New to the 356 world

[Dave Pugh]

I'm a now an owner of a '64 356SC as of this morning. I found this car in a garage in Orinda, CA where it had been parked and put on blocks since 1981. Plenty of dirt and a black plate last registered to prove it.
So, for now I'm really excited to begin to get her back on the road and look forward to the benefits of the 356 Forum for any help. My last car was a '73 S that I had to sell because of a job loss back in 2013. I hope
to have as much fun with this car as I did the S.

I plan to focus on the drive train, brakes and misc. and not on the body. I kind of like the original paint and some of the primer added 35 years ago and plan to drive the car as is. Having a perfect car like I did in the
past is too painful to worry about parking stone chips etc. The floors are perfect as is the interior is perfect brown/tan leather.

Pix provided on my find. More to come...

[M Penta]

Welcome Dave,

Sounds like a great find, and a great place to start. Looking forward to more pics!

[M Penta]

BTW, this seems to be a pretty slow forum right now. I would have thought more people were getting into winter project mode right now, I know I am.

[Mark Pribanic]

BTW, this seems to be a pretty slow forum right now. I would have thought more people were getting into winter project mode right now, I know I am.

M Penta, this is just the beginning of prime driving season in Florida, lol. I usually use summer to do big projects, such as the floor pan replacement I did summer 2007.

Nice find Dave! Post some more fotos up when you get an opportunity!

[Dean Tanner]

Fantastic, please share more photos.

[Mark Cohn]

Welcome to the club! Looks like you found a good one!

[Greg Bryan]

Dave - that is a great find. A great starting basis for a great car!
I once looked at a 4 cam motor in Orinda - back in the last century - but couldn't scrape the $950 together to buy it ...
Good luck and keep us up to speed on your car. As you see, we love pictures!
Welcome to the forum.

Mr. Penta - that goes for you, too - we want pictures!

[Greg Bryan]

PS - how many more gems like this are sitting out there waiting to be found?

[Vic Skirmants]

Adam has them all.

[Adam Wright]

Working on it...

[Dave Pugh]

Pix as promised...

So I thought I was buying a silver 356 but as you can see I lucked into Sky Blue 6403. I couldn't get to the plate on the inside driver door open because of sitting so long. Once we moved it out of the garage it would open. Seeing inside the door panel clearly shows the original color...love it! The door panel still had the plastic between the door and the panel. Kinda cool.

She's dirty and every panel has something to address the hood being the worse panel although this will clean up based on the little I've done to it. I've chosen to leave the 40 years of dirt on the car for now as I hope to drive the car at some point as is.

[Doug McDonnell]

Here in Michigan we would call a Barn find that looks like that "brand new".

[Spencer Harris]

[quote="Dave Pugh"]Pix as promised...quote]

Congratulations on the find Dave. You'll find a wealth of info within this forum & keep the progress photos coming!

[Dave Pugh]

This past week I had Jim at EASY (my buddha) refurbish my calipers. Today Tom Amon came to my house to lend a hand with the installation. He also replaced the front wheel bearings, brake lines, gas lines, drain the fuel and changed the oil. He also woke the car up from it's 35 year long sleep! Although the motor was a little "stuck", he managed to loosen the crank and she fired right up. It felt miraculous or a savings of a shit load of money rebuilding it. Its fair to say valve adjustment and carb rebuild will make the motor run more smoothly, I'm glad it's not an immediate priority.

There is a lot to be said for a garage find. It's a completely original car outside of the crappy paint over the original Sky Blue. It's so cool seeing the original lines/bolts/screws etc. However, this garage find thing has a ton of work ahead for me but I'm fortunate to be in NorCal where so many resources are available.

[M Penta]

Nice progress Dave. Glad you got the engine free and running well! My original engine is still froze, after sitting for 5yrs full of oil, marvel, etc. Actually, I should try to see if it will turn now....

Maybe you can try to remove the silver paint to expose the original, maybe the silver actually even helped to preserve it. Imagine not only dodging the engine bullit, but the paint job bullit too!

I saw a this high dollar Ferrari race car that had red paint removed to expose the original lt blue. Probably a ton of labor but inexpensive?

'Edit', after taking a closer look, there may not be much blue left under that silver. Still worth investigating though?