Jack Spurs and Tow Hook

More miscellaneous things got finished on Friday, in anticipation of getting the majority of the underside of the car ready for primer and undercoating. I finished up welding on the jack spurs and the tow hook, and I finished welding the bottom overlap seam of the floor pan halves.

I welded the jack spurs in place, which was more or less a straightforward operation. The only complicating factor was that the rocker panels aren't currently on the car, and I had to insure that the spurs were low enough that the rocker wouldn't block the jacking point once they were installed. I was able to temporarily hold the rocker up to its final location once I had put a single tack at the top of the jack spurs and insure that they were set at the proper height.

I located the distance from the rear of the longitudinal for the jack spurs with the aid of the 356 factory shop manual. It lists the distance from the most rearward torsion bar cover bolt centerline to the centerline of the jack spur as 335mm. I ended up using this figure after measuring 3 other 356s, each which had been worked on in the past, and coming up with different measurements for the jack spurs on all of them! I didn't have an original car to reference, so I had to trust the blueprint, which should of course be correct.

The other complicating factor on the right side jack spur was doing the finish lap weld on its right (rearmost) side. This is where I dented in the right outer longitudinal while I was installing it, being overzealous pounding it into position. I ended up having to slightly re-radius the jack spur to fit the longitudinal better. If this were to be a real concours car, I would have definitely had to pull out the longitudinal with a stud welder or something, and make it all perfect. As it is, its my car and I'm happy with the result. All this is going to look a lot smoother anyway after primer and undercoat are applied, and this is so low down that no one will likely ever see it. Besides, on most all the "original" cars I've seen, gas station attendants who put the car on the lift years past for a grease job or whatever usually dented in the jack spur, longitudinal, and even the whole floor pan area looking for a good lifting point, so I'm already looking better than those cars. Moving on to other things I almost forgot but couldn't afford to before the next few steps: the tow hook, which attaches to the outside of the floor of the battery box. This V-shaped steel bar was original riveted in place with stout rivets. Having no real way of properly peening these rivets over, I drilled the proper holes for them through the battery box floor, enlarged the holes in the tow hook (as it came from Restoration Design the holes were too small for the rivets from Stoddards), and then welded the rivets in place on the inside of the battery box. I supported the rivets from below with a bottle jack and a block of wood to make sure the fit was tight. Then I ground down the rivets inside the box to give them somewhat the appearance of having been flattened over with a hammer. Like the underside, the inside of the battery box is undercoated and painted, so it will smooth out the imperfections and make little things like this less noticeable in the end. It looks just fine right now to my eye, anyway. The final project for the day was to continue work on the front suspension. Here is a picture of the front steering spindles, back from Tim Berardelli at Berardelli Racing, where he did a very professional job of rebuilding them. They look first class. So I looked at those happily for a little while and decided it was time to do the trailing arms that they mount up to. I only had time to do the left side, hopefully I'll get the right side on Monday.

I removed the top left trailing arm; I already had the lower arm off from earlier in the week when I got the shock bushing removed with a torch. I cleaned both arms up in the Safety Kleen tank. Then I taped off the machined surfaces and bead blasted them to remove surface rust and any other junk; most of the original black paint was gone anyway.

After doing that, I thought for a few minutes about what to paint them with. It seems like most of the 356 suspension gear was painted somewhere between semi-gloss and gloss black. I've seen both used in restorations. I've been mostly using epoxy rattle-can paint for these things up till now, which is gloss. However, I'm quite sure that after spending a bit of time installed underneath the car, the shiny gloss will fade to matte or semi-gloss rather quickly, so I think it is a good choice. Rustoleum epoxy enamel was applied to the trailing arms, and I left them to dry over the weekend.

This coming week will be busy, I'm out of town on Tuesday, part of Wednesday, and Friday, so I really only have Monday and Thursday to work hard. The following week I am also busy on Friday. After that, classes are starting, and time will be very limited, I have yet to really know how much time I can continue to spend working on the car this Fall and Winter. I'm still seriously aiming to try to get the car underside primed and undercoated this coming week, but I'm not going to hold my breath if it doesn't work out.

Seat Mounts; Pedal Board Brackets

Yesterday, I made a summary of the things that remained to be completed before I could move on to priming the new floorpan and battery box, and finally undercoating the car. I want to complete these tasks before I put the car back on its suspension to finish the rest of the visible repairs, i.e. fender/lockpost repair, door gap adjustment, rocker panels, and replacement nose. Discussion on 356Talk has shown that there is quite a bit of controversy over whether or not the 356 car body is strong enough not to noticeably flex when it is supported on suspension points rather than by others means (my rotisserie supports on the bumper mounting points), but it isn't worth taking chances. I'll make some measurements and observations so that hopefully I can add another data point either way.

Back to the remaining tasks. They included the seat mounts, the pedal support brackets, tow hook, jack receivers, and something I forgot to list previously, welding the back (bottom) seam where the floor pan halves meet. I thought it would take a day or two, and that estimate was pretty good. I knocked out the seat mounts and pedal stuff today.

I started with the seat mounts. On the way out to the shop this morning, I stopped off at my storage locker and grabbed a seat bottom. This was so I could use the actual seat to fit the seat rails onto the seat mounts, and get a perfect fit on the mounts before they were welded in place. A logical approach, and I'm sure one that is used by most people who have done it before. Don't just wing it and try to weld the supports into place where they look like they should fit!

I started by bolting in the inner seat rail, and then loosely bolting the outer seat rail assembly to the two mounts. I slid the seat bottom onto the two rails and lined up the rear of each rail so that they were the same distance from the rear seat bulkhead (10 1/2" or so in my case). There are weld-nuts inside the seat mounts that afford a small degree of adjustment after the mounts are welded in place, but best to center up the nuts with the mounts in their proper place to assure you are going to get a good fit. I then tacked the mounts in place, removed the seat and outer rail, and finished off welding in the mounts with lap-welds. Looking back over my disassembly pictures, it is somewhat difficult to tell if the welds were originally lap-welds or plug welds, but it doesn't really matter because everything is getting carpeted anyway.

After finishing the driver's side seat mounts, I moved forward to the pedal cluster stuff. There is a bracket with three welded bolts (studs) protruding from it that needs to be welded in from the bottom of the floorpan. It provides a secure mount for the pedal cluster unit to attach to. I began by attaching the pedal cluster to the front bulkhead; two studs protrude on either side of where the master cylinder hole is, and it can be temporarily held in place with just those. I then drilled holes for the bracket in each of the three cut-outs in the pedal cluster. From underneath, I test-fit the bracket through the holes, it was a good fit. To get the bracket nice and tight against the floor pan, I put nuts onto its studs from inside the car and snugged them down. Finally, I welded the pedal support bracket in place with a couple of weld beads.

To follow finish the area, there is another bracket that needs to be welded in to support the wooden pedal board. The pedal cluster was removed, and the bracket was positioned; two cutouts fit over the studs protruding from underneath from the pedal support bracket. Unfortunately, my tunnel repair on the left side had been a bit overzealous. Originally, the front of the left side of the tunnel was notched a bit. I simplified and removed this notch when I rebuilt it, not understanding its purpose. Now, trying to fit up the pedal board bracket, it became clear; there was insufficient clearance without the notch. I pulled out the die grinder with a cut-off wheel and put things back the way they should be.

Tunnel modification complete, I put the pedal board bracket in place, using an actual pedal board to insure proper clearance and positioning. A few tacks, and then the board was removed. A number of longer lap-welds secured the bracket. Again, I'm not sure if these brackets were originally mounted with lap-welds, or resistance spot-welded. I don't really care though, I just want to finish this kind of welding and move on!

The right (passenger) side was simpler, because I only had to do the seat mounts and toe board bracket; no pedals of course. I finished up the day by vacuuming out the interior of the car because it had become quite dirty after all the recent grinding operations. I'm starting to become aware of how important getting the body absolutely clean is going to be for primer and paint, so it seems best to keep up with it as I go along, rather than having to dedicate a pile of time to it right beforehand.

I believe I mentioned in a previous entry that I sent my front spindle assemblies off to Tim Berardelli at Berardelli Racing in Alexandria, VA to have the linkpin bushings reamed and replaced, and the kingpins redone. They came back today. How's that for fast service! They are nice and clean, and have been painted a nice medium gloss black. Tim was happy to use my own parts that I shipped with the spindles. If you need this service performed, I don't hesitate to recommend giving him a call.

So where am I now? I still need to do the jack spurs, the tow hook, and the bottom floor pan seam. Then cleaning, primer and undercoat. Then suspension re-assembly. I'll need to get my wheels done, and new tires purchased and mounted; I had my old tires removed several months ago (while the tread was in good shape, they are really the wrong size for the 15x4.5" rims, being 195R15s). Need to clean up the transmission, which I think at this point means pulling the axle tubes, blasting and painting them, checking out the bearings, and putting everything back together with new boots. Then I get to put that in and put the rear suspension back together, and then finally I can get the car off the rotisserie to do the rest of the exterior body work and paint!

Sounds so simple when I write it, doesn't it? My MBA program starts in 4 weeks...we'll see if the car ever gets done.

Top of Fender Done

The fender repair is done; I finished it on Monday. I did have to do some extra work on the edge of the patch where it follows the contour of the hood to insure a good fit, but I'm pretty happy with the overall results. A bit wavy, it will definitely need some filler, but it doesn't look like it will need tons. More to the point, the repair is nice and solid, and shouldn't cause any additional rust problems in the future!

After completing the fender repair, I started to look around a bit more underneath the car, realizing just how dirty the fenders still were. Before, when all the nasty cruddy bits of the car were still in place, i.e. battery box, floor pan, rockers, etc. it wasn't as noticeable. Now, with lots of new shiny metal, it was. The sand blasting just hadn't done a very good job of cleaning out the undersides of the wheel wells, because there was a lot of the greasy-type undercoating in there, and the sand just imbedded into the undercoat or bounced right off. It was dirty, messy, and needed more cleaning.

I had used a small wire brush in addition to my scrapers and screwdrivers before the media blasting to do this nasty job, and now, to finish it, I looked for the big guns. Dee has an air powered tool called the "Crud Buster" or something similar to that, by Snap-On. It is just the ticket for this nasty job. I still wouldn't wish the task on anyone though! Too messy.

I set to work with the Crud Buster, scraping out each fender in turn. The dirt, grease, and undercoat material flew everywhere! I kept blowing myself off with the air hose, but I still got covered in crap. About half way through it I turned the camera around and took a picture of myself for fun. Oh yes, what a glorious job this was.

The tool wasn't able to get the undercoat right at the very top of the fender, so I removed what I could, used a chisel on some of the rest, and I'm going to leave what remains. I am pretty sure it is doing a very good job sealing up that portion of the car, and you have to draw the line at some point when you are working all alone and trying to stick to some sort of schedule. I mean, I could spend another couple of months making the undercarriage spotless if I wanted to. I'll settle for "very good."

After finishing with the tool, I used lacquer thinner to wipe down each surface and get the majority of the remaining greasy stuff off. I'll have to do this again for sure before priming, because there is a lot of it and primer can't stick to greasy surfaces. I didn't remove the undercoating from the nose panel at all, because that all will be coming off to graft on the replacement nose. I've pretty much settled on going with the panel from Trevor's Hammerworks, but I haven't ordered anything yet. Plenty of other stuff to do.

I did a bit more undercoat removal yesterday, and then I tackled filling small holes. There were quite a few areas of thin or perforated metal in various places all over the car, including:

• Drain holes at bottom of rear quarter window area
• "Lip" at the bottom of the rear quarter panels where they wrap around the back of the car
• Bottom of the right side hole in the car where the rear bumper mounts
• Top of the rear cutouts for the exhaust where the body support bracket is welded on
• Several thin/perforated spots on rear side panels/inner wheel wells, where water was trapped between upholstery and metal after getting in through rear quarter windows

There were other minor spots too. I filled them all, and finish ground them. Some places I just used the simple bridging techniques with the MIG; in others I needed to back up the hole with a copper spoon because they were too large. Two other things I filled in where the upper reflector holes, above the taillights. I'm going to convert to the European reflector mounts beneath the bumper. The American ones, while maybe "safer," look really poor to my eye.

Realizing that I am also getting to the point that I have to get the suspension back together so the car has something to sit on, I once again pondered the front trailing arm that had the metal shock bushing frozen onto it's stud. This was the bushing for mounting the bottom of the shock, and it wouldn't budge. As long ago as last year I spent hours working on it, heating it up with a propane torch, using vice grips to try and twist it off, trying to split it with a Dremel. Nothing worked, and the bushing was still on there, solidly.

Not anymore! I took the arm off the torsion bar and brough it over to Dee. He directed the Acetylene torch at it, getting it hot enough to glow nice and orange. I stuck the arm in the vice and clamped down the vice grips. A few hard taps with the hammer and I could see the bushing rotating at last! Only a couple more minutes of work, and it was off, with no visible damage (other than some blackening and surface rust) on the mounting stud. A part saved, how fortunate.

On a related note, I sent the front spindles off to have the new kingpins installed last week to Tim Berardelli at Tim Berardelli Racing in Alexandria, VA. He has a 356-only shop, and I know he will do a perfect job. There aren't too many shops left that have the equipment and experience necessary to do this job properly.

Today I didn't have a lot of time, but I did get over to the paint store (United Autoparts in Durham) and get my PPG primer. I got two quarts of DP40LF, DP402 activator/hardener, and a gallon of DX330 solvent/cleaner. Not cheap stuff! The paint and hardener alone was almost $100. I will use it to put a coat of primer on the floorpan area and battery box, and then I will shoot undercoating (probably Wurth Stone Guard). I hope to get to this sometime next week. Chances are, I will do the priming outside the shop, because I don't think Chuck wants me doing that inside, even if I use a drop-cloth. We'll see.

I spent a remaining two hours today cleaning up my tools around the car, and generally straightening the workspace. It has been awhile since I did this task and it was getting hard to walk...I also assembled the parts washer I bought about six months ago, and dumped in the aqueous solution. I quickly realized I will need about 5 more gallons, because the liquid level in the washer is not high enough for the pump intake to pick it up. Oh well, using that toy will have to wait for another day.

A short list of things that need to be completed before I prime and undercoat (more for my own benefit rather than for any readers):

• Weld in pedal support bracket


• Weld in pedal board supports


• Weld in seat mounts


• Install (rivet) tow hook


• Weld in jack receivers

Shouldn't take more than a day or two.

Top of Fender Repair, #3

The fender repairs are about 80% done. I'm feeling pretty good about the first readily visible repair I've done to the body.

I had to take a few days off because of family matters, but today I worked for about 3 hours on the fender. I re-made the metal patch panel after Dee and I butchered the curve where the patch meets the hood beyond repair last Wednesday trying to get a good fit. It didn't take very long because I was able to use the old piece of metal as a template. A bit of trimming, and the piece was roughly ready.

I then used some of my cheap-ass Chinese body hammers to form the very slight bends (crowns) that are in this section of the fender panel. Poorly form them, but attempt to form them nonetheless. This exercise served to plainly illustrate the importance of high quality (and a good variety of) hammers and dollies when doing first-class metal forming and repair. Dee loaned me a slapper spoon and some other various hammers, and I think I will expand my collection by a few pieces when I get to doing the nose and tail in a few weeks.

Then I tack-welded the patch in place. At this point, I needed to re-install the hood to make sure the verticle patch of metal around the hood perimeter formed an even gap with the hood, and to indicate to me how far down I needed to grind this metal to be flush with the hood. In other words, fit the corner of the body to the contours of the hood. So I attached the hood and positioned it. The accompanying picture was taken before the hood was properly positioned for proper gaps, but you get the idea.

After installing the hood, I hammered on the vertical piece of patch metal adjacent to the hood to get a nice gap that was even and in line with the rest of the hood perimeter. Then I tacked that piece of metal to the larger fender patch.

I have a tip now for people who are doing good metal work, welding in patch panels, that I haven't seen anywhere else: Make sure the edges of the piece you are welding the patch to (in my case, the remaining fender) are ever so slightly bowed towards the finished surface side. OK, in reality, you probably want things to be totally flat, but whatever you do, try not to have the edge slightly dented in. Why? Because when you position and tack your patch into place, it may be almost perfectly aligned in the proper plane with the part of the car you are fixing, but when you go to finish-grind your welds, you aren't going to get a perfect appearance. Where the weld seam is, you are going to have an ever so slight "V"-shaped depression. Even after grinding, you will still see the weld bead a little bit. If the edges of the patch instead form an ever so slight inverted "V", when you grind the weld down, it will totally disappear. Yes, you will grind a tiny bit of both the patch and the original metal away as well, so realize that the degree of bend I'm talking about should be subtle, almost imperceptible. Practice makes perfect. You will notice I got it right on parts of the patch, but not on others.

After more welding, being careful not to put too much heat in, and grinding, I realized I needed to do some more metal shaping to properly contour the patch. Lots of hammering and dolly-work later, especially near the weld seams, the patch was looking pretty good and "feeling good" when I ran my hand over it. Not done yet, there some more welding and grinding work to do on the inside adjacent to the hood, but it is coming along. The accompanying shows the state of the patch as I left it today, and it will look quite a bit better once primed in the same color as the rest of the body.

The patch is going to require a slight amount of body filler, I'm sure, but I'm not ashamed. No matter what it is better than the crappy fiberglass matt patch that I found after the car was media blasted, which led to more problems than it originally addressed!

Top of Fender Repair, #2

Work continued yesterday on the top of the front right fender, but my wife got sick so I had to cut my work short and skip working today. I finished the weld bead where the replacement section of the hood perimeter goes, and ground it down with various tools. It looks pretty good to me. A bit more work might be necessary to remove a few high spots before a bit of filler is used, but I'm pretty happy with the result.

I got a template made for the hole I have to fill in the fender, and transferred it to 20 gauge metal. Unfortunately, while trying to shape the patch panel to be perfect, I screwed it up, and I'll have to make it again. That is OK, and is much better than trying to weld in something that is substandard to a place that is going to be plainly visible.

Here is a picture of the panel as it was fitted up before a bit more trimming messed it up beyond repair though, so you have an idea of how the repair is proceeding. Tomorrow I may be able to complete this patch.

I got my Harbor Freight HVLP gun today, which I am planning on using to spray PPG DP 40 (or 90) primer on the bottom of the car and in other places I have patched. However, now I'm freaking out about isocyanates and the need for a good full face respirator or supplied air system. I only have a half face mask at present, and though Dee and Frank both sheepishly use the same thing, I know that something better will be much smarter. I've been looking into affordable supplied air systems on eBay, but perhaps a good full face respirator from 3M with frequent filter cartridge changes will be the most economical approach for now.

Top of Fender Repair

Last night, I collected opinions on the situation with the nose of my 356. Aside from one individual who right or wrong believes that originality is the most important thing in restoration at all costs, most people suggested I get a replacement panel and not try to save the nose clip I already have. The consensus was that the nose panels available from Stoddard aren't very good, but the one from Trevor's Hammerworks, though more expensive, was top quality. The cost for the nose will be $1000, so I'm in no hurry to order it...ouch. If other people have a more economical solution, please e-mail me.

I got a few hours out at the garage today, and I used it to work on the repair I need to make on top of the right front fender. Here, after media blasting, I discovered existing damage that had been poorly repaired at some point in the past with a piece of fiberglass matting and then body filler. However, the job was done incorrectly, and not because of the fiberglass-- that was just using the tools available. No, the real problem was that the closing panel underneath the panel was left untouched.

From the accompanying picture, it should be clear that there is a panel underneath the fender panel. This is the top of the front longitudinal panel/inner wheel well. This panel goes vertically up behind the front wheels, and arcs back into the front fender, forming a perfect mud trap for anything thrown up by the tires to just sit and corrode metal. Unfortunately, after years of rust, on my car this panel got perforated at some point, and water got between the closing panel and the fender. This then started rusting out the right front fender from underneath, eventually requiring a repair, which was made as previously described.

The problem was, they didn't patch the closing panel, only the fender. Water/mud/crap was free to spray up through the closing panel damage even after the repair, where it sat and caused further damage. I have to fix this the right way. Not to mention that this is one of the first body repairs I've done on the car that will be easily visible when the work is complete! I haven't done an extensive, step-by-step review of how I do these more complicated patches in awhile, so if you are just picking up reading now, I suppose this is as good a chance as any. I've included critical pictures here, but more are available in the gallery.

First of all, I had to enlarge the hole in the front fender to be large enough to work on the panel underneath and completely remove the rusty metal that surrounded the previous patch. Then I had to grind and cut out all the bad metal at the top of the closing panel, and make the hole a shape that was easier to form a patch for. Straight lines are much easier to fabricate that curves! Keep that in mind for your own work.

After cleaning up and prepping for the closing panel patch, a cardboard template was formed out of a piece of a manila file folder. I got this suggestion from Jim Kellog, and I have found that the folders make much easier patches than using the much thicker cardboard from a box. Try it. Whenever I'm doing an even moderately complicated patch, I make a template, rather than taking a piece of metal and trimming it repeatedly to fit. The results have always been better in the end. Trust me, don't try to save time, you will not gain anything, and may end up having to re-do things.

I transferred the template onto a piece of 20 gauge steel, and cut it out, punching holes in the trailing edge to simulate the areas of the panel that originally were spot-welded.

The top surface of the remaining closing panel, as well as the back side of the patch were sprayed with weld-through primer and allowed to dry. Then the patch was then tack welded in place, using rather low heat-settings on the welder. I employed stitch welding for the butt welds, and plug welded through the holes I drilled to simulate the spot welds at the overlap. I then lightly ground down the welds. This patch piece is more or less invisible, so there is no sense in grinding the welds excessively; this will only weaken the weld.

After finish work, the entire patch area was sprayed with a self-etching primer, available in rattle cans. It will later be finished off with some epoxy spray paint for protection.

After finishing the closing panel repair, I moved on to fixing the edge of the hood seal area. The rust had extended into this area and made the metal unsound, so all of the area adjacent to the closing panel/fender damage was removed.

My bodyman friend/advisor Dee Lashley advised me that it would probably be easiest to weld in a new piece of metal that was taller than it needed to be, and then cut it down/shape it to fit when the actual fender patch panel was being welded in place. My last bit of time today I spent cutting a piece of rectangular metal to fit the removed hood perimeter section, and tack-welding it in place. It looks like crap now but I'm confident that I can get it put in place and looking good with very little body filler when all is said and done.

I should have a few hours tomorrow afternoon to continue working on this area. As I've said before, time is precious right now. Not a good point in the project to screw around!

Right Rear Closing Panel Completed

I finished up the right side longitudinal, and put on the rear closing panel. The fit didn't end up being as nice as the panel on the left side, partly due to the way the longitudinal was positioned, partly just do to the fit of the replacement panel. Oh well, this is all going to be painted and undercoated and practically invisible anyway. Not like the rest of the body repairs that I have to do, which need to look perfect.

I didn't get as much done as I had hoped for last week because of family commitments, as well as the fact that I ran out of welding wire on Tuesday right after I got to the shop but didn't really have time to go get more. I wasted the rest of the day by bead blasting and painting a "new" (replacement) tie rod that I got from EASY Auto Parts in California, and working on a few other miscellaneous projects. I only have about 4 or 5 weeks left until my graduate school program starts, so my free time is about to grow very limited indeed. I need to do as much body work as possible during the end of July and the beginning of August!

On Friday, I started out the day by going out to Frank Gibson's shop to get my front hood and decklid for fitting during the remainder of the body work. I placed them on the car for fun, and to remind me of how good (bad?) the gaps were. There is going to be some picking, filing, and filler involved... Before leaving Frank's place, I chatted with him for awhile on the process he used for preparing the car for me after it got media blasted. He used a wash primer after wiping the car down, and then sprayed on PPG DP 90, a black epoxy primer, which is what is still on the car. I talked to him about filler work, etc. and confirmed that it could be done either on bare metal or on top of the DP 90. I'm going to go to my local PPG dealer, get some more DP 90, and do the bottom of the car with it in a week or two with my new Harbor Freight HVLP paint gun. It is important to note that the DP 90 needs to be scuff sanded before any additional primer is applied; this is going to be somewhat of a pain in the ass.

Later on Friday I bead blasted one half of the replacement nose panel that I bought off a wrecked 356 (mail order via the 356 Registry Classifieds) about 6 months ago. Although not misrepresented, I don't think the seller truly knew what bad shape it was in. The front side looked pretty good. After scraping the undercoat from the back side, and blasting, extensive rust pitting and previous repair work was revealed. Enough problems that I'm pretty sure I don't want to put these panels on my car. I'm resigned to spending the big bucks on a replacement T-6 nose panel from one of the 356 vendors, and I'm trying to figure out which one to get.

After that little bit of investigation, I rounded out the rest of my day by cutting out a little bit more of the damage at the top of the right front fender, to examine what I'm up against there. I'm actually not that afraid of this repair, because the curve is very gradual and I don't think it will be a problem to replicate. Just have to take my time, fit carefully, and weld slowly. My house construction project continues to move forward on schedule, if not quite on budget. The foundation is complete and framing will start shortly. Here's a front view of the new garage foundation! Picture the workbench and restoration area on the left side.

More updates later this week.

Right Longitudinal Finished

There is a reason the people who have written restoration articles suggest doing the outer longitudinals before doing the floor pan. The reason, in two words: clamping room.

OK, ok, so I put off doing the right side outer longitudinal. I've had it cut off for weeks now, along with the rocker panel, and I should have done it before the floor pan. It was really rusty, and I couldn't wait to get rid of it. I didn't finish the job though, because I got excited about lack of daylight through the bottom of the car, and I figured I'd just do it next. After all, it is adjacent to the floor and underneath it, not sandwiched between it or something.

So I took my replacement outer longitudinal and started fitting it up, just like I'd done on the left side, only about twice as fast (everything comes much quicker after even minimal experience). About 5 minutes into this I realized that since the floor pan was now in place, I wasn't going to be able to clamp the bottom edge of the longitudinal to the inner longitudinal sill. The floor pan was blocking that. Therefore, I was going to have to secure the bottom edge of the longitudinal to the sill with self-tapping screws, which work fine, but are much more of a pain in the butt than clamps. Oh well, don't be like me. Do the outer longitudinals before the floor pan.

The rest of the exercise went off without too much trouble. First, I re-created the heater tube supports. Again, I had replacement stampings, but they don't accurately simulate the originals, at least for "C" cars. The "extensions" that interface with the flexible center section of the heater tubes are completely missing. I was rushing, too, I admit it. The extensions should fit inside the tube, and large worm-drive clamps should hold the flex section to the extensions. On the right side, I (accidentally) made extensions that fit outside the flexible section. This metal, lacking the flex of the rubber ends on the flexible pipe, doesn't compress well with the clamps. I ended up securing the flexible section of heater tube in place with duct tape. I mean, this is what that kind of tape is really for, after all, right?!?!? Also, you are never going to see this after the longitudinal is closed up. I hope.

I also painted the interior of the longitudinal with Eastwood's Rust Encapsulator, after wire brushing all the surface rust off and wiping with lacquer thinner. I painted the replacement outer longitudinal with rattle-can zinc-rich primer from Rustoleum, like on the other side. That should, in theory, provide good lasting protection. I mean, the panel was already e-coated with some sort of rust inhibiting primer.

Unlike on the left side, I made a major modification to the right side outer longitudinal patch panel by sectioning it into two pieces at the rear heater tube support. This was because the heater tube supports, as replaced, wanted to press against the outside of the longitudinal and mess up the contour. I know, I am probably off 1/4-1/2" in how things are supposed to fit, and so I am compromising a bit, but the results turned out OK. I cut the panel where the rear heater tube support is, and welded in the front section first. Then I fitted the rear section and butt-welded it to the front section. After grinding, and when I primer/paint this section, it will be difficult to tell I made this modification, but the fit is definitely better, so it was a good idea. Now, the bottom of the car has been completely replaced! There is pretty much nothing left except for the front "struts," which usually need to be replaced but heavy rust-proofing goo saved my car. I've done the whole battery box, the diagonal brace, the floor pan, the outer longitudinals, the inner longitudinal lower edges, the tunnel lower edges, both left and right side rear frame sections, and the whole engine compartment. The frame is more or less finished, except for closing panels on the longitudinals. This is a major accomplishment.

Bodywork next moves on to the actual body, where I will put my acquired welding skills to the test. Don't look now, but I'm even getting crazy ideas in my head about painting the car myself!

We Have Floor Pan!

I have mostly finished installing the floor pan on my 356. There are about 20 plug welds left to complete, as well as a bit of finish grinding and a bit more hammering, but the majority of the project is finished. It is a major sense of accomplishment to have come this far, and it is the first time since I purchased the car that you haven't been able to see through the bottom!

The project went pretty much by the book, as described in the 356 Registry Technical and Restoration Guide. However, for those who don't have access to the book or are just curious how the process went, I will give my own abbreviated version here.

1. To review: before you do the floor pan, there are a lot of other areas that need repair. The floor pan rests on the interior ledges/flanges/sills made up of the inner side longitudinals, the front bulkhead, and the rear bulkhead. It is also spot-welded to a flange running down either side of the tunnel for rigidity and strength. If you haven't already repaired these areas on your car, you need to. See my previous journal entries over the last 6 months to see how I did it.

2. I purchased my floor pan, along with all my other replacement panels, from Restoration Design, but it is the same design as those offered from all the other vendors I know of. The floor pan comes in two sections, front and rear, which are overlapped slightly in the center to form a tubular section. The panels will need to have at 1/2-3/4" or maybe even a bit more trimmed from the sides and perhaps the front and rear to fit your car.

3. Take careful measurements of the interior dimensions of the floor pan area. You can use this to determine how much to trim from the replacement panels after measuring those in turn. Alternately, and perhaps better, would be to jack up each replacement panel into the proper position beneath the car, pressing it against the bottom with a couple of bottle jacks and sections of 2x4 to distribute the pressure. Lean into the inside of the car and scribe/magic marker the inside border of the floor pan. Now, you can trim around the floor pan, adding 1/2"-3/4" width (or whatever the width of your sills are) to the outside of the line you scribed, so that the floor pan will actually rest on the sills of the inner longitudinals and bulkheads.

4. Trim the panels with air shears, nibbler, cut-off wheel, whatever does the job quickest, in the straightest lines, that you have. Trim less than you think you should, and re-measure as in step 3 to make sure you did it right. Easier to take another pass, and trim off more metal, than to cut too much and find out you have made the replacement panel too small for the opening.

5. Punch holes around the perimeter of the replacement floor pan panels with your punch tool you use for plug welds. You will not be able to do plug welds inside the tunnel area very easily, because access is limited. I skipped making plug welds in this area, instead choosing to lap-weld the front center area from beneath, and the rear center area beneath the access area for the transmission coupler.

6. Using a helper (it is much easier with a helper!), slip the rear section of the floor in from the bottom of the car, overlapping the side opposite you on the inner longitudinal. Now, to get the thing in place, slowly and carefully bow the part you are holding up towards you, pulling the panel towards you at the same time. If you do it right, the panel will fall into place on top of the sills, and not be bent. If you do it wrong (and you will), the panel will not reach your side of the sill and will want to fall through; you will have to repeat the process. Make sure you don't permanently bend the floor, you just want to bow it slightly.

7. The front section slides in beneath the rear section. Repeat the process outlined in step 6.

8. Make sure that you have a good fit of both panels. The middle section of the front and rear panels should overlap and form a length-wise "tube" which fits underneath the bump-up in the tunnel edge. If either piece is too far forward or too far backward, you have more trimming to do. Likewise if the pieces aren't sitting centered, and any of the reinforcing stamped sections are resting on a portion of the sill. Take your time, make it right. Once you start welding, it will be hard to go back and re-do anything. If you have to take the panels out to re-adjust/trim, do it now!

9. Jack up both front and rear sections of the floor pan underneath the tunnel with bottle jacks. Spread the force of the jack out over the panel with some sections of 2x4. This is required to get a tight fit against the tunnel, because there is no way to clamp. It also helps straighten the floor pan, which was probably bowed a bit when you slipped it into place.

10. Secure the floor pan to the inner longitudinal sills and the front and rear bulkheads with self-tapping sheetmetal screws. Again, there is really no way to clamp, but you need to insure a tight fit of the body against the floor pan to get good welds.

11. Plug weld on either side of the places you put screws. If you need to get the fit of the areas you are welding tighter than they are before welding, use hammer on top and dolly held underneath to bring them together.

12. If you don't already have your doors installed, put them back on the car now. You need to frequently check that they close properly during the floor pan welding session, to make sure you aren't warping the body with heat. More of a problem on open cars than coupes; I had absolutely no problems. Better safe than sorry.

12. Continue to weld in the pan, using the usual skip-welding techniques to reduce localized heat build-up, paying special attention to heat build-up at the edge of the tunnel if you have left your wiring harness installed! Do not rush, take breaks if things are getting too hot.

13. When floor pan is completely in place, lightly finish grind your spot welds.

Phew! All finished, and hopefully no daylight visible from through the floor anymore.

There are other pieces that attach to the floor pan that now need to be mounted, including the pedal cluster bracket, mounted from beneath, the toe board brackets, and the front and rear seat rail mounts. I will hopefully get to tackle them at the end of the week.