Porsche 356 Build: Part 1
A few years ago, we acquired a 1960 Super 90. It was purchased from the widow of a man who had begun restoration on it. To make matters a bit more complicated the previous owner also owned a business making interiors for very early 356's. Being a 356 guy, there was alot of parts there, and their sons had the duty after he passed of "organizing" the parts. Unfortunately, they aren't "car guys" and a lot of the parts that came with ours belong to some other cars, and we also ended up missing quite a few parts that we either sourced new, sourced used, or made. This car was the epitome of a basket case. We brought the car home on a trailer, both it and the truck packed full of boxes of parts. Fortunately for us, the hard work had all been done. The body and paint were both complete!
Here is the car as it was when it arrived home:
After the car arrived home, it sat for several months until we had completed the new shop, and had a place to work on it.
After the shop was completed (summer of '07) the car moved in. The first steps were to strip the front suspension and do the undercoating / painting of the underside of the car, including wheel wells, etc.
And to organize the parts.
The next step was to remove the transaxle and check it over. When we pulled it, it was bone dry in the car and we dunno if it had been rebuilt and not filled, just emptied, or what, so we brought it to our local 356 hero, Ted Blake to be looked over & overhauled. He replaced the throwout bearing with one from a 911, replaced the boots, covers, cleaned it up, etc. In the pic below, note the fancy-pants axle holder upper my dad made (If the axles droop, they can damage the unobtanium plates that hold them in (Ted built us some much heavier duty plates to cure this). Much more ancient technology than CV joints.
Here is some progress on the front suspension, the rubber stops are in.
And, after the front brakes went in:
These are a sign of things to come:big frickin fuel lines and earl's fittings?.
And this is after the rubber bits showed up.
And after we stripped the pedal assy and sent it off to the powdercoater, then re assembled.
And then a pic from the engine bay looking forward, with most everything run from the tunnel (for those not 356 familiar nearly EVERYTHING runs through the tunnel, which is fully enclosed).
The next step was to fit the brake master cyl, a dual circuit unit from a 911.
Then we fished the fuel lines (did he say fuel lines?), throttle cable, and shift rod through the tunnel.
This is the other end of one of the fuel lines, yes ending under the dash as somebody wanted to use the factory fuel petcock and mount the fuelpump under the floorboard in the smuggler's box. Thank goodness I convinced him that it would be better under the floor of the trunk, near the front torsion bar tubes. This was abolished:
And we got the tranaxle back from the shop, much prettier now.
Dad undercoated part of the inside of the doors and installed the window mechanisms:
And rebuilt the striker mechanisms and reinstalled them:
The brake drum "snouts" where the wheel bearing cover presses in were rather beat up, so we welded them and turned them on a lathe, then gave a scotchbrite finish. they look WAY better now, and look great with our new aluminum West Coast Haus wheels. The wheels are pretty light, 15"x6" and 11lbs.
John limited the number of pictures in a post to 30, so I will make another blog entry.
Blog continued here: http://reutterwerk.com/forums/blog.php?b=33
Here is the car as it was when it arrived home:
After the car arrived home, it sat for several months until we had completed the new shop, and had a place to work on it.
After the shop was completed (summer of '07) the car moved in. The first steps were to strip the front suspension and do the undercoating / painting of the underside of the car, including wheel wells, etc.
And to organize the parts.
The next step was to remove the transaxle and check it over. When we pulled it, it was bone dry in the car and we dunno if it had been rebuilt and not filled, just emptied, or what, so we brought it to our local 356 hero, Ted Blake to be looked over & overhauled. He replaced the throwout bearing with one from a 911, replaced the boots, covers, cleaned it up, etc. In the pic below, note the fancy-pants axle holder upper my dad made (If the axles droop, they can damage the unobtanium plates that hold them in (Ted built us some much heavier duty plates to cure this). Much more ancient technology than CV joints.
Here is some progress on the front suspension, the rubber stops are in.
And, after the front brakes went in:
These are a sign of things to come:big frickin fuel lines and earl's fittings?.
And this is after the rubber bits showed up.
And after we stripped the pedal assy and sent it off to the powdercoater, then re assembled.
And then a pic from the engine bay looking forward, with most everything run from the tunnel (for those not 356 familiar nearly EVERYTHING runs through the tunnel, which is fully enclosed).
The next step was to fit the brake master cyl, a dual circuit unit from a 911.
Then we fished the fuel lines (did he say fuel lines?), throttle cable, and shift rod through the tunnel.
This is the other end of one of the fuel lines, yes ending under the dash as somebody wanted to use the factory fuel petcock and mount the fuelpump under the floorboard in the smuggler's box. Thank goodness I convinced him that it would be better under the floor of the trunk, near the front torsion bar tubes. This was abolished:
And we got the tranaxle back from the shop, much prettier now.
Dad undercoated part of the inside of the doors and installed the window mechanisms:
And rebuilt the striker mechanisms and reinstalled them:
The brake drum "snouts" where the wheel bearing cover presses in were rather beat up, so we welded them and turned them on a lathe, then gave a scotchbrite finish. they look WAY better now, and look great with our new aluminum West Coast Haus wheels. The wheels are pretty light, 15"x6" and 11lbs.
John limited the number of pictures in a post to 30, so I will make another blog entry.
Blog continued here: http://reutterwerk.com/forums/blog.php?b=33
Total Comments 3
Comments
I guess I lied, Dan. I thought there was a feature that showed you who's seen your blog, but I was probably mistaking that for the user page thing.
Lookin good! all the pictures show up, which isnt common through my idiotface work filter. now on to part 2...... |
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Posted 10-08-2008 at 08:25 PM by 95Juan |
Very nice.
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Posted 04-21-2009 at 04:26 PM by Rick Carter |
That is totally trick Dan. Thanks so much for sharing this!
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Posted 06-09-2009 at 01:33 AM by cie_lab |
Recent Blog Entries by bleucamaro
- Porsche 356 Build: Part 5 (04-12-2010)
- Porsche 356 Build: Part 4 (03-06-2010)
- Porsche 356 Build: Part 3 (04-19-2009)
- Porsche 356 Build: Part 2 (10-01-2008)
- Porsche 356 Build: Part 1 (09-30-2008)