58367 The $75 Junkyard Carrera coupe restoration

[George]

Justin, Are your patch panels from a donner car or are you purchasing new panels and if so from who? I need to replace my rear passenger side floor that had a hole punched in it from one of my trip through a ditch and I also need to replace the bottom of my battery box from the same rock and trip

[gkw]

Justin
Nice fit on the jack spur. You make it look easy.
Great job.
Gordon

[JTR70]

Hi George, Thank you so much for the nice post! I don't have an official donor car though I have used alot of parts from my coupster that simply are not needed anymore for what I'm doing. I have scavenged a few parts from a dead chassis. The rear bulk-head to be exact. will post that repair shortly. If you need a floor section I would recommend Zims. Their embossments are really clean with crisp lines. Hope this helps! Thanks again!

Hey Gordon, Thank you! Actually the pictures are a little decieving. I failed to take shots of the slow process of fitting them. I tacked the top first then as it made the turn I did have to use a little heat and a few sheetmetal crews to persuade it and hold the correct position so I could weld the rest of it on snug. Nothing is ever easy; you know that dealing with your coupe I'm sure. Thanks again! Justin

Original left rocker panel repair


Initial templates to repair and replace sections of the threshold floor I butchered with my hasty removal.


one upside is the original part just slips right back in with no problems.


This front drain tray is where I did the most damage. This whole section was solid and rust free; I just did not want to be bothered with all the spot welds to remove it properly. I still kick myself in the ass over this lazy and stupid decision. You can see a little patch I had to make just ahead of the template. A bit of rust actually caused that one and not me.


It took several attempts but I finally got the template to the right size and shape.


New drain tray fabricated and welded on. The steel is provided from a badly damaged speedster door skin. Now doing a different job but I gave it another shot at service on a 356.


The correct "X" pattern has been spanked in for drainage to the hole. Ratt-tail file is in the hinge locating the access hole I need to drill to get at the lower door pin. Note the hinge halves are adjusted and on for good. To be correct these have to be painted with the car and the bolt heads must have untampered with paint.


The rear portion was a much easier and straight forward repair than the front. Patching reparing rust here this time and not stupidity.



All weld repairs completed on the rocker.


A touch more weld dressing to go but its just about ready.
Thanks for reading this! Justin

[JTR70]

With all the weld repairs to the rocker completed its ready to be reinstalled on the car. I wanted to get the underside of it in a good coat of final color first.


I know its a little out of order being ahead of more welding but I wanted thorough coverage in all the nooks. Once its mounted it would be impossible to get a spraygun down in all the blind surface areas like The 90 degree flange on the bottom even the jack spur would interfere with my coverage. Its also a really clean job where the rocker and longitudinal meet doing it this way. I'll spot repair any burned painted areas after welding.

[JTR70]

Left rocker installed.


Joined under the hinge as originally. Plug-welded to the splash pan with all joints sealed in drip-check.


A few scars but nothing serious a good coat of paint will soften them. Flange detail to the edge also repaired where it was cut.


Good even gap with jack spur and rocker skirt line in great relative position. All the time and trouble to mock everything up finally paid off here.
Right side of the car up next. Thanks for reading this! Justin

[JTR70]

To mount the right side jack spur required the same process of establishing proper door and rocker locations first. It was even more critical on this side because I was using an original donor replacement rocker panel.There was some old accident damage to the original not to mention the damage I caused when I removed it. This original donor unit from my coupster was a better candidate. I also had to repair the lower skin of the right door. Can't set the bottom gap without repairing the door first. So to install the spur I had to detour and repair the right side door first.

Right side door repair:


1989 Complete rookie mistake here; the rest of the body is in final paint. I could not motivate myself to work on this door until way after the fact. I Knew nothing of the importance of blocking everything together as a unit. I would later learn though.

This door has been trouble for me since day one. It had the usual pinholes of rust all along the bottom of the skin. The frame was in good shape and only needed two small patches front and back. The left door fared far better for some reason. It only required a small repair patch to the rear corner of the skin. My father decided to address this rusted area with the vendor style 5 inch replacement run across the lower skin. His idea was to save the money and harvest a donor lower section from an old 70's camaro door we had laying around. He thought that it was perfect because it had the lower pinch seam. I can still remember the day we were welding it on. I was in charge of the wet rag to quickly quench the one inch sections he was welding at a time. Even with my very limited experience I just hated the look of final repair. It was very wavey,anneiled and just plain ugly! To top it off there was now an old section of camaro in there as well. It was solid steel again but marginal at best. The skin was very unstable and would "oil can" if lightly pushed on. We heat shrunk the areas and it seemed to help. It took several passes of filler to get the basic shape back. Just a mess!


A decade later when I stripped this car back down this repair along with all the others was cut back out. I went ahead and bought a vendor repair section for it. Its pictured just tacked in above. I just could not bring myself to weld it in completely. I knew the minute I put heat to it that the result was going to be very simialr to what I had already removed. This is just too long of a span of near flat unsupported metal. So I avoided it again.


Always on the lookout for a better option I had purchased this really cherry T1 door from Bill Brown in Lincoln NB in '08. It turned out to be a factory NOS replacement door in mostly green primer with no ID number stamp and no signs of ever being fitted to a car with lead. Just a raw door that someone had used on thier car for only a short while it seemed. This skin which had two thin paint jobs was absolutely beautiful save for a few small dings and some holes drilled for speedster sidespears. My initial plan was to clean it up and fit it to my car. My life just got easier.


However, the more I studied it the more I discovered small structural differences that I just did not like. This car is a model year 1957 but it was completed in December of '56 making it more of a 1956 car in detail than a later 1957. This new door I had was obviously a very late production 1957 high-striker with several structeral differences to my earlier original doors. This doors inner structer had the later large knock-out access hole for the side mirror. The riveted on hinge-halves were of a slightly different casting and several sections of the frame itself went from 2 piece to single piece stampings. Certainly nothing major and most people would never pick up on it but because I'm a nut I just could not let these details go. My other problem would be I would always have this orphaned original #'s matching door to the car floating around my shop forever. I would never sell it; "its the original door to this car"! Really unable to make a final decision either way I put them both in a corner of my new shop and avoided it yet again for another 2 years.

[JTR70]

It was decision time and I could put this off no longer. I made up my mind to repair the original door. I was now weighing the options; I could do the patch panel and spend tons of time afterward trying to get the shape back after welding or I could spend about the same time and reskin the whole door and have a really clean end result. It was a no brainer I went to work on cutting the door I bought from Bill apart for my new donor repair skin.


My new skin still in the original green primer now seperated from its frame. Cleaning up all the light surface rust and getting it ready for fitment and paint.


Holes for the sidespears welded shut and dressed. I was so glad I did this. Not only was I saving the original door but once finished its going to look virgin both front and back even with the door panel removed. No typical weld joint from the patch repair.


Almost time to begin skinning the old door.


Before cutting the skin off I mounted the door back on the car to set the gaps and elevation (hinge shims) to give me a baseline on how much the door may have changed shape after this procedure. I also fabricated a Jig from some scrap tubing and welded it onto the face of the inner frame. This jig did not interfere with the door opening on the car. This allowed me repeated test fits as the work porgressed. There were many! Greg, my mentor warned me years ago that doors had a tendancy to contort or twist slightly during the rekinning process and to be sure to stabilize the frame. This jig did its job perfectly.


Original skin off. Bare chassis ready for prep and paint. Note the jig underneath. Also doubled as a steady work platform. Lots of minor trimming and many rough test fits before it mated together properly.


Both inner surfaces of the frame and skin preped and now ready to be shot with final paint.


Both in final color. Like the rocker before I know this is out of order with the welding still to come but I could not get this nice of coverage on these areas with the door reassembled.


This is really on its way to becoming the prestine door I wanted both insde and out. Thanks for reading this! Justin

[JTR70]

Welding begins


The new skin and old frame are now one unit. Time to see how its going to fit on the car. Both of the hinges had to be reshimmed to get the elevation and contour with the body to match so it did change just a bit. The rear gap was adjusted next. The front gap is totally free style at this point. Have to fill in that trough normally shaped in lead. This giant gap is what they all look like with the lead melted out.


The upper portion of the door and fender had almost zero gap once the rest of the door was in its best fitted and closed position. I had to cut the skin and move it back to create the proper distance. This meant my new paint job was going to get a little cripsy up here. No choice.


Slowly shaping the gap I need. Once this was complete I was able to create a nice line with no real filler necessary.


I did not know how to lead fill at this point and I wanted to save the original solder in the jambs. I cut the skin just at the edge and made the weld joint there. No distortion on this shouldered edge and undectable from the inside.

Now that the door was taking shape with the body it was time to see how the rest of the door components were going to fit. I installed the window frame and door glass. Of course I had a problem. Hard to see in this photo but the front top cap of this skin is stamped wider than the original. This makes it portrude too far into the channel. It's almost touching the glass in this photo. It was so tight I could not fit the door top chrome in bewteen them. Goes to show even the factory stuff won't always fit without modifications.


The only fix was to cut it back and reweld. Fortunately only the forward half needed to be addressed. The last half of it tapered into the correct position. My new inner paint job was taking a beating but again I had no choice.

[JTR70]

This upper flange now narrowed correctly and welded back together. Everything now fits fine; door frame, side glass and the base chrome strip. Nothing is ever straight forward.


Shortly after that last repair I went ahead and began filling and shaping the final front gap.


However this whole leading edge was created with bondo. Not proud of that but I did not know how to leadwork, so you go with what you know. Several months later my good friend Jason Bobruk would come by and show me how to do old school leadwork. All of this was later removed and redone in lead. The only positive thing I can say is that it was much lighter here than the door is now.


Original leadwork in the jamb saved. Again this was before I knew how to lead. Today I would not bother because I can replace it.


...and finally, that prestine door I wanted both inside and out. A much longer road but I am so much happier with the final result. The crevis/joint at the bottom has since been sealed in clear silicone. Now that I have a correctly repaired right side door after 20+ years I can now install the rocker and jackspur.
Thanks for reading this! Justin

[JTR70]

With my door finally built I could now move onto locating and mounting that right side jack spur.


Rocker being gapped to the door and jackspur being located correctly in relation to the bottom of the rocker. Same process as before.


Longitudinal and jack spur both seal coated in primer and paint.


Ready to weld. Same thing as before so I won't go into details here.




Right side spur fully welded and detailed. Like the left side I was going to put it into a final coat of paint before the rocker installation. I decided to go ahead and prep the entire bottom of the pan and get it into the done column as well. Note the tail light holes and rear bulkhead still to repair. What a job that would prove to be.




Spent better than an afternoon sanding and cleaning this floor. Note: still had to cut out that poorly executed second battery floor repair attempt. Also had yet to remove my trans tunnel bulk-head repair to make way for the 901 swing-axle being built.


Floor and right longitudinal in final paint.


It was so rewarding that night to see such a large chunk of this car in a final color coat. Ready to repair and install the right rocker panel.
Thanks for reading this! Justin

[George]

Justin, Well looks like things are coming along well. All the hard work is going to make your $75 dollar Carrera a real joy for all to see. Something you can be proud of.
Good luck with the rest of the project and thanks for sharing. George

[JTR70]

Hi George, Thanks for saying so! I hope it turns out as nice as picture in my head. Thanks again! Justin


This is an original Reutter rocker panel but not original to this car. It's from my '56 coupster project. Though now cut short for my purposes its the best and most damage free original I have. The original one to this car is both cut and dented. This is my best option.

Here it is still on the coupster. A full uncut piece. Before Craig educated me these where just old junk panels. Stupid, stupid, stupid. It would soon suffer the same fate as all the others.


Again no rust on this rocker just hasty removal. I was able to use my paper template from the other repair by simply flipping it over making things go just a little quicker.


Basic shape now in steel. (donor speedster door skin again) Rough trial fitments now begin.


Just about ready to tack this thing on.


Replacing an old brazed repair on the forward sill section here as well as removal damage. This piece is from a very rough original rocker panel. Drain tray just about welded up here.


New piece tacked into position after several trial fitments to the car. drain tray fully welded.


Final welding begins. My heavy steel table worked as a great holding jig and heat sink.


Repairs complete to the front sill and tray. In for another test fit.

Tray and all repairs fit like I'd hoped.


Top side view is taking shape as well.


Here is that old nasty donor rocker I was talking about. It came in very handy. especially for the outer skin sections. Heading to do the rear repairs to this rocker next. Thanks for reading this! Justin

[spyderwerks]

Very nicely executed Justin, congratulations your a fine Craftsman !

[gkw]

Justin
Your 356 was rusted and damaged in the same areas as my T-1 was.
The area you are working in was a tough place to to do.
Nice job, Gordon

[JTR70]

Hey Max, Thank you so much for saying that! It lets me know its on the right track. Thanks again!

Thanks Gordon, Just from the few pics I've seen of your car; we are doing a few identicle repairs. I'll get that sympathy card in the mail to you.

Right rear rocker repair:


The rear required about 3 inches of new donor sill plate to replace a very old repair done in brass. Another filler section of rocker face would be welded in seperately to replicate the factory seams.


Final test fit and ready to be welded together. I staggard the weld joint of both repair pieces for more strength and better alignment.


Welding on the sill plate finished. In for yet another test fit and its all fitting together pretty well.


All welding complete on the new pieces. These light scars will fade very quickly with a good coat of primer and paint. All the stock overlapping joints continue on through my repairs which is what I was shooting for.


Rocker has been chemically cleaned of all remaining surface rust and is now ready for final paint and installation. Thanks for reading this! Justin