356a Restoration

[dcraigmyle]

This is the ongoing story of my restoration of a 1957 356a. It started with a spur of the moment bid on Ebay for a 57 RHD T1 356. My bid was successful and for a few months I was the proud owner of my first 356.
However............ closer inspection revealed some pretty grim repairs and so I decided to go down the restoration route. The car went off to to the midlands for chemical stripping and came back looking very sorry for itself!!
Bruce at Sportwagen looked it over and declared it a donor at best. It was agreed I would look for a shell in the states to bring over and convert to RHD using my donor vehicle.
I placed an advert on the 356 registry website and searched all the usual places. However finding a car and telling from photos its condition are 2 very different skills.
My luck changed in 2008 when out of the blue I recieved a phone call from Don in Arizona. He had a 57 356A coupe which he was willing to sell. Better still it had been in a barn in Arizona since the late 60s.Finally it was available to view in bare metal as it had been recently stripped.
This had to be the one and it was!
In Feb 08 I was one my way to Scottsdale. One look at he car and the deal was done. We spent the weekend packing the car with all its parts and sealing it ready for transport. A quick trip to the local vehicle office and the title was tyransferred into my name. Kingstown Shipping did the rest
A few months later and the car was with me.
I then had a long and frustrating wait for Bruce at Sportwagen could fit in the car. Its still there and slowly taking shape.
There has been a change of plan as it turned out that the Arizona car is so good and rust free (the best shell Bruce has seen?) that we have decided to keep it LHD. It is also number matching.
I have rebuilt the original engine and gearbox under the supervision of Barry Curtis and Paul at PR services is restoring the running gear.

I have placed a link to the restoration photos and more will be added as they arrive.

I have also placed a link to an engine rebuild blog I am writing which may help futue builders. This is a work in progress.
Enjoy!

Ok thats not me in the first photo!


http://s908.photobucket.com/user/doccra ... 20assembly

http://s908.photobucket.com/home/doccraigmyle/allalbums

[buzz808]

that 356 is amazingly good condition,great find,bruce at sportswagen is guy for a top job,will be interested to see how it goes,i am due to start a rhd a in a few months and as your rhd,very rusty,what do you plan to do with the rhd car,is it realy beyond repair,or just beyond enconmic repair,would be interested to see extent of rust ,to compare to the one i will be starting soon
good luck
alex

[dcraigmyle]

Alex
were you in ringwood previously? I seem to remeber bringing the RHD 356 to you a few years ago. How is life in new zealand?
David

[buzz808]

hi david
dead right i was in ringwood,struggling to remember the car though,terrible memory,NZ is good i am busy doing plenty of porsche stuff,but i hope to be back in blighty some time next year for a bit,may have a bit of work lined up
perhaps post some photos of the old RHD ,i might remember,
will be watching this resto with interest
if you are thinking of selling the RHD i might have somone interested over here,there is a real lack of 356 here so anything is better than nothing,and a restoration that may not be a starter in the UK there will be someone in NZ willing to take it on,i have worked on a few here and some of them are shockingly bad,in the UK would probebly thrown away,not so here
anyway keep in touch
alex

[dcraigmyle]

There are photots of it on the photobucket link. However i am going to hang onto it and look for a better shell in the US of A.
David

Check the 1957 rhd pics
http://s908.photobucket.com/home/doccraigmyle/allalbums

[Dakota]

Hi David
that Uk car looks bad but no worse than a lot of other 356's that are out there, go on put it in a big box and post it to Alex you know you want to, it looks like the bones of it are still there and all 356's, pretty much need floors and sills, its the law, they left the factory with rust..
Now this is a bad UK 356..


the LHD drive car looks good I have one of those interim T2's too, with Teardrop rear lamps but T1 doors etc but the shell's not quite as nice as that.

[dcraigmyle]

I have posted some new pictures on the photobucket site of the car after chemical dipping. It will be restored. Not quite right now though!!

[roy mawbey]

David,

So far have looked really only at your engine blogspot. You have done a really great job David. That info and the way you have done it will no doubt help many people.

I will report back again when I look at the other album on the car.

Well done again.

By the way, I guess around 20 years ago Barry Curtis sold me a normal spring plate clutch for my 59A. This replaced the original diaphragm Hausermann version I think?I never ever got to grips with that. A few thousand miles and it needed setting up again. So Barry made my life much better selling me the older version! ( My later 356C I guess with the 200mm flywheel worked well with the diaphragm clutch though)

Cheers again ( hope your info could be added to become a sticky on 356 help issues)

Roy