356 B T6 Restoration

[neil blaber]

a little bit more done today on the side panel, I do have a little more fettling to do but its coming on

I put the shallow bulge in but that needs a little more hammering, coming on though

should start welding the axle early this week then on to side panel

[Andrew Jones]

Neil, excellent work, I am finding this very helpful as I ponder the path for my BT5 resto. Luckily it doesn't appear to be as bad as this, so seeing what can be done is great!

[neil blaber]

hi Andrew,

good luck with the bt5, in all honesty I will say I'm not the best sheet metal fabricator in the world or panel beater for that matter but a little time and patience helps immensely! I do have a scrap pile of panels accumulating (not very big at the moment) but that only makes the next panel you make better. after all it is only metal! it bends, cuts and welds

[Adam Wright]

. after all it is only metal! it bends, cuts and welds

Truer words were never spoken, the first thing you need to do when starting a restoration is overcome your fear of the car, just do it, cut it, weld it. If you are afraid of the car or what you might do to it, you don't own the car, the car owns you. I know too many guys who let a car sit in their garage for decades because they are afraid of working on it, but are also afraid of selling it, it's no fun to be that guy.

But don't go crazy, pick one corner of the car, fix it and move on to the next part. Too many guys go in and chop everything and can't remember what everything is supposed to look like later.

[neil blaber]

time for a little update as I have a couple of new pictures!

this was the awkward part as the door hinge pillar is rotted so welding a new inner panel to that is not going to do anything really, so since I have made a new inner and outer hinge pillar they really needed to go in, then weld those to the new inner panel. one slight problem with that is the old hinge pillar is holding up that part of the roof!

so I have cut the lower part of the inner hinge pillar off and tacked in a make do piece for now, so I can finish of the front part of the inner longitudinal, my hinge pillar support from the jig will then have a bit extra tacked on to it, to weld to the make do piece, then replace the outer pillar and hinge mounts then reverse the made up jig bracket (as it is now) then replace the inner pillar. simple really lol

so here is what I have done in the few hours this weekend

you can see the make do piece that held the inner longitudinal in place and is now tacked to the top part of the inner pillar

the front longitudinal has a diagonal bend in it where that red line is, I have to put that in yet

oh so much fun to be had...

[neil blaber]

can anyone tell me what this tube is for? it comes out from inside the rear chassis and curls around to where it rusted away.

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I have been and collected some tubing and mandrel bends for the heater pipes, so I can now fit those in and weld the inner hinge pillar to the outer and weld the screen pillar back to it as well.

a small pic of the inside, I have some small dents to hammer out (black circle)and that diagonal bend is in now (red oblong)

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[neil blaber]

am I right in thinking its for the rear window defroster?

[David Gensler]

Yes, it diverts a little warm air from the main duct up to the rear window. Porsche placed the connection to it inside the rear frame rails for the sole purpose of making what would otherwise be a simple 30 minute repair for the warm air duct into a 3 day adventure in welding.
DG

[neil blaber]

thanks for the reply david,

I think it shall be routed a different way now

[Steve Harrison]

I've never seen that heat tube, my car didn't have it, but maybe a work around might be where you just weld a 'snout' on to each end and use a clamped on rubber tube to connect them? Save a bit of fitting and fussing. Just thinking out loud.

Your work looks really nice Neil, and you are into what I call "knee deep into the bowels of the car" so to speak.
Are you going to fit up the doors while all this structural work is ongoing? Since I see it's not your first trip to the dance, I'm sure you're doing this, but it might appear to readers that its not essential. You're probably popping them in and out on occasion to check things, but since it's not shown wanted to throw that out there.

Absolutely love your shop made panels. Did a bit of that myself and it's really satisfying. I can tell you are one of those oddballs (myself included, ; ) that can look at a shiny new bump worked panel as a thing of beauty. Almost a shame to hide away under there down in the structure, haha.

[neil blaber]

hi steve, I shall let you in on my way of thinking! lol

yes the doors... as you might think I have been trying the door on just to make sure it does fit, but to be honest I haven't. I have been working on the door though as the bottom 3 inch's or so are pretty much non existent. the bottom hinge on the door frame was not really still connected to the frame so having the luxury of being able to try it on was not an option.

I know that sounds rather daunting as I can imagine people saying 'how will you know the door fits!' well not only taking in to account the state of the door frame, the quarter panel is hanging on and the weight of it from the rear is forcing the bottom of the door edge inward, so the door gap would be closed up if the door was on.

keeping in mind these cars were hand built at some stage, I will be making some 1/4 panels and front fenders so I could essentially put the door gaps where ever I liked. I will give you a sneak preview of my secret workings though!

I have started to make some new doors, I have chosen aluminium just for that carrera feel, well fake carrera as it will be... this is the first part I made, it has a small split towards the top and a small split at the bottom, I will tig this up but may also end up making another one

[Steve Harrison]

Ahh,...makes more sense now. Since lots of the car is just "gone" and not physically there anymore you kinda get a blank check so to speak, to do what you like. That's actually a bit liberating don't you think? haha. Most guys have to watch the door gaps all along when doing structural because the door is the "boss". In your case,...you're the boss. As long as the door opening is reasonably in the ball park when you're done,...you can make the door to fit! That's way cool.

[neil blaber]

you could say it a 'perk' of buying such a rusty car lol

well time for another little update, I had to replace the lower part of the screen pillar so I could weld it back to the door pillar so I cut off the lower few inch's and made replacements

old part

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time to get bending metal, the inner piece is 1.6mm and the outer is 1mm, the piece in the middle is the old part with the new bits top and bottom

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and finally the 2 parts how they sit together, the inner needs to have a little trimmed off at that point but you get the jist of it. and what I did today was re-weld the speaker housing back on after cutting the hole, and make the top pillar finishing panel (best description I could think of)

the old one flattened out

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the new one trial fit

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[StephenJohns]

Nice work I must say.
I have been too busy trying to get my BT5 to a stage where I can start welding in some metal that I have missed half of these posts.
My LH hinge pillar took a big hit at some stage and is sitting in approx. 25-35mm from where it should be so working on stitching in a new section once it is nice and solid along with front axle beam.

[neil blaber]

Nice work I must say.
I have been too busy trying to get my BT5 to a stage where I can start welding in some metal that I have missed half of these posts.
My LH hinge pillar took a big hit at some stage and is sitting in approx. 25-35mm from where it should be so working on stitching in a new section once it is nice and solid along with front axle beam.

I am following your build with interest! I have sent you a pm