Rebuilding a 1958 356A

58A - 71E · Post by **58A - 71E** » Sat Nov 28, 2009 9:37 pm

The username, signature and avatar suggest that a 1958 356A forms one half of the early Porsche stable, but very few DDK'rs have actually seen the 356.

The car is a 1958 (T2) 356A RHD coupe, 1600 normal, originally supplied to Lindsay motors in South Africa and was imported into this country in 1986. Original colour - metallic silver with red interior, being a South African car it was delivered with the option of US spec bumpers despite being RHD. It was purchased by my wife in 2002 and used as her daily for 4 years before our wonderful weather finally killed it. It failed its MOT in June 2006 the same week as this photo was taken at Harewood House - PCGB Yorkshire region show.

The MOT fail was due to corrosion in …err… everywhere structural and a whole host of suspension ailments

I learnt the hard way when people say how well 356’s hide rot

So I thought I’d chronicle the restoration/resurrection of the car.

I’ll start with a resume of the last 3 and a bit years…

58A - 71E · Post by **58A - 71E** » Sat Nov 28, 2009 9:40 pm

In July 2006 we started to strip the car down having decided that the best thing for it was a total ground up restoration. I don’t intend to restore this car again any time soon, so as the saying goes, if a job’s worth doing its worth doing right!

within a week it was starting to look this

58A - 71E · Post by **58A - 71E** » Sat Nov 28, 2009 9:41 pm

A few nice PO touches were found, like the bitumen that had been poured over the floors and covered in tin foil, which took a day to remove

some of the original sound deadening material was still there though

58A - 71E · Post by **58A - 71E** » Sat Nov 28, 2009 9:43 pm

Then put on the trailer for media blasting

and it returned in September 2006 like this

58A - 71E · Post by **58A - 71E** » Sat Nov 28, 2009 9:44 pm

I used a company in West Sussex http://www.blast-cleaning.co.uk/ which had come recommended – not exactly round the corner from Yorkshire – who did a very good job of removing all the paint, rust and crap on the car. They also did a very good job of rearranging the rear wings too

As well as giving me back a clean (bent) shell they also returned several bags of filler and fibreglass, this is just a small amount of it

most of the filler was on the rear left quarter and front clip and the rear torsion bars were just a hideous mess of fibreglass

58A - 71E · Post by **58A - 71E** » Sat Nov 28, 2009 9:48 pm

Once back in the garage I removed the longitudinals - as they were obviously shot – to expose the heater tube area and I could start to assess the extent of the task ahead - quality repair to bottom door hinge – two bolts brazed in to force the hinge out

58A - 71E · Post by **58A - 71E** » Sat Nov 28, 2009 9:48 pm

No heater tubes supports were in place (should be 3 each side) and the right hand heater tube was a bit mullered you could say

58A - 71E · Post by **58A - 71E** » Sat Nov 28, 2009 9:50 pm

The left rear wheelarch didnt survive too well at all, so I cut square the remnants of it

58A - 71E · Post by **58A - 71E** » Sat Nov 28, 2009 9:51 pm

The car has had a smash in the left rear at some point in its life and the rear bulkhead and wheel arch had been poorly repaired

58A - 71E · Post by **58A - 71E** » Sat Nov 28, 2009 9:55 pm

The other worrying thing was that the car never looked just quite right at the rear. I decided that the best thing to do was to have it put on a jig so that pretty much discounted doing the bodywork myself, given the complexity, extent and time required, so the job was entrusted to Lee Peacock at Autoclassica Bodyworks.

Unfortunately the car sat in the garage until a slot became available with Lee – nearly 2 years - work commenced in November 2008. This gave me time to source replacement panels, parts etc from the list that I knew definitely would need replacing. The list of panels was starting to look pretty blo*dy long

although at this stage I was hoping to save replacing some major panels like the front clip.

First thing was to mount the car on the jig –well it was a mile off on the left side rear (where it had had the accident) so suspicions were confirmed that all was not as it should be

58A - 71E · Post by **58A - 71E** » Sat Nov 28, 2009 9:56 pm

The remains of the floor were removed to give a little more flex and noted that foot wells and floor board supports were in poor condition – footwell rotted and supports battered

The centre tunnel was generally in very good order, just a couple of small repair areas – area in floor board supports that the pedal shaft run through was really beat up

but it was soon evident that not all was as it should be in the left sill - there was a lot of additional repair metal towards the rear of the sill near the lockpost area

58A - 71E · Post by **58A - 71E** » Sat Nov 28, 2009 10:00 pm

So out came the tape measure and the left side of the car was approx 25mm longer than the right

It had obviously had some ugly repairs in the past (presumably at the time of the accident) but without being on a jig too much metal in the sill had been added. The decision was taken to remove the centre tunnel and the left sill and fabricate a new one which would be the correct length

and finally the car could be lined up with the jig

Now personally I was quite pleased that the car was starting to line up as it should do, although Mrs 58A didnt quite see it that way when she saw the car at this stage

58A - 71E · Post by **58A - 71E** » Sat Nov 28, 2009 10:00 pm

We decided that the other sill was looking past its best too so a replacement would go in the right side too

58A - 71E · Post by **58A - 71E** » Sat Nov 28, 2009 10:01 pm

Then work could commence on putting some strength back in the rear torsion bars

the area was then covered with Eastwood rust prevention treatment and the second halves of the chassis legs offered up

58A - 71E · Post by **58A - 71E** » Sat Nov 28, 2009 10:02 pm

Petrol tank floor didn’t survive either and was removed