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Restoration Journal of a 1958 Porsche 356A Cabriolet
Tuesday, September 07, 2004
Left Longitudinal and Floor Pans
We finished the left longitudinal earlier in the week. This side took us less than half the time required of the right side. I'm sure it was more due to the fact that we knew what we were doing this time. At the same time, it was in much better shape to start out with. The inner wall on this side was in good shape and needed very little work. All I really had to do was attach a new ledge for the floor to attach and patch one small area of the heater tube.
I bought a new bulkhead replacement piece from Stoddard this week. On Sunday morning I cut out the old one and tacked the new one into place. This was tough and I'm not real happy with the fit. This is a complex shaped part and would have been much easier if I had a rotisserie to work on. Once the front floor pan is welded in at the paremeter I'll finish fitting the bulkhead.
With the longitudinal in, new floor pan ledges installed, and the old floor cut out, we spent more than 8 hours on Saturday fitting the floor pans. When you get the new pans, they are about 2" wider and 2" longer than you need. They do this so that you have plenty of material to cut the floor to fit. Without a picture, it's hard to describe how to set the floor in place and trim. This is not a one man job. We are fortunate that we have an open top car. I can't imagine how difficult this would have been in a coupe having to slide the floors in through the doors.
Once we had the floors cut to size, we set them into place. With a jack under the floor where the tunnel meets the overlapping floors and Theresa standing on the ledge, I used 1/8" rivets every 6" or so to hold the floors in place. This is temporary and the rivets can be pulled out much more easily than spot welds if I don't like the fit. I have alse heard of people using sheet metal screws for the same purpose. With the floors and bulkhead in place, I started the plug welding on the parameter. Remember to keep the heat low so the body doesn't start to twist. This means I did three or so spot welds and then skipped about 12" for the next three or so spots. At this point I ran out of gas in my welder.
Over the next week I'll be finishing the floor pans up by installing new ledges around the tunnel, seat mounts, toe board mounts, and peddle mount.
The best instruction that I found on this process comes from the "Technical and Restoration Guide" published by the 356 Registry. The article I referenced the most was by Ron Roland on page 312. Jim Kellogg's book "Guide to Do-it-Yourself Restoration" is also a good resource. Pictures should be posted soon in the photo page.
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Lesson Learned: When I later installed the wood toe boards, I found that I did not have the pedal assembly in the right place. I had the pedal assembly too far forward which required me to make significant mods to the boards. My suggestion is this: When you install the pedal assembly, make sure you use the new toe boards as a reference.
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Sunday, September 05, 2004
Engine Work, The Texas Two Step
Some times you spend all day working only to find at the end of the day that you accomplished very little. Last Saturday was one of those days. With the long holiday weekend and cooler weather, we had plans to work on the car as much as possible.
On Friday I took the crankshaft to Theresa's service shop and we pressed off the timing and cam drive gears from the crankshaft. This is not a gear that you want to pull with a 3-arm puller. You are sure to nick the brass gears and you'll end up spending hours with a jewelry file cleaning it up. The press made this job easy. Sure enough, the #4 bearing was completely wiped out but fortunately the crank looked really good after a little cleanup with the scotchbright.
I received the head, pistons, cylinder, and various other parts from Parker Tyler. The parts came in from Zim's but I was short one valve guide so I couldn't get the heads over to Houston Engine and Balancing until today. Okay, so I figured we should at least build the short block. In inspecting the rods, I found that the #4 rod that we had to cut from the stuck piston was damaged in the process. Now I need another rod. So that job now comes to a halt.
Okay, so we moved on to the fuel pump. Theresa handled this like a pro. I buffed the parts on the bench grinder with a brush wheel and it looks almost new.
Zenith carbs next. We got the left carb completely apart and clean and found that there was a severe casting void. Not only that, but the butterfly shaft was broken. After over an hour of work, we pronounced this carb dead. The right carb looked really good so we proceeded to rebuild it. A soaking in carb cleaner, new gaskets, and a little work with the wire wheel again and it looks new. I'll be looking to source another carb in the near term to replace the left carb.
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