my 356 journey

[Disco]

hey guys,

I thought I'd try and put together a post of my 356 journey.

Essentially what you see below is a 10 footer - probably a 15 footer. It is ( in my mind ) a lovely 356 B T6 which is Right Hand Drive. It will never be concours - mainly becuase I cant afford it to be, but also because it is currently running an A engine.

The car was purchased from PRS a couple of months ago, when I 'chopped in' my 911 T - to Paul Stephens.

anyway - less about the good bits:

here's the car: - looking good from 10 foot.







as you can see she doesnt look too bad. but when you look a little closer there seems to be a couple of pretty poor repairs. Basically the bottom of the doors have been done in the past, as have the floors etc. I'm guessing from the documentation that the whole car had been restored in 1995(ish) where there was a colour change from slate grey to silver.

anyway, based on the fact that the doors and door shuts need doing I have managed to find a local company to do the work.

here is where we are at the moment




you can see in this photo the pretty poor workmanship of metalwork, blended with filler...




and then finally here - when the paint is off and the filler is removed - a pretty tatty wheel arch.




anyway - the plan is to get this work done, take the bumpers off, get som Fuchs' on it all round, and start looking at the front - I can already see some worrying parts....

all the best and I'll try and keep on posting.

[Disco]

I've decided to have the doors completely re-skinned, which I think will be the best approach - trying to sort out the wheat from the chaff is always hard. I've also bought door bottoms, but the door sides are also rotten in places, sadly you cant actually buy those bits? - which seems a bit odd. - anyway a fair amount of new sheet metal has been purchased so into the breach we go

- the plan will be to have it back on the road by the end of september, it was originally the end of August but for some reason these things just take time. I've got the door frames in at a local chromer ( door frames, rear quarterlights and door handles to be precise ) and that alone will take 6 weeks... at this rate, I'm not going to have her done by my 40th...

anway I shouldnt try and rush it, I want it done right - the plan is to keep this one long into my retirement, unless of course I can find a nice RHD A with a sunroof

[hot66]

nice looking car

moved the thread to members car's too Look forward to seeing how the car develops

[Disco]

thanks James, I thought that I'd lost my mind - I couldnt find the post!

[DustyM]

Slippery slope! I can see this turning into a long thread

Link to restoration of my RHD B is below, not much progress in the last six months though.

Cheers
Jon

[Disco]

BIMEY - That one looked a bit of a mess - seems that you're making good progress... - yes definately a slippery slope, but all good fun.

I have a terrible feeling that the heating duct wasnt replaced when they did my longditudes the last time, was pretty cold on the way home from PRS ...

cheers

[Lightweight_911]

Looking forward to seeing your new purchase metamorphosise ...

It looks a lot better than the RHD 356B I had - which turned out to be so bad that I cut it up & sold it for spares ...

[Disco]

andy - dont tell me that !!!

fingers crossed it wont come to the same fate as yours! - if it does the wife'll never let me live it down!

[Lightweight_911]

It was quite a long time ago ... if I tell you that I only paid £1450 for the car (& enough accumulated NOS parts to replace most of the mechanical & trim bits) you'll have an idea of how long ago !

[Hendrik Moulds]

Definitely looks like you're in for a long journey, cos once you start at one point you pretty much end up going all the way round the car.
Look forward to more updates.

[Disco]

well,

sorry for the lack of replies - updates. more to follow soon in respect to pictures and other such goodies.

I was struggling with getting the door skins to fit ( I say 'I' but I mean someone who actually knows the right end of a mallet ) - anyway the door skin is on the door which is a plus. Last time I saw the door shut fit I was impressed with the work, but a little concerned with the fit of the door - basically - there's a bulge in the wrong place... but I suppose all these things can be beaten out in the wash. - I'll post some pictures, atlhough to be honest, all the pictures I've taken dont really show the problem.

Anway - another minor disaster has occured. The garage that is doing the work has gone ( on Monday ) into recievership, which is a real shame for them, becuase they seem like a really good bunch of guys. - but it does pose a problem for me, becuase I now need to get a half finished car out of the workshop sharpish. - and I need to find someone else who'll take a half done job on...

all good fun. - it was all supposed to be done by August!

[Disco]

so the car is now back in my garage, bit of a hairy ride home sans glass and a few other bits.

below are a couple of pictures that I have taken over the last couple of months. shows steady progress and also the nightmare that is door skins.





You'll notice one of the part owners of the car in the background checking the quality of the work. Apparently he wants yellow wheels... might go quite well with a yellow stripe over the top... we will see.



aside from the major issue of the door gaps not being right, which can be resolved, my big worry is the height of the door bulge in comparison to the front wing. the back part of the door seems to fit nicely, but the front bit is quite proud, I think a bit of beating will be required here

not sure if you can really see what I'm talking about in the below - but what you can see is the work that has gone into the 'edge' and more importantly, how much work needs to be done to get it right - ie a lot.

what I have learnt from this is: - re-use the doorskins you've got if at all possible - and I will be doing this with the other side.




and here is another one:




aside from the doors and sills I'm also going for the bumperless look - here's a start:



and here is the other part owner of the project: ( please excuse the top, my wife is a footballers wife, without the footballer husband )

[Disco]

so,

A little bit of a disaster... recoverable mind you. The people that were doing the work on my car went out of business a couple of months ago. Its a real shame, they were all a really nice bunch of blokes, that had been in the business for years... but because of the way insurance companies pay companies, there was a cashflow problem so the business got wound up.

fortunately they rang me and told me before it happened, so i was able to get the car back from the garage before they went into administration.

car back in the garage looking a bit sorry for itself to be honest - but the good news is that I have found someone else who can take a look at it.

I promised myself that I didnt want to be in a position where my car would be off the road for ages - and look where I am! = still, apparently these guys tell me that they'll be done quite quickly... so maybe by january, we'll have something to show for it...

[Disco]

here's the car in the garage

[Disco]

remember I told you guys about the door skins? - and the trouble they had with them? -

so, take a look at this below - you can see that the skins just dont fit the shape of the rest of the car and actually sit almost half an inch proud above where they need to...




Anyway - it give the chaps at the new place something to do... although ive told them not to replace the whole door skin on the other side, just a part of one... make for an easier job I think.