The Official 356Talk Forum

Trevor,

How did you get the square tubing bent in the large circle? Looks like a perfect circle!

Trevor,

You might also want to check out Vintage Seats at www.vintageseats.com. They have a 356 GT seat - http://www.vintageseats.com/products/356-gt-seat. Not sure about the cost.

Steve:

your work is amazing. I am going to start doing the welding operation on the Roadster I am restoring and would like to know your opinion on the Mig welder that I should buy in order to do a decent job. I do not think that the way to go is to buy a machine from Harbor Fright, but one that will help me do the work correctly.

Your advice will be greatly appreciated.

Regards,

Manuel

Congratulations on your One-piece coupe trevor! You have a really nice jumping -off point now. Steve did a fantastic job of gluing her back together. Looking forward to your updates.

Your journey begins!!

Justin

Steve - Thanks, I hope by 2014. I'll be 40.

Bill - Thanks for the recommendation also on the GT seats. For me the speedster seats are the ones. On the hoops, they started out as 20 foot sections. I just bent them over my knee. OK just kidding. I took them to a metal forming shop up in LA that does elaborate staircases and similar things. They have a huge machine that rolls them. Once they were rolled I welded the two ends together. The magic in rolling the hoops is getting them rolled without kinking. I would have just gone with the octagon style rack that Rod Emory has on his website, except I don't have that much room in my garage.

Manuel - Steve's a pretty busy guy so he may not see this. He's having an open house at his shop the day before the Lit meet. If you can, try to stop by and talk with him.

Justin - Thanks, it definitely feels good to have it in one piece. And you're right, my journey is just starting. I've spent at least a few hours in the garage just looking at it. I'll start to cut/weld on it once I get all my pieces welded up for the rotisserie brackets. I thought I was going to do that this weekend, but instead of making Porsche memories in the garage I went sledding with the family. I did manage to pull the car outside and blow sand out and then coat it to prevent rust, it took 5 cans.

Finally got the brackets for the rotisserie welded, assembled and painted. This being SoCal I used what was readily available, skateboard wheels for the rollers in the brackets.

I'm looking forward to stopping by some open houses tomorrow and going to the swapmeet on Sunday.

In SoCal parlance, "That thing is bitchin'!". 8)

Trevor,
Just for interest sake , how are you going to assure that the two ends stay straight (and/or perpendicular) relative to each other while you weld the floor and longitudinals in since the two chassis mounts are not connected thus allowing them to move independently of each other ? The circular hoop design with the rollers is brilliant !

Jack - Thanks! See you Sunday I'm sure.

Larry - I'm not sure exactly what you mean, but I feel confident that the car isn't going to flex or twist with it being welded together now and how I've attached the rotisserie to the torsion bar tube in the front and in the back I have two posts that go up to the trans mount hoop holes.

Jack, don't you still have that haircut?

Trevor,
Well I think if you are going to venture into the structural rebuilding of your 356 you may want to be aware of the engineering aspects of the job. Have you looked at the frame bench that the factory recommends, pictured in the B/C shop manual ? Now since you have a coupe the potential problem is less than if you had a cab . But remember the floor is a structural member, i.e. known as a shear panel. Simply put it holds the longitudinal members and the center tunnel together such that it allows all the pieces to resist twisting and bending of the front end relative to the rear end. If I had designed your rotisserie I would have added 2 beams bolted, to allow easy removal, between the 2 uprights which attach to the torsion bar tubes to keep them aligned relative to each other.
Moreover these beams could be used as a reference plane to verify the chassis measurements per the drawings in the manual are in spec to assure that the chassis is still straight. If you ignore these precautions you could have some revolting developments when you reassemble the doors, namely uneven/wide door gaps and/ or problems when you attempt to align the suspension.
Just a heads up based on personal knowledge and experience best of luck.

Larry - Thanks for the heads up. I plan on checking the measurements as I go, although I don't anticipate any twisting or flexing.

BTW, what a swapmeet today at the Phoenix Club. Porsche overload! Even found a good deal on some metal.

Hi Trevor,
Love the rotisserie...well done. How is your welding coming along?

I second Larry's comments and have witnessed twisting in my own coupe. You probably already have a game plan on how to measure distortion as you progress, but you may want to hash it out here before you starting cutting away longs. We all want to see you succeed without regrets and some of us have been there done that.

You probably have some trick laser system up your sleeve, if so share it.

I was at today's swap meet for a short time with my kids. Too bad I didn't run into you. I could easily tell the socal folks; prepared for the warm weather versus the out of towners (country for that matter) Hot day for March!

Tom - Yeah it was warm. Sorry I missed you, I left around 1 or so and met up with my family at the beach down here in SC. Good of you to bring your kids! I usually bring my daughter with me to all the car stuff, my 8 year old son gets too bored and doesn't like that he can't sit inside the cars like he can at the annual LA Auto show. I think we as Dads have a responsibility to share the hobbies that we enjoy with our kids, whether it be cars, fishing or whatever. OK, off my soap box.

I'm pretty happy with how the rotisserie turned out. When we mounted the car originally Steve and I leveled it all up, front to back and side to side. My plan is to cut and weld a little at a time to spread out any possible heat distortion and take plenty of measurements as I go. No super trick laser level stuff here, just the old fashioned level and make sure everything stays square and true.

My welding is coming along OK. I have done almost all of my welding on the thick 11 gauge stuff that I used to make the brackets. At first I was just getting a bead on top of the metal (too much rod filler and low heat), then I turned up the heat and got a better puddle and it started to penetrate much better. Certainly not a stack of dimes or nickels, but definitely melting two pieces together. Next I'll start doing a whole bunch of practice on sheet metal to improve my skills. I don't have any delusions of grandeur about being able to master it immediately, but if I can keep the heat down and not warp the pieces while at the same time making some good joints I'll be thrilled. Practice, practice and more practice!

Here are some pics: