Canuck 1960B T5 Coupe Resto

[jjeffries]

Scott, I’m catching up here. Fantastic work. Like Justin and Roy said, we can all just look at these photos and understand all the time and effort involved.
How do you heat your shop? You do heat it, right?! Cheers, John.

[Scott B]

Thanks John for the compliment. The shop is my friend Bob - I pay to use and get lots of advice. Everyday is a school day with Bob. The shop is heated by a large wood firebox and boiler. You can load about 15 four foot long logs in it a day. It heats water pipes - heats his house as well and part of his airplane hanger. Bob if building/ restoring his third plane (still one more to go). This one we are getting ready to fire up the motor after 5O years of storage. It came from a museum in Missouri. Its a seven cylinder Warner engine from the 30’s. It’s a Great Lakes bi- plane - mostly canvass- for aerobatics he hopes. Incredible attention to detail on this aircraft he had done.

[Scott B]

So the car is put away in the hanger for the winter and I have switched over to mechanicals now. A whole new adventure.
completely stripped down the engine and started to investigate what’s needed.

[Scott B]

First stop was to take some of my engine parts to Walt McKay. A porsche legend in Ontario. Fascinating man. A frigg’n legend in the flesh. So much knowledge. Crank is standard not ground. Most parts look in good shape. Now it will get expensive! Heads sent off for some work - new valves ordered as well as valve guides. I had Walt pull my end bearings that were being stubborn.

[Scott B]

Found out my pistons were 30 degree not 22. Sent by me case half off to machinist to remove a stubborn snapped off cylinder stud. The off to have my crankshaft magnafluxed and polished. Another old time shop that will soon disappear. Used to be a much bigger shop when there was about 65 places rebuilding engines - now there is not much demand. This was like walking back in time. Canada Chrome and Crankshaft.

[Scott B]

While waiting for the stud removal I went ahead and ordered the AAperfomance big bore piston and cylinders for my 1600 normal. . I am struggling with getting the correct cam with some mild duration. I reached to Vic Skiematts and he put me in touch with Leanord at nueteck. Waiting to hear back. Started to bead blast parts then epoxy prime and then sprayed with clear caf/zinc for valve covers and silver cad for the others. This is so satisfying to bead blast back to clean metal and cover in paint - seeing them come back to life.
. Love the little details you find like the markings on the generator bracket that sadly fade a bit once they get primed and painted.

[Scott B]

sent my lid off to GTwerks to have louvers pressed in. Very happy with their work
,

[JTR70]

I've had a couple of lids done by them and they never disappoint. Yours' looks great!

[Scott B]

Metal work done and basic body work done. Now in the amazing hands of Nostalgic Garage to dial it in with final shaping and blocking and sanding then paint. Focus at the moment is the drivers side front fender that was 3/16 to high at upper headlight ring

[JTR70]

Its turning out great Scott. So you've turned the shell over to a body shop now?

[Scott B]

Thanks Justin. I took it as far as I could take with my abilities. I got the body about 90 percent but new there was plenty of areas needing work. The last ten percent makes all the difference between good and great getting it to a concours paint level which is so critical with these cars without a straight line anywhere. Dave is a good friend and runs a restoration shop specializing in VWs and Porsches. He is an amazing painter. His eye and hands are finding so many little refinements and nuances my eyes would never find. For example. This weeks struggle is the louvered deck lid. GT werks did a great job with the punching but the deck lid may not have been supported as well as it should have and the shape of the lid is slightly out of spec. The louvered holes have created a slight flatness to the lid in this area a few of the corners need reworking.

[JTR70]

I know what you mean Scott. There are many complex surfaces to these cars that are tough to get right. Sounds like your guy is the right man for the job. Looking forward to seeing it in a coat of color. Justin

[Scott B]

Thanks Justin. So grateful to have it in professional hands. We all invest so much time and effort on our cars and everyone on this forum has such high standards it’s always hard to hand off aspects of our project to others that we can trust to maintain the same level of expectation. Speaking of colour my original piant,code is silver metallic 608 which is a great colour but is common. Because I have gone to an outlaw approach I am now less concerned about keeping it colour correct to original. Another option I am considering is a silver metallic Porsche Gt silver 2007 that rod Emory has used which is a close match but has a bit more black and pitch which I think accentuates the lines on our cars really well. But my restorer has also challenged me to consider other more rare early Porsche or VW colours which can open up some other options . Any thoughts or suggestions on colour from the folks here on the forum????

[JTR70]

My car was 608 originally as well. I feel it leaned too dark gray for my liking. I shot mine in Mercedes Benz Astral (astro) sliver. It really pops but its not too silverly. I also bought a European brand paint for the finer flake as the domestic brands use a slightly larger flake. Hope this helps and keep us posted. Justin

[Scott B]

Lots of sanding by nostalgic garage. My hood was kinked you will recall and the gusset rewelded but at this stage some high spots are starting to surface. Dave spent some time reworking the metal to get the proper slope and alignment with the fender. It was a fight. Effort has been on the passenger side of late with lots of blocking and guide coats but starting to line up well. Another coat of epoxy to seal it up again.

[JTR70]

Its coming along nicely Scott. The reflection across the door into the front fender seams really nice and consistent. I can appreciate all the hours of block sanding and shaping your guy has in it already. Then of course the minor metal messuage you've described.

[Scott B]

Some more work achieved by Dave on the drivers side and a lot of effort (and tiny little sanding blocks) to get the rear louvers all lined up and reflection running down the crown of each another coat of epoxy to seal it up. Dave is hoping to get to polyester before Xmas.

[JTR70]

Its really looking good Scott. I can see by the overall body contour that your buddy knows what he's doing. You are very lucky to have him helping you as these little bodies are so tough to get right.

[Scott B]

Posting up Dave’s Instagram post from today 😂 as he says - a real slug fest with the GT louvers to get them all dialed in. . Dave for the win!,,. So great to have a restoration craftsman (and friend) invested in a quality outcome.

[JTR70]

I understand that one completely. Especially the masking tape on the fingers as you wear holes in yourself after all the hours of repeated block sanding. Glad to see he finally got the shoulders of the louver edges dialed in.

[Scott B]

From the start, Dave has been all focused on the unique 356 contour. I have learned a lot - finding that contour makes such a difference to the eye - hard to explain but when you see the slight difference it’s night and day. As Dave has explained to me there is a continuous line you can follow from the inside valley up at the front fender/headlight all the way to the rear and around back to other inner fender valley. One long unbroken line. He keeps checking with glide coat and wetting to make sure the light doesn’t bend and follows the continuous line around the car. He has a whole set of every sanding board with different ones used on different surfaces and uses at times long Big Kid sanding boards going full length of the side of the car with very light pressure. But he tends to favour just a couple of blocks - some are even tubes for the cowl etc. So hard to explain. When I got it about 90 percent done I did know that I was actually starting to wonder of course thinking I needed to build up in places. The funny thing is he has taken off about 7 lbs of filler - I thought I needed when in fact - to get the shape and curve on areas like lower wheel well and rocker etc and valley around the ass to window and the tricky side cowl area - more aggressive sanding what was in fact needed. It just helped to understand my limitations. All that time I took with metal work was actually closer than I thought to the nature shape which is good. Had no idea how much time and work is involved for the final 5% on the body but once done - “will break necks” as Dave explains. Yes - very fortunate to have a craftsmen take the body over the goal line. It’s a journey.