needed a round patch for the indentation it would have been just fine. But like you said, how often does that happen. Usually they are rusted at the edges.

Phil, don't get me wrong. I'm not picking on RD. I've bought and used lots of their stuff, and glad as much useful stuff is out there as we have. But sometimes you have to wonder. Anyone who had ever tried to install this panel would instantly realize there isn't quite enough of it to do the job. I could have added to the top of it OK, but all the way around was too much.

More updates. First a little patch panel for the inner fender well. Fortunately I had a scrap of inner fender from a parts car that was virgin and unrusted. Easy job to cut out the old and weld in the new.




Then back to finish the rocker/fender joint. cut a little "window" around the wire, on both the fender and rocker. Welded in a short section of wire. A 16d nail was the perfect raw material.


Then welded in a piece to close the "window", and hammered it around the wire. Some care went into making sure there was a nice continuous curve from rocker into fender. Seen a large number of cars which have a little kink where the fender meets the rocker. A fair number of these were done by so-called professional restorers



Finished view of the lower rocker edge and position of the jack spur. Kind of subjective, but I think it is sitting about right.



Thanks,
DG