1961 Sunroof Coupe - The slippery Slope.

[JTR70]

Steve, Thanks so much for sharing this build with us! The story of your trials and tribulations while on the 356 learning curve ring true. I've made countless mistakes along my 25 year journey; for instance doing longitudinal repairs twice and a battery box floor repair three times before I finally figured it out. I'll continue to make more but you do at least figure out that its wrong a bit quicker. It was pleasure meeting up with you this week and I wish you the best of luck on your up coming A project. I'm happy to help if I can at any time.
Thanks again for posting your builds! Justin

[John Pierce]

Hi Steve and welcome. It's good to see another 356 being saved.

[ukinusa]

Hi sorry should have completed my profile - up by Zion NP in Utah ...name is Steve (or Stephen when I am in trouble with the one "who must be obeyed". This car is in final paint and being reassembled which means I only have another 2 years to go ! So a story of sorts will unfold in the coming days to bring this blog to date. Then its onto project #2 a 57 coupe.

[foamcar]

UK
Welcome aboard. Lot's of us have been through this or are going through it now. My front end was similar but filled with lead. Am working on it now under "The Resurrection of Foam Car" thread. Where are you located?

Phil Planck

[JOP]

Hi UK in USA,
So you ended up on the wrong side of the pond

Nice to see one more 356 getting pampered.
You will learn alot on your journey to fix it....as you already pointed out.

But heay there is alot of help on this forum if you need it
Looking forward to more photos from you.

Cheerio
Per

[ukinusa]

Don't go digging in the dirt (aka bondo) unless you take antidepressants first. If you look closely at the head light bowl rim you see there is no rim, it smooths right out to nothing...

So I started to dig

and dig some more

and some more


and then got very depressed...



but even better was to come !

[ukinusa]

When you don't know where your going, its hard to make a plan how to get there ! I thought I could "just" do something simple, clean it up and have fun all in just a few months. I had no idea I would be doing a bare metal repair job ! Once the old under seal came off - why put new right back on ??? and while at it do the front steering etc.


This all had to redone after paint overspray got everywhere ! Even though I thought I had it masked everything off well. "Well" was not good enough. Lesson 4 - plan and think ahead and most of all, don't put top finishes anywhere near areas that are going to need extensive work. That is so obvious now ;-(

[ukinusa]

But at least I could add the two gas/water drain tubes back in that had rotted off

[ukinusa]

Started chipping of the old sound deadening paper and tar. An old wood chisel worked well as well as a heat gun. Removed the gas tank to find a rotted out gas tank floor. Being cheap I decided to make a section myself.

Humm easier said than done, but it looked OK - well sort of. I made and welded on one rib as I had no means to press anything; several months later I ripped it out in disgust and brought a vendor replacement. Lesson two: unless you are good and have the skills the time and effort aren't worth it !


But the quality of the new floor frankly sucked, badly finished and welded and I can't see why it was sold and I should have returned it. Lesson three: Don't be shy to talk with suppliers - if it is cheap understand why ! (I was suckered !)

[ukinusa]

So as can seen I built a tip over frame

and made mistake number one: the wheels. To small and too far inboard and complete waste of time, broken off several times so spend the money and go big !

and weld those wheels strongly !

[ukinusa]

3 years ago I acquired this car from a friend, he originally had 'sellers remorse' but that very soon disappeared as I started to look more closely at what he had sold me !

We are still good friends ! My original intent was just to do a quick paint job and enjoy the car and have some fun, somewhat naive in retrospect.



My skills were pretty limited when I started and I made some choices I regret, but mistakes make us human and lessons learned etc. Feel free to ask any questions ...