May 2004 Archives

If you have been following for awhile, you might remember that way back in December of last year I started doing some minor repairs to the engine bay area. There were some pretty nasty holes on the right side of the frame, and the engine "shelf" was very rusty. It had been replaced at some time in the distant past, but the replacement metal wasn't painted underneath(!!) and thus rusted quickly from water sprayed up from the road. I ended up cutting out the engine shelf, as well as the engine "support rail" and heat shield underneath it, and then starting to make patches. They were ugly, but functional. The one downside was that I slightly warped the frame in the vertical plane in the right rear. Where it warped shouldn't affect any alignment or engine positioning, but it did affect where the rear bumper support "arm" that extends out sideways from the frame sits. It is now too low for the hole in the body, and I'll have to reposition it in the future.

I then left the engine compartment alone for awhile while I tackled the battery box, floor pan and tunnel, and other parts of the car. What remained was replacing the engine shelf and accompanying parts, finishing off the frame repair in the very corner on the right side, and fixing the lower part of the firewall in front of the engine, behind the rear seats.

Although I have been working on the longitudinals and floor pan, I'm taking a small break from those areas and moving back to the engine compartment. In order to finish the floor, I need to first repair the right side frame area underneath the torsion bar area, because access to some of the angles will be difficult with the floor in place. I have ordered a repair panel for this area from Stoddard, and it hasn't arrived yet. Luckily, there are plenty of other areas on the car to stay busy with!
The lower firewall area of the engine compartment was rusty on my car. Apparently, this is somewhat unusual for 356s. From what I can tell, a leaking rear window seal allowed water to leak down below the seal, into the engine compartment, and then drip behind the sound deadening panel that sits against the firewall. The sound deadening panel got soggy and the long term exposure of the firewall to water caused rust pinholes.

Unfortunately, because this is an uncommon area for rust on 356s, reproduction panels are not available. I was originally going to painstakingly cut out the rusty areas in small chunks, fabricate patch panels, and weld them in. This area is covered up by sound deadening, and thus the final product is not visible. However, structural integrity in this area is important, and that is why there are numerous re-inforcing stamped areas in the panel. Simply cutting out a large area and replacing it with a flat patch panel seemed like a poor idea, even if that seemed to be the easy way to proceed.

On a whim, I looked up the part number in the Porsche parts reference catalog. Then I cross-referenced on-line with Stoddard, and I couldn't believe it, but they said they had the piece in stock, for something like $50! Not free but not too expensive for a whole panel. I knew it wasn't a reproduction, so it had to be old stock. I ordered it.
When the piece arrived, it was old stock all right. Very old, and it looked like it had spent some time at the bottom of a swamp. The original factory primer was all flaking off, and there was quite a bit of surface rust. I debated for a moment why I had actually paid for this piece of junk, but after sand-blasting and treating it with OxySolv (as pictured), it turned out that it was definitely better than the panel on my car.

I used the plasma cutter to cut off about half of the firewall piece from the car. I made sure to give the rusty areas a wide border, because I wanted to get out as much of the cancer as possible. Then I took the piece that I had removed from the car and clamped it in place directly over the replacement panel. The reinforcing stamps and weld-nuts provided points of reference to make sure everything was aligned properly. I scribed the outline of the removed piece on the replacement panel, removed the old metal, and then cut out the new piece of metal with the plasma cutter.

This technique works very well for fairly flat pieces of metal like this. The replacement metal only needed a bit of trimming and filing to fit well into the opening on the car. When you do a panel like this, make sure that when you cut out your replacement metal, you oversize it a little bit. It is always easier to trim it down to size than to try to bridge a gap that is too wide with your MIG welder, or try to fit in little metal patches!
I tacked the panel in place, did the usual welding techniques, and then finish-ground everything. Again, this piece is invisible, but I'm practicing my good butt-welding methods so that when I am doing a piece of the car that is more visible like the rockers, I can do a good job! I had to fabricate the little metal tabs that are used to hold the sound deadening panel, as they were not included on the replacement piece. I plug-welded those on and primed everything. As you can see from the final picture, it is hard to see any sign of repair, other than the different colored primer.

After finishing the firewall, I moved on to the metal that surrounds the engine. Back in December, I had already removed the engine "shelf" and the heat shield that protects the engine compartment from the heat of the muffler. I also had to do repairs to the back of the engine compartment where all of this metal attached, because it was rusty to the point of perforation. I'm not too proud of this repair, it is ugly and isn't 100% straight, but it should work OK.

Now, I returned to this area to re-attach the heat shield. The engine support shelf will be added on top later but I haven't gotten to this yet. The heat shield was easy; it was simply secured to the lower engine support rail with a few plug welds. Compare the before and after shots.

In the coming week, I'm going to try to finish the engine compartment, and if I don't get the frame repair pieces this week, I'm going to move on to the rear seat area (wait till you see pictures of that!).

It sure has been a busy several weeks! First off, I'm a father (again!) of twins. My daughter Charlotte and son Phillip were born early in the morning on May 8, and are doing well. Katy and I are even getting some sleep occasionally. We are both happy that the twins came second, after our daughter Elizabeth. We at least know how to be efficient with feeding and changing and all the other stuff that comes along with new babies, even though it is taking us twice as long (or worse) as it would otherwise.

As I alluded to in previous notes, the kids are going to eat up a good chunk of my remaining free time before I get back to graduate school in late August. However, Katy's mother is down until the middle of June, and I'm taking advantage of that to spend 5-6 hours in the shop 3 or 4 days a week. I've managed to get quite a bit done in the last two weeks, especially because it is essentially mirror image work of things I have already done.
The tunnel repairs are complete. I had to completely rebuild the flange on the right side of the tunnel, it was in worse shape than on the left side. It was "fun" making the little hump in the center where the two pieces of floor pan overlap, but at least it proves I'm getting better at minor fabrication. Some production notes:

* Using the plasma cutter continues to speed things up, but it is not without its own set of minor drawbacks. For one thing, when you cut metal with it, the metal gets pretty hot (duh). I managed to melt the outer sheathing on the wiring harness while trimming away the rusty part of the right side of the tunnel.
I know, I know, everyone says to remove the wiring harness before welding on the tunnel. It just looked like it was going to be a tremendous pain in the butt, so I gambled. Luckily, I didn't really lose-- only the outer part of the harness was damaged, the wires inside (and their insulation) remained unscathed. I tightly wrapped the scorched sections with electrical tape (red, to easily identify in case I'm wrong about the damage and need to find the shorts later) and then moved the exposed portion of the harness away from the tunnel edge for finishing the job.
* I've switched to using roloc-style sanding/grinding discs of my little mini air-powered die grinder for most of my finish grinding work, especially when grinding plug welds. It produces a better final finish, and the small size has allowed me to get into tighter places than I can with the big 4 1/2" electric grinder. Replacing a worn out disc with a fresh one, or changing coarseness grades only takes a few seconds. I highly recommend this system.

After completing the tunnel, I then switched my attention to finishing the right side inner longitudinal. There was a bit more damage to this side than the left side, but the process for repair has been more or less the same. The only change that I made was to make a lap-weld of the repair panel, rather than a butt-weld. People on 356 Talk said this would result in a stronger joint, and because all of it is covered by carpet anyway, appearance really doesn't matter.

Getting the actual replacement floor pan installed now doesn't seem like such a distant task. I need to finish this inner longitudinal flange, and then do some minor repairs at the front lip of the bulkhead behind the pedal board area, and then it is ready! I'll probably install the right side outer longitudinal before putting in the floor, as I did on the left side, for strength, but it doesn't seem like it would be strictly necessary to do the job in that order.

I'm taking a drive with other North Carolina 356 owners down to Southern Pines tomorrow. It should be fun, I'm bringing the whole family. Unfortunately, I won't be driving my 356, so I'll be riding in my 911. Too bad the A/C isn't working properly in there, because it has been a hot May in North Carolina this year, with temperatures in the upper 80s and 90s. However, none of the 356s will have air conditioning either, so I'll suffer with the rest of them. There are quite a few people who have 356s in the area, and I hope that someday, a more regular owners group can be put together for minor events and other fun.

The car is moved! The garage is empty! It is set to be demolished tomorrow. Work on the upstairs of the house has already begun; lots of drywall is down, the carpet and subfloor have been removed, and soon some of the interior walls will be coming down as well. It's exciting to get to this point in our house re-model because we have been planning this process for over a year and a half at this point.

The car is safely ensconsced in the rented bay at the shop. The bay is about the same width as the space I was using in the garage at home, but it is longer. I brought over all my crappy bookshelves from the garage, and everything is even semi-organized!

I still don't have any more children, but my wife is starting to joke about getting induced. At 37 weeks, having twins is causing her to measure as if she was 43 weeks pregnant with a single baby. She is off bed rest and we are just playing a waiting game now...most twin pregancies don't go to full term.
Now that all the moving is finished, and before these kids arrive, I have a small window of opportunity to get some work done on the car. This morning I went to the shop and used the plasma torch to cut out the right side of the floor pan. It went so quickly, it was great!!! I can't agree with Jim Kellogg more; this was a good investment. I will still have to do some manual splitting and grinding in areas where want to save spot-weld flanges, but where I need to just make a clean cut, life is good. I think all told, I accomplished in less than an hour what took about 5 or 6 hours on the other side. What a difference.

I have no new pictures of anything, I keep forgetting to put my digital camera in the car. Tomorrow I hope to get shots of the garage getting demolished, and some shots of my shop space and car.