The Official 356Talk Forum

Hello, I can finally post some photos of the engine bay and boot/trunk quilts.

The grey side quilts are from our '55 and the front and rear are from a '55 Carrera a great guy let me borrow to copy, hence the many cut out holes. The boot/trunk side pieces in red are from the side of our '55, which is odd as those in the engine bay are grey, but judging by the archaeology of the rust, glue etc when I took them out of the car, and also the recollections of the owner in the late 60's, they would appear to be original.

I have not seen many but over the years I have seen one quilt from an A, in brown, that had 2 slots cut with the edges stitched for the voltage regulator, and also one with a diamond pattern and another with a chess board pattern sewn into it, I assumed to keep the filling more secure. Those that i have seen have been either grey or brown, and the only 2 consistent things were the rubbish quality of the vinyl and the sloppy sewing of the edges, it wanders off in many places!

Hope this helps someone.

V

Fantastic photos! Thanks for sharing.

In terms of construction of the quilt for the engine bay, it looks like is cotton rag (dark grey with flecks of color?) with a burlap layer on each side, and then a layer of vinyl on the front side?

What's the back side of the red vinyl pad that goes on the front side walls in front of the fuel tank?

Cars up through 1954 used a single layer of carpet on those side walls, a hold-over from the split-window Reutter cars that had carpet not only on the sides but on the floor in front of the fuel tank as well.

The engine quilt layers are vinyl, then the beige 'felt', then the burlap/hessian scrim, there is no burlap/scrim layer between the vinyl and 'felt'. The red Trunk/boot side quilts are simply vinyl with a thin layer of the felt stuck to it.
The attached photos I hope shows what I mean with the grain and maybe the quality of the vinyl is apparent.

V

My 55 has the original engine compartment insulation. Rather than a vinyl material, it appears to be more of a light "oilcloth" type of material. It has a very definite woven back with what seems to be a coating on it that has the color. It is brown, now faded.

Reviving this thread and deviating a little ....
How is the engine compartment insulation secured. Contact glue I assume, but some photos show screws with cup washers, others appear to have dome fasteners - where are they positioned and how many?
Can someone please post photos detailing this?
Thanks,
Gary

Hello Gary, in our Sept '55 the red side panels were stuck on and the rest were fixed with a bit of glue and then around the edges with screws in cups, exactly the same as used to secure the door cards.

I might still have the paper patterns I made and I might have marked the positions of the fasteners, it's been a few years since I did this!

It will be a couple of weeks before I can check out whether I still have them but if I do you are welcome to them.

V

Very cool. Vincent. If you find the patterns, could you post a photo or two of them here, so people have them for reference? Great info.

Fantastic! Thank you Vincent, that would be very helpful.

Found them, but busy at the moment! will post photos as soon as I get a bit of time.
V

With all the eating and drinking out of the way I've managed to take the photos so here they are

And the rest of them

By the way I wouldn't worry exactly where these screws are, as the few I have seen are 'there or there abouts'. This goes particularly for the small bits, in between and either side of the hinges, it's a bit of a struggle getting onto the screws, I’d say it was really just where one could get the screwdriver onto them.

My view is that the quilts got a slathering of contact adhesive, slapped onto the engine bay walls, and then the screws were simply 'forcefully' screwed into the same approximate area!

V&S

PS For the 1st in 30+ years we were in the UK for New Year so we went to the New years Day Classic Car meet at Brooklands Museum in KCT.

An amazing all sorts line up of just over 1000 cars and 1000's of people. I hadn't finished parking the car when the 1st admirers came up for a chat, Sandi didn't manage to get out of the car!

I saw 1 T6 coupe, 1 T6 Cabrio. & a '55 speedster.

Lori Schutz had sent me some excess copies of the Registry magazines to promote the club which were eagerly accepted by anyone interested in 356s.

V&S

Hi Vincent,

Thank you so much, - really appreciated. This info will certainly enable us to continue this task with added confidence.

Wishing you and all our 356 Registry members a prosperous and rewarding 2024!

Cheers
Gary

If it hasn't already been mentioned, it is pretty easy to determine hole locations for the screws and there should be existing holes from the previous screws. If no holes, there probably wasn't material on the walls.

Hello, If the paper patterns are of use to anyone just drop me a line and I'll pop them in the post.

V&S