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Restoration Journal of a 1958 Porsche 356A Cabriolet
Thursday, December 30, 2004
Rear End Ready for Engine & Transmission
With my time off between the holidays, I was able to dedicate 3 full days to the car. My primary goal was to have the engine/transmission area completed so that we could install the transmission once we have it back together.
With this goal in mind, I spent several hours in the engine area removing old rusted material and installing good steel patches. I continued cleaning the entire area and buffed it all down with the wire brush with anticipation of applying POR15 and undercoating.
The next task was to graph in the repair fender. The trailing end of the right rear fender has been completely rusted away so the seller included a replacement fender when I bought the car. This fender section was cut from either a 356B or C coupe and included the material from the door post to the engine lid and from the window area down. It was much more than I needed.
The surgical process took me several hours. I first prepped the car by making a clean cut for the patch piece to be installed. I used my flange tool along the edge of the car and cut a matching section from the spare fender. After several fittings, I plug welded the horizontal line and then butt welded the vertical line where I used the holes for the bumper brackets as alignment. I finished the afternoon by installing both rear fender braces.
I revisited my rocker panel installation that I was not happy with. What you would never find in any book or discussion is the fact that the rocker panels are about ¼” too short at both the front and rear. I thought that I had installed something wrong until I found on Charles’ Convertible D website that they come short on purpose and then you have to build the edges up to fit. The rockers look much better now.
I then applied what I hope to be my last can of POR15. I applied an entire quart of sealant to the engine/transmission area and inside the rear fenders. While I did my best to cover up in long sleeves, coveralls, rubber gloves, face shield, and hat, I have it all over my body. I look like a Dalmatian. The following day I sprayed 3m Body Schultz inside the same areas, under the floor pans, and inside the trunk area. Once it dries, I will use a rattle can of Krylon matte black paint to finish it off.
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Sunday, December 26, 2004
Transmission Status
Some months back while cleaning the transmission, we found a broken end of a 1/2" diameter dowel attached to the drain magnet. One end was machined while the other end was clearly broken off. This was a real concern as we might have a problem transmission. I've never been a transmission guy and don't have the proper tools to really work on them. After preparing for the worst and discussions from others, I decided to dig into the transmission and see if I could find out where it broke from. I reasoned that worst case, I would not be able to get things back together and would end up sending the transmission in boxes to Vic at 356 Enterprises for a complete rebuild.
As it turned out, we found nothing but a good transmission with the usual 50 years worth of wear. The inspection was really rather simple. First, the nose cone comes off very easily. We then pulled out the intermediate plate that has attached to it all of the gearing and drive shaft. With a little convincing from my rubber mallet, everything came out easily. The best resource I had for this process was the Porsche factory workshop manual that I bought from Charlie White.
Upon inspection, we found nothing broken, sheared, shredded, or otherwise out of place. The only component that even resemble our suspicious part was a dowel that held together the two sides of the differential. This was installed tight and both ends were in good shape. Our best reasoning for our suspicious find is that this transmission had been repaired before - most likely because this dowel had broken. Following this rebuild, this component may not have been cleaned out of the transmission casing. There are so many nooks and crannies in the casing for it to sit. With all of our handling of the transmission, we may have knocked it loose from it's resting place allowing it to fall and attach to the drain magnet.
This is as far as we will go with the transmission inspection. I have heard enough people tell me that it either works or it doesn't enough times to put it back in and run it.
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Sunday, December 26, 2004
Engine Almost Complete
The engine is now 95% complete. It seems that I have been making regular calls to Zim's the past couple of weeks for little parts that I didn't know I needed until I found a hole with nothing to put in it. We picked up our progress this week by installing the rockers assemblies. We found that when installed, the rocker arm on #1 and #4 cylinder were hitting the exhaust valve. With help from the Registry talk list, I found that I had installed the lower head nuts without the washers. This caused the rocker to sit closer towards the head. I don't know if we threw the washers out or if we did not have them in the beginning. Either way, we had old style cast iron rockers and old style head nuts. After some discussion with others, we decided to replace the old style rockers with the later style that has an aluminum base along with the later style head nuts. I've been told that this will also give us a better valve lift suited for the 1600S engine.
Once the rockers are in, we can finish the engine. All of the linkages are ready, the cooling tins have been cleaned and painted. I bought a lot of parts on eBay from a guy who had just converted his 6V to a 12V and was selling all of the old 6V parts including a good generator. I picked up a couple other missing parts from Jim at EASY such as a flywheel pulley, generator pulley, breather, etc.
As for the carburetor, we finally found that the venturies would come out as well as the injection tubes from our old carb. Once we had that solved, we were able to build one good left side carb to match the right.
As for the final count, the following are the only parts that we used on this engine that came with our original purchase
- All 3 case pieces
- Oil pump and cooler
- Crankshaft
- 1 Head
- 1 Carburetor
- Manifolds
- Flywheel
- Cam gear
All other parts have been pieced together to best resemble a 1962 1600S.
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Sunday, December 26, 2004
Making Winter Progress
I had hoped that once the heat of the summer passed I would have more energy to work in the garage. Alternatively, I have had more important priorities and the 356 has taken a back seat for some time. I've had a few hours here and there and as a result have maintained some essence of progress. Unfortunately, it does not look like we will be road worthy for the Gulf Coast Holiday in April. We still plan to attend and volunteer but will have no car to show. Now that I am off for the holidays, I plan to get more accomplished. I tried my hardest the past few days but an unusual freeze has set in. We even had 2" of snow on Christmas Eve. It's now back up in the 50s so progress will resume this week.
I have made a few good finds in my search for replacement parts. Tim in Spokane found my website and saw that I had a number of parts listed. He had a '58 coupe that he was parting out and gave me first requests at what I might need. I was able to pick up all my brakes including drums, backing plates, and hardware. Tim was even nice enough to bag all of the parts and label them as to which wheel they came from. I also picked up from Tim a dash cowl that I will use to repair my dash where it has rusted away under the front windshield from the sitting water. Jim at EASY was able to supply me with accelerator linkages, cable, and clutch cables. This has been a challenge. Since all of it was missing in my car, I really don't know what parts I needed. I think that I have it all at this point. For those just setting out, don't be surprised when something simple can cost a fortune. Remember the first rule of economics comes to mind - prices go up when buyers outnumber supply. It didn't take my MBA education to figure that one out.
My list of missing parts is slowly getting smaller.
In the down time, I have been blasting and painting some of the smaller components. I now have all of the front suspension cleaned and painted. As soon as the link pin seals and wheel bearing seals from Zim's come in, I'll put that assembly together. The steering box has now been rebuilt and installed as well as the tie rods with new tie rod joints from Stoddard.
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