AFN no. 400 - what have I done?!

[vwgillybilly]

On it - thanks.

[vwgillybilly]

Ok, here goes. I found postimage the most useful, maybe I'm missing something with Flikr?

So about the car... shot floor, inner wings, inner front panel, battery tray, longitudinals & heater pipes, door bottoms & lower door skins & probably more.

Good rear end, roof, apertures, fuel tank panel, engine lid, most of the bonnet & most of the outer front panel / wings & bumpers.

Mostly complete, at first glance I'm missing headlights, drivers side window regulator, ashtray, front windscreen, passenger side seat runners / mount, 'A' bonnet handle, keys & obviously the engine.

Definitely sending it somewhere for the structural welding & doors, thinking of Irvs restos who painted my last 356. He seems enthusiastic & reasonably priced, his VW work is stunning & he's done some good work on 912s.

Started picking up parts & also kept some interesting stuff off my last A, including the VDM wheel, Bosch fogs, radio, louvred engine lid, Sebring exhaust & some other bits & bobs. Plan is to keep the original plate - VRK 3, unless funds run out. The current 'pot' should see the engine purchase, gearbox check / rebuild, most of the welding / panels & the CSP disk brakes on the front, as the car is currently fitted with oxidised B brakes - which feature on the AFN sheet provided by Mike Smith. Mechanical & other stuff like suspension, king/linkpins, cables, brake plumbing & wiring I will do myself. Fortunately the loom is unmolested & supple so a check & clean should suffice there.

Started stripping the car this week, standard shearing bolts etc but it's essentially bare now, just the doors & rest of the rear end sound deadening now. Looking to get it sympathetically blasted underneath as I plan to keep the paint & blend the repairs, the AFN sheet states the car was repainted in 1962, so unfortunately not original paint, but close enough.

Roy - interesting how close out cars are, I'm sure I'll be bending your ear for some finer 59 only details over the next year or so!

[vwgillybilly]

[Gary71]

Awesome. Needs a little work


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[Ashley James]

Needs stripping out and blasting or dipping to see exactly what's needed. But it's worth it.

[Gary71]

Absolutely worth it. We need step by step photos of its recovery!


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[vwgillybilly]

Needs stripping out and blasting or dipping to see exactly what's needed. But it's worth it.

Agreed, I'm deliberating the way forward with this to save the paint!

The rear from the b posts back & rear seat area is ace so I'm thinking remove the front nose from where the rot is & locally blast the front, a post bottoms, door bottoms & whatever else can be accessed around that area. Then the underneath of the rear can be blasted if needed.

Then the inner front panels, battery tray, inner wings, closing panels & whatever else the front needs can be mocked up, the cleaned up front panel mock fitted & once it all aligns, welded in place. Then the rear front wing / door aperture panels can be aligned & welded. The doors should be fairly simple to slign as the outer sill & rear closing panels should be ok to leave.

That's the plan anyway, hopefully makes sense. Of course I could go full hog, but the point is to build a car I can enjoy & not have to cosmetically pamper all the time. If it turns out to plan the car could 'easily' be painted if desired.

[Ashley James]

The thing to remember is that us Brits are known internationally for our own brand of concours and that most cars need doing again because it's not good enough, so, if you decide to sell, a substantial amount is deducted from the value to allow for another rebuild. Done really well, the car is worth top price and the investment justified, but anything else and it won't be worth much more than it is now.

I'd do it as well as you can because you won't regret it long term, even if your kids are the beneficiaries.

My son forced me to fit the best possible interior to mine and we did, but the American respray is pickling a bit, door fit could be better and it has a few bubbles down the rear of the front wings where yours has gone, so now I've decided to give it to the body shop for the winter, which is what I should have done first.

So I didn't take the advice I'm giving you, but I should have, although mine is nothing like as valuable as yours will be.

[roy mawbey]

Gill,

Great to see the photos I will also try the postimage you obviously were okay using. Very interesting project. You know already what its all about, and the car has a great chance to come back to life. The rust is exactly where I thought it would be, except the B pillar area seems to be better than I expected. As you know the sections needing repair are mainly available now including the battery box area. This area looks like its had an early repair. The bonnet as you say needs the A handle but is that bonnet a BT5? The hinges might have the chassis end 3 digits.

I would spend some time looking on the bodywork resto pages on www.abcgt.com All these repairs have been explained so well with photos too. The door repairs too are not easy, and of course the money spent can increase substantially for the perfect job.

As you say a nice runner is what you would like and be able to drive without worry. As the glass is out might it not be best to get the repairs done and find someone who will apply a coat or two rather than try to blend? I have resprayed mine twice in nearly 50 years, last one 28 years ago. I had no experience the first time in 1977, and not much more by then late 80's. I hired a compressor
then and used cellulose. Don't think you can get that now in quantity? Two pack might be the only way? But its was an easier job for me than when I welded and leaded.

Its so easy to get too involved and money and time takes over. Those seats and the chrome uprights might be too far gone, and then you might look for T2 only seats that might be available for less money than all the chroming.

As said already you know what its all about, I think you will succeed with it, but please look on ABCGT.

A nice thread to follow here on DDK. All the best !!

Roy

[vwgillybilly]

Sounds logical.

I did my last one to good driver standard & basically followed the logical path you outlined. I made a decent profit as I gave very little (relatively speaking) for the car. Pretty much any 356a on the road is worth 60-70k so I figure mine with a thorough structural & mechanical resto should be worth 75k being a RHD UK car with provenance. Painted it would probably be worth 85K so the final value should be relative to my investment.

The problem for me with shiny cars is not wanting to drive them!

[vwgillybilly]

Cheers Roy.

All panels are original to the car to my knowledge. The car had some accident damage in the 60s hence the respray so the bonnet could well have been changed with the B brakes.

I'm pretty firm on keeping the car original looking paint wise, just feel it's the route I want to take & blend repairs where needed.

The interior is complete, the uprights work perfectly & the chroming on the last set cost £200 & turned out lovely without dismantling them. The seats are very very solid so I may have the split in the drivers seat repaired & thoroughly clean the vinyl, I have done this before with decent success.
Then it's a case of a new carpet set & headliner & the interior should be a nice place to be! All the tan knobs & escutcheons etc are present & in nice condition too, apart from the indicator stalk.

It all sounds so easy! Pfffft!

Gill

[Ashley James]

It is worth completely stripping it and painting with modern two pack because it's so much more durable than cellulose which chips so easily.

I'm absolutely fascinated by the project and looking forward to seeing progress photos.

[simon james]

So lovely to see another proper English RHD 356! There are far too many imported ones!
Anyway as the owner of a scruffy but still proper afn supplied car, I am with you! Repair and blend, you will never replicate that authentic feel and you'll miss it when it becomes just another shiny 356!
In terms of interior, my only "new" item is a proper RHD front floor mat! I still have original seats which are careworn, original carpets which have an incredible aroma and original headlining which is actually rather good! Restored cars to me never look right, I know a few years ago I restored an Austin Healey and had to replace the vinyl which wasn't the proper type. Whilst the car won awards, It never looked authentic inside and more important didn't "smell" like an old motor....

[drew01356]

Hi Gill
Welcome to the world of RHD 356's (I am in the process of restoring 2 RHD 59's at the moment).
Yours seems to be in a similar state to the South African one that's in my workshop at the moment.
I agree with Roy Justin's ABCGT forum is a great place to visit to see similar projects.
I was wondering if your chassis number was 106919 as I went to see a very similar red 59 RHD car that was for sale for £9,750 in Andover (but that was back in 1994) the guy selling it was Ian Macmath.
Unfortunately I didn't take any pictures (mobile phones hadn't been invented back then).
Did you say the original registration was VRK 3 ?
Anyway great project, keep the pictures and progress coming.
regards
Drew

[vwgillybilly]

Been a while with updates. Shell isn’t far off... I’ll try to upload some pics.

Engine done.
Gearbox done.
Wheels done.
Brakes ready.
Chroming done.

Gill