Monday 16 November 2015

End of Disaasembly and off to Metal



So thats pretty much it. I finished today removing the dash vinyl and instrument hood, which of course revealed even more rust. I'm really starting to hate rust on a visceral, primal level. People say that no 356 ever is rust free and I am begining to believe them. This time around it was the bad seal around the windscreen on both sides. Something that we will have to deal with starting next week when we move the Beast (she has a name now by the way) off to metal.

















Most of the restoration site stress do not skrimp on the metal work. I confess I am a bit leery about all of this. Sandblasting tends to warp the larger panels by heat build up. Modern methods of metal cleaning seem to include walnut shells, glass, plastic and old banana being sprayed at the car. I've spoken with a few blasters around here in the Land of Pickup Trucks and been very unimpressed. A Chevy Truck with a girder for a frame is one thing but 18 and 20 gauge from dies built after WW2 and cheap steel are another thing entirely.

At least I'll be in the process for the next few weeks and able to project my opinions if required.

More pics from End of Disassembly below.







Above is the back of the car. The metal feels good and strong but when I took off the piece of vinyl at the top edge, the metal came apart in my hands. Sigh

Below is the engine compartment. Not too bad. I've elected to leave the engine and rear light looms in place. Trying to get them through the tunnel is a mind boggling exercise. We'll see how we get along with that. I've also left the loom in the front as well. Another reason to have a tame blaster.



Finally,the back of the passenger compartment and engine bay looking forward. Again not too bad.

 


Theres a lot of bad that I haven't shown. Better not to dwell on them at this point. Next week will reveal all.

I hope to blog every day during the metal. As I mentioned, taking the car apart has been enjoyable. Everything is bagged and tagged. Notes and photos in abundance.

BUT, next week the real work starts. It will be, well, interesting.

Full updates going forward (since I will mostly be standing around the shop with little to do except advise. Sigh. And Pay, of course.

Watched Brazil last night. I am rather glad this season is almot over. Hasn't been a great one. Of course the new world champion did manage to crack up his Pagani Zonda, which only goes for $3m.

Am I missing something?

Drop me a note anytime. Cheers.

Sunday 1 November 2015

A naked car



Some shots below of various activities over the past 2 weeks.

First, the top. I had thought long about removing the top. I had initially considered that I should leave it on to make sure the gaps of doors, bodywork and windows were all correct, but in hindsight (and also noting the fact that a replaement top is upwards of $10k USD, I thought, perhaps, it might be kind of stupid,, so off it came. Damage was really not too bad, although the pirvot plate on the left side door pillar came off in my hands through the rust.














Apart from that, no major dramas. In fact, most of the disassembly has been rather straightforward. The Porsche manual, Ron Rowlands book and some of Kellog's book make the process enjoyable.

Next the windscreen. There are many articles on the Registry about this removal, people losing fingers, fingerprints, other bits of anatomy, much swearing, etc. But in this case it was ridiculousty straightforward.

The oringal windscreen has long gone, some time before 1969, and was replaced byt a screen from a long defunct company, Shat-R-Pruf. This screen is about 1/4 inch shorter than the original Sigla glass which accounts for the balls up caulking on the front, but considering all of the original repair work was done in the 60's with existing technology, it really wasn't that bad a job. Putting it back together will be most interesting though.

Swoopy looking car minus windscreen:


The long struts down either side of the dash came out without any issues, and the nuts jolding them underneath came off remarkably easy.  There is a tension rod in the middle of the screen which need to come out as well.

As a followup, all of the electrics under the dash are now out, wrapped in foil and race tape and tucker up under the dash. I tagged all of thw ires prior to this as well as finalized the schematics. The foil should give some protection during the metal work, and the wrap protects the tags on the wiring. If those come off, I am hooped.





So, as a quick and dirty update, thats where we are. The car is coming into final disassembly, parts cataloged, many diagrams, thousands of pictures and 50 pages of notes, so far.

Disassembly is very straightforward, just requing a bit of thought, heat, note taking and lots of PB Blaster.

The interesting part will commence in 3 week with the sand blasting. Full pics of that and the reassembly going forward.

Cheers,

Mexican Grand Prix tonight,, off to the beers.

Under a bit of pressure

A few weeks have passed and with the metal work scheduled for Nov 21 to start, I suddenly realized that some things, well, a lot actually, still need to be addressed.


First up on the must do things list was the removal of the instruments and wiring, so in the past two weeks I have basically spent more time on my back than a Thai hooker. As noted previously, electricity is generally not my friend, To overcome this intellectual deficiency, I have spent an inordinate amount of time taking pictures :


That's the back of the combo gauge by the way. Below is the back of the wiper switch and the accessory port.




But, since the wiring diagrams are, most helpfully, in black and white, I basically documented the entire under dash experience using the pencil method. An example of this is below:


When writing good technical manuals, something I used to do, the primary objective is to write to the level of the lowest common denominator, which in this case is me. Hence the somewhat oversimplified diagrams.

Thus far all of the instruments are out, wires tagged and bagged (I will remove the dash loom during metal), and just finalizing some final schematics during the next week. But, I should be pretty comfortable knowing I can put all of this back together.

All I do know is that as this is a 6 Volt system car and we need to account for all of them,, the volts I mean. (still not quite sure what an Amp is but they are apparently quite painful)

Anyway, for the more mechanically inclined, we also managed to remove (ta da) the pedal set.

It was a bit of a bitch but the most amazing thing happened, the 3 mounting bolts for the base plate came out, without swearing, hate, heat, etc. The clutch cable was interesting as I spent 2 hours under the dash undoing the cable one flat at a time. Must buy ratcheting wrenches. The cable comes off the right side of the assembly and routes back through the tunnel.


So, as at this point we are trying to get all of the bits and pieces off,, still much to do, More next time.


Gratuitous pic of Stella the shop dog,