1965 Cabriolet Rejuvenation

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Bill Sargent
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Re: 1965 Cabriolet Rejuvenation

#31 Post by Bill Sargent »

Great repair! I was skeptical of your original plan, and really like how you chose to take the extra time and make it original.
Regards,

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Tom Perazzo
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Re: 1965 Cabriolet Rejuvenation

#32 Post by Tom Perazzo »

Mark, Great job. I too am glad to see you preserve the factory shape and use butt welds.. I love the wooden forming tools. Great ingenuity. Nice welding too.


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Mark Dionne
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Re: 1965 Cabriolet Rejuvenation - Left Longitudinal is Done

#33 Post by Mark Dionne »

Many thanks to the recent commenters who made kind remarks and to those who sent suggestions privately.

The left outer longitudinal is now welded in, and with the support removed from under the door hinge area, the door closes nice and easy!

How will the doors behave when I put the convertible top down and people are sitting in the car? I'm not going to try that until the other side of the car has been repaired.
Mark Dionne
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Erik Roelans
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Re: 1965 Cabriolet Rejuvenation

#34 Post by Erik Roelans »

Mark,

Respect! Nice to read your story, all the job being done by yourself.

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Frank Schanko
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Re: 1965 Cabriolet Rejuvenation

#35 Post by Frank Schanko »

Nice work Mark. Not easy to fit everything together.
Here in Germany i would hide the suspension welding pictures because of the german TÜV.
Here it is not allowed to built these "secure" parts custom on your own.
Great job!

Frank

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Mark Dionne
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Re: 1965 Cabriolet Rejuvenation - Door Sill Replacement

#36 Post by Mark Dionne »

If you don't want to read this whole posting, the key lesson is that it is easy to replace the door sill by installing it from the bottom.

The door sill is the horizontal piece under the door that has a black rubber mat on top. The rocker panel is the vertical piece under the door that is painted to match the car and is welded to the door sill. Some replacement parts are sold with the two already welded as a unit.

I replaced the driver-side sill with a part from Restoration Designs after installing the new outer longitudinal. It was a perfect, snug fit and I did not need to remove any metal. After fussing with some old Bondo at the back end area, I just pushed the new sill up from the bottom, tilting it to just clear the mounting bolts holding the rubber strip on the outside of the rocker panel.
sill.JPG
As I speculated in my February 24 posting, if the top edge of the outer longitudinal had been moved outward at all, the new door sill would not have fit without significant modification.

On the other side of the car there is a remnant of a brace attached to the rocker panel that apparently once connected to the outer longitudinal's outer lip. I don't remember anything about this brace in any of the restoration articles, but Restoration Designs has a part numbered P117D that looks like it. I'm curious if others know anything about this.
Last edited by Mark Dionne on Wed Apr 09, 2014 9:58 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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Re: 1965 Cabriolet Rejuvenation - More on Torsion Tube Suppo

#37 Post by Mark Dionne »

I got a look at a complete NOS torsion tube assembly which include the two support. I noticed two things.

1) The mounting points for the sway bar clamp are made from one strip of steel about 1/8 inch thick and 5/8 inch wide that bends over the area where the rubber bushing goes. This makes a much more substantial clamp than what I got when I used two hex nuts welded to the 19 gauge steel.

2) The normally hidden inner U-shaped sheet metal piece that is inside the vertical torsion bar support is welded to the outer wall of the vertical support. There are no welding marks visible on the outside of the vertical support, but from the inside it looks like it was spot welded. The inner piece is cut off square at the bottom with about 1/4 inch of clearance above the sway bar cutout.
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Re: 1965 Cabriolet Rejuvenation

#38 Post by Mark Dionne »

I jockeyed the car around the garage a bit to start working on the right side. Here's a view of the rear closing area and rear torsion bar cover:
patch.JPG
Doesn't look too bad? Most of what you see is one or two layers of patches and some pop rivets. When I peeled back the patches, here's what I found:
opened.JPG
The circular part in the middle is the indentation from the original closing panel. It's hanging "by a thread"--I could just pull it out with my fingers. Below it you can see the metal from the joint between the original closing panel and the outer longitudinal, hanging in mid-air. The doubled-up metal survived while the single thickness metal all rusted into oblivion. The heater pipe was previously fixed with some paper tubing. The paper held up better than the metal!
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Mark Dionne
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Re: 1965 Cabriolet Rejuvenation

#39 Post by Mark Dionne »

I'm formulating a plan of action for the right rear closing and torsion bar area.

I got the Stoddard Right inner rear frame repair panel (NLA-501-086-06 -- note that the inner and outer photos on the Stoddard web page seem to be interchanged). This piece needs to be cut out to weld to the rear torsion tube. I plan to weld it to the old weld bead like I did in the front. The piece also replaces part of the inside of the car: the last 10 inches or so of the vertical wall coming up from the floor at the back of the inner longitudinal (behind the rear seat mount). It includes a horizontal lip 6 inches long where the floor will eventually sit. The area can be seen in the bottom of this photo, with several rusty areas I could probably push my finger through.
corner.JPG
It just occurred to me that there is not much metal holding the car together at this point.

Another part of this is replacing the heater tube (part 644 501 289 01). AutoAtlanta claimed they had this (for $6!) but of course it's actually NLA. My local muffler shop fabricated one for me as follows:
1) Make a 4 inch radius, 45 degree bend in a piece of 2.25 inch tubing. (Edit: 42 degrees would probably fit better.)
2) Measure 6.25 inches from the center of the bend, on the outside of the tube, cut there, and expand the last 1.5 inches to fit the bulkhead piece inside the longitudinal (stretch to 60mm or 2.375 inch diameter).
3) Measure 13 inches from the center of the bend, on the outside of the tube, cut, and expand the last 1.5 inches the same size to fit the elbow into the heater valve box.
This will have to weld into another hole (oval) in the above-mentioned repair panel.
Last edited by Mark Dionne on Sat May 05, 2012 1:26 pm, edited 2 times in total.
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Re: 1965 Cabriolet Rejuvenation

#40 Post by Mark Dionne »

I roughly cut out the bad metal. At the top of the longitudinal at the back of the door opening, there are 4-5 layers:
layers.JPG
The 4 layers are: 1) the piece that Stoddard sells as the inner repair piece 2) a piece that goes up into the wheel well 3) the inner longitudinal 4) the outer repair piece. Toward the front (right) there is a another layer, a saddle piece that wraps over the top of the inner longitudinal.

Here's the view from the bottom, looking in the direction where the closing panel should be. The flat part in the center is the bottom of what you see in the first photo.
closing.JPG
It looks like I will need to add 6-7 pieces before the outer longitudinal can go on. The "inner repair piece" looks difficult because the front end will get in the way of fitting the back end, and the back end will get in the way of fitting the front end.
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Mark Dionne
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Re: 1965 Cabriolet Rejuvenation

#41 Post by Mark Dionne »

Here are some of the parts to fix the left rear torsion bar and closing area:
parts.JPG
They are laid out in roughly their relative positions. The main part that is missing is the piece for the top side of the inner longitudinal.

Here is everything all welded in place except the closing panel. (This is the same view as the last photo in my previous posting, rotated 90 degrees):
finished.JPG
The large repair piece welds at many places, including to the outer lip of the vertical wall that rises from the back of the floor pan. The top edge of the front half must match a curve (in the area shown in the first photo two posts ago). I had to stretch it out using a ball pein hammer.

The heater tube probably should have been bent at about 42 degrees rather than 45 degrees for an easier fit.
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Re: 1965 Cabriolet Rejuvenation - Tunnel documentation

#42 Post by Mark Dionne »

Since I have the bottom of the tunnel removed, I thought I'd document what is inside. The photos start from the back of the car. The left side of each photo is the left/driver side of the car. The fuel line has been removed. There is no tachometer cable in this 1965 car.
tunnel1.JPG
Visible above, Left to Right: brake cable in tube, heater control wire in tube, throttle wire, shift rod, hydraulic brake (white color), heater wire in tube, brake cable in tube. The cross support has a bend in the middle that rests on the floor. All the cross supports are at the same elevation, about 1/2 inch above the floor. The heater wire tubes slope slightly downward toward the back of the car.

Where the throttle wire passes over the cross support, there is a guide tab wrapped around it which is plastic coated and greased. At the top left, just barely visible, is another similar tab but it is unused. It is mispositioned, and if you hooked the throttle wire on this tab the wire would not move freely. The hydraulic brake line is not anchored to this cross support.
tunnel2.JPG
Above is the area between the seats. It appears as though there was a very light coat of primer on the inside of the tunnel.
tunnel4.JPG
Above: The shifter area. The mid-floor "cross tube" area is near the top of the photo where the spot weld holes are missing. The cross support has a tab that bends over the brake line, which has a 1-inch length of black hose, slit lengthwise, slipped over it. The cross support also has a tab that wraps around the throttle rod. This tab is plastic covered and has a blob of old grease.

Near the bottom right you can see where the battery cable and wire harness enter a channel at the top corner of the tunnel. The harness is above the battery cable. The fuel line, which I already removed, goes in a similar channel on the left. At the lower left, the clutch cable can be seen entering its own tube, which is obscured in the previous photos.

Also at the lower left you can see a white area on the brake cable tube. This is a smooth plastic sleeve where the throttle wire rubs on the top of the tube, and it is liberally greased. (In the photo, the throttle wire is not sitting in its "working" position. It normally crosses over the tube in this area.)
tunnel5.JPG
Above: Rusty area. The parking brake cable divider has been removed. The battery cable has been removed from one tab. It should pass through a hole on the right support wall which has been lost to rust (the cut-off bottom edge of that wall can be seen).

The hydraulic brake line (which is cut off short in this photo) is anchored to this cross support with a metal tab and rubber tube like the previous support. There is no throttle wire guide on this support.
tunnel6.JPG
Above: the front area. The front bulkhead is trimmed off here. The fuel line can be seen coming in from above.
Last edited by Mark Dionne on Thu May 24, 2012 10:03 am, edited 3 times in total.
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Vic Skirmants
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Re: 1965 Cabriolet Rejuvenation

#43 Post by Vic Skirmants »

Great work, Mark. Thanks for documenting this.

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C J Murray
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Re: 1965 Cabriolet Rejuvenation

#44 Post by C J Murray »

So that's why it costs so much to have rust repaired on a 356! Nice work.
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Re: 1965 Cabriolet Rejuvenation - RIght Side Torsion Bar Sup

#45 Post by Mark Dionne »

The right front torsion bar support was much worse than the left side. I learned a few new tricks doing this side. (See my March 18 post and other posts about repairing the left side.)
Old.JPG
Dad had patched it with a clamping arrangement. (Here the screws are loose.)

The first step was to clamp things in place. I used precision protractor and level to get the tubes perfectly parallel.
brace.JPG
I first welded a flat piece to the old inner welding bead. This piece was welded to the repair piece for the back side of the horizontal strut. (See photos below.)

I bent up an outer replacement piece. The hole is exactly in the center (side-to-side).
hole.JPG
I cut the piece in two using a Dremel cutter. These wheels are about 1mm thick and very tough. They are much less likely to distort things than a saw.
cut.JPG
I thought I might have to cut the top piece in half to get it in, but I just bowed it a bit and it dropped right in.
bend.JPG
The metal above the new piece has been repaired. I squared up the back side of the old welding bead using a 1/2 inch cylinder Dremel wheel.

In the photos above and below you can see the horizontal strut repair and the inner torsion bar repair.
fit.JPG
Here is what the original sway bar bracket mounting "nuts" look like.
clamp.JPG
Mark Dionne
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