1960 356B Restoration

[Ashley James]

Great to see and amazing that pattern panels fit so well. A friend is restoring a Healey and having to modify everything to get it all to fit properly.

[DustyM]

Great to see and amazing that pattern panels fit so well. A friend is restoring a Healey and having to modify everything to get it all to fit properly.

The black panels are genuine Porsche and did fit pretty well. Most of the other panels required quite a bit of fettling to fit, hours in some cases.

[Burma-Shave]

Wow, so much work! Enjoyed catching up with this Jon, thanks for posting.

[DustyM]

Another one to catch up on....


The finished shell into the paintbooth for epoxy primer (the camera can't make up it's mind about the colour, it is all the same paint!)

[DustyM]

Panels fitted for final gapping



At the customers request both the new louvred and the original engine lids are being made to fit the same opening.





Lead loading begins

[Boydyrs]

Speechless, amazing, fantastic skills......another one saved!

[DustyM]

Time I made the effort to bring this one into 2018!

The lead work continued on with work to the door shuts, rear quarters and front panel until we were happy with the gaps. It is laborious work and can be frustrating but worth it on a car like this.

[DustyM]

The next thing to tackle was the nerve wracking job of cutting a hole in the bonnet for the centre fill.

measure ten times, cut once!



I made a ply former to and bottom and bolted it through the bonnet.



And then gradually beat a flange down.



once the former is removed



And the holes welded up.

[Lightweight_911]

.

[Gary71]

Great stuff, always good to see some proper craftsmanship

[DustyM]

After Leadwork is completed, a further coat of epoxy is applied.







The Arty Shot...





And then a high build primer applied





The underside is prepped for stoneguard and all joints seam sealed.





Which is overpainted with Satin black 2k

[Bootsy]

Wonderful work

[DustyM]

Next the interior is painted. The colour looks different in each shot but is all Aetna Blue, the car's original colour.





And masked up again to protect it.



whilst the engine bay and luggage compartment are painted Satin Black.





The shell and panels are then painted in a final black primer to show up any remaining imperfections before paint.

[DustyM]

Bumpers are the final metal work needed, we want them to sit closer to the body so modifications are needed.







After the brackets have been modified to pull the bumper in the contours need to be altered to match the shape of the body, in some cases metal is removed in others a new section made in the correct shape.







And a recess for the reversing light.

[Kneeslider]

Thats really fabulous. All those little niggling bits of my car where I only realised that there were issues with panel fit AFTER it had been painted are still niggling at me now. No one notices, but I do. It makes all the difference between a car that looks OK, and one that is spectacular. But how many hours of extra work with all that fitting and fettling before final paint? That said, they probably weren't that good when new!