DDK - Die Deutschen Klassiker

After this I cleared up the floor under the body. It have been hanging in the roof for over a year now…
I then cut out the aluminum firewall panels the previous owner had pop riveted to the body...




And also cut out a lot of the inner fenders etc. that I no longer need after the metalwork I've done to the pan.



So now the body was pretty clean inside and ready to be dropped back down again…



Finally back together again for awhile. Got to make the body mounts etc. now. Then lift the body so I can prime and paint the chassis before the body is finally fitted permanently…
Real fun now when all the work have paid out and the body do still fit on the chassis even though I made a lot of changes and improvements from earlier builders..

Awesome. Loving your work!

looking real good!

I found I had to fit the doors before I bolted the body down to the chassis so as to get the best contour fit top / bottom / side to side / and front to back with the surrounding body work, surprising how much fibreglass moves around.

Awesome

It's come along way from when you picked it up.

Great fab/skills and imagination.

Always a good feeling when the body goes back on for good to. Your nearly there.

Thanks! Rolled out so I could blow off the dust off the body. Nice reflection from the water from the heavy raining earlier today…



Looks like all the measuring and brainstorming have paid out as it looks like I can fit the spacesaver spare wheel in the front too. Just needs to swap it to the original Kronprintz 356 wheel I have…




The box under the grille needs some small mods to fit over the air filter as I have lifted the engine and transmission 5cm from stock. I think the 205/55-16 looks good in the rear too! :D

Agree!
Great build, real garage hot-rod stuff just like in the 70's!

Keep going!!

Removed the final aluminium panel under the rear window. Flipped it and testfit it more vertical as a firewall. Seems like it could work as firewall.



Looking at the gaps between the body and pan it would be tempting to make the inner panels all the way upp to sidewindows in sheetmetal instead of fiberglass...

Well. July was very slow in the garage due to holidays...

The past week I've done some progess though.. Got the body levelled and lined up to the pan. So now I can start joining the body to the pan...

I also wanted to make the rear firewall more authentic so I hammerformed it......



Some welding is still required as I need to replace the fiberglass sparewheelwell with one in metal instead....

Looking good, What's next after all the fabrication is done?

Next after all the metalwork gradually is done will be to start working in fiberglass to build the bodymounts/internal walls that will be supporting the body to the pan. The body is just an empty shell at the moment.
After the fiberglasswork is done the body will be lifted off the pan and the pan will then be sandblasted, primered and painted prior to final mounting of the body.

Also got the center blindout "gauge" finally finished with glass and chrome last week...

Now I've started to fit the final sheetmetalpanels for the sparewheelbay. Spotwelded the sidepanels and fixed the front for the first time ever since year 2000...




Also cut carefully out some of the fiberglass without loosing the rigidity until I get the panels fixed..
Here you see that the previous owners did not bother being too accurate when they molded the inner panels....

Had very little time working on this the past weeks... Just been trying to work out a good solution for the bottom of the sparewheelbay... Also tried to figure out how to make front bumpermounts etc...





And as I started making bumpermounts I naturally need bumpers too... So I took two early VW bumpers and cut them offset from center to make one slightly wider bumper...





I will round off the bumpers with the remains of the cut bumpers so they wrap around the corners nicely.

Love it

Those bumpers are inspired! Ally GT strip too?

They look great Are you going with fully chromed bumpers back and front?

I was considering using the metal ones from a 356 coupé, modifying the bumper line to match the body (Emory style) and getting them chromed and as Cubist said add the GT strips. Not original but most people ask why the bumpers on my 356 coupé are not chrome anyway.

Really love the work you are doing