My 1963 356B Project

[Jason Laster]

Hello Registry. For a long time I have been casually looking for a 356 to add to the garage. A few weeks ago I found a non-runner which fit the criteria I was looking for. After going to inspect the car and agreeing on a price it was delivered. The story is that this 356 had been in a barn and not registered since 2010. Mechanically it appears mostly complete, but is a non-runner. I'm kinda done with the full restoration after spending multiple years on a 1962 VW 15-window, so the goal here is to make it road worthy and drive it. Plenty of things to do, but here are the first initial pics from a few weeks ago.

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[Jason Laster]

The purchase finalized a day before leaving on a cruise, but we were excited to at least see what could be done. I picked up a 6V battery to start the recovery process. The battery tray area is rotted, so that will need to be addressed, but there were some very odd other bits in the frunk as well. There was a large 2AWG? red wire running from the front all the way under the body ziptied. It led back to the ground strap bolt on the transaxle. Odd....I'm guessing they were dealing with a hot start condition and though running a wire back would be better (I dunno, just guessing). This was the grounding strap for the battery. I disconnected that and used a shorter wire to ground directly to the body for now to see if the engine will turn over with the starter. Nothing but a click.

After attempting to clean multiple electrical connectors didn't have any effect on the starter spinning, I removed it. Bench testing shows the solenoid does move, but the motor will not spin. The starter is a Bosch with the beetle number SR11X. I ordered the correct SR21X and await its arrival. In the meantime, we checked the car out electrically. The switches all seem to work, but do have some crackle likely due to corrosion on the contact points. A bonus for me was the radio was actually turning on. I'm not sure of the state of the speakers, but there was a very low level audio signal I could hear.

[Vic Skirmants]

You can't bench test a starter without supporting the end that fits in the transmission; otherwise "the solenoid does move, but the motor will not spin".

[Jason Laster]

You can't bench test a starter without supporting the end that fits in the transmission; otherwise "the solenoid does move, but the motor will not spin".

Arrg! I should have remembered that, thanks Vic. Just to know I hooked it all back up again to a spare transaxle and had the same behavior. The bushing was a tad bit loose, so I guess it's still possible I am seeing the same behavior due to some additional strain on the motor. Either way I'll put the correct starter in when it arrives tomorrow.

[Jason Laster]

The starter showed up the other day. I finally had a bit of time today to install the new bushing and starter. Fortunately my youngest was willing to help put that nut on the long starter bolt so no fancy knife tricks needed to keep it from backing out. Engine turns over like a charm. The petronix which was installed did not work, so I replaced the 009 distributor with a cheap rebuilt unit for now with regular points. Spark! New plugs gaped and installed and static timed to 5 BTDC. We turned it over a bit, but then I noticed that the idiot lights were not coming on when the ignition was on. Turned on the lights and the green oil light came one, looks like the dash wiring is not correct. I'll want to correct that or hook up a manual oil pressure gauge before firing it up. Progress felt good.

[Doug McDonnell]

Peeling the onion. Keep up the good work.

[Jason Laster]

Today was fuel day. The fuel pump was not moving any fuel, so I pulled it off and cleaned it up. Looks like it was a stuck check valve preventing the pump from moving anything. After installing the pump I cranked the engine for a few revolutions. I cracked the banjo bolt at the carbs, and both showed some wetness so I torqued them back down. Pump works but I'd still feel better with new internals after the sitting in varnish. Ordered the rebuild kit to address that. I should post a photo of how nasty the tin I pulled off under the pump is. All the photos I see on this site are usually super clean engines. This one is as far from that as it could be.

After getting the pump...well....pumping I heard something that sounded like dripping liquid. Turns out the needle valve in the right carb couldn't be bothered to seal correctly, and was allowing fuel to overflow down the carb. I fiddled with the needle a bit after pulling off the top, but no luck. There was no way I was expecting this engine to run without rebuilding the carbs, so I also added rebuild kits to the order.

In positive news I received my schematics from 356schematics today and will be spending some time trying to sort out the dash wiring. Big thanks to Bill Block, those schematic packets are wonderful, and so much easier to read than the one color schematics in the back of some of the books.

[Jason Laster]

Working on a few odds and ends the past few days. Got the oil pressure light sorted out, but found that the oil pump seems to have lost it's prime. I spent some time trying to get it to pump, but no luck. The pulley bolt has not budged for me at all after soaking it in pb blaster and trying the impact wrench I have. Not getting to that pump cover without getting that bolt off. Decided this was enough reason to just pull the engine. So with that decision made today was cleaning out room in the garage to prep for an engine pull. This was kinda the plan to begin with, but I was hoping to hear the motor run first in the car. At least this makes it easy to clean.

[Al Zim]

HOW LUCKY YOU ARE THAT THE MOTOR DID NOT START. You have no idea what the insides of the engine look like.When it goes boom what as a moderate expense will become overwhelming and you will not have a matching engine. It is time for a complete overhaul!. Put it back to the way it came from the factory. Pull the drain plug from the transmission and stick a long magnet in the drain hole. Let's see how lucky you are! My guess is that the front suspension is probably bent and worn out. Remove it all! Check the trailing arms, spindle and carrier for correctness. Usually the lower right trailing arm is bent. Look for grooves in the trailing arm at the outer bearing If you have a groove its time to replace all the bearings and to put a race on the trailing arm. When you redo the brakes use a duel master cylinder. This will take a year. al zim

[Jason Laster]

Spent the previous day finishing garage bay 3 organization. I needed this to pull all 3 of my cars back in the garage, but fortunately it all fits...just barely.

Got up to a cool morning and got started on the engine pull. Except for the heater cable I forgot to disconnect, it all came out super easy. Had to get the wife to take the required doofus in engine bay shot.

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Spent the rest of the day tearing down the engine. Engine looks good,except for some corrosion on the cam gear that needs to be replaced. To my eye all wear surfaces looked like even wear. I also checked the endplay and got a .016" reading. Looks like it's time for a full rebuild, so I pull the rest apart and will measure surfaces next garage day. Here are some notes and findings of the day

• Impact wrench was my friend today

• Camshaft is Engle 6408 (seems to be for a 914 motor)

• The connecting rods have a mismatched rod (all the same part# but one is a different casting

• Camshaft gear is kaput.

• Nothing funny in the oil pump, looks good.

• Stock size crank and pistons.

Here is is before any work.

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All in all, it was a fun day.

[Jason Laster]

Looks like All was spot on. I dodged a bullet with the cam gear that was in the engine. Working on cleaning up all the parts.
I'm pretty sure this is not patina.

Yucky cam

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[Jason Laster]

Mostly ordering parts since the last update. Got real excited for a package from Shasta today. Going through the parts the new cam I got slid out of the protective sleeve when putting it back in. It dropped and hit the floor breaking the gear flange. Absolutely sick from this mistake. Called Leonard and ordered up another one which he is getting out. Guess I'm waiting longer to start case assembly.

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[Al Zim]

Each day I walk through our shop and throw away part parts, paper, and boxes that cannot be used. I suggest you do the same. A clean work area helps insure a correctly assembled engine. Put a metal filter on the fuel line. al

[Jason Laster]

Some things are happening at a reasonable pace. While waiting for the replacement cam I got both zeniths and the fuelpump rebuilt. They look much better now, hopefully they will run as well. Once the cam showed up I got started assembling the case. Things went together without any issues, but as I was going to put the crank seal in place, I realized I never ordered a new flywheel nut. Had to put in an order for that, but I still have to setup the deck height and CR while I'm waiting. I forgot what good therapy engine building is.

In other news I pulled off the hood to work on the drivers side stay. It wasn't engaging at all. Filing down the star just a bit did help, but I need to weld a bit of extra metal on it so ti works correctly.

[Jason Laster]

Productive week, but didn't take much in the way of photos. Got the engine started and cams broken in on the bench (i.e., floor dolly). It fired right up, but turned it off with a sticking carb float. After that was fixed, it ran fantastic. I didn't replace the j-tubes so there was still some oil residue which took a bit of time to burn off. After that what a wonderful sound, and I think I killed any mosquitos in my neighborhood for the spring.

Next day I spent sorting out the idiot light wiring in the car itself, along with going to LED lights. Since I made the decision to move to 12V I went with the Alternator route, I'm not keen on the look compared to the gen, but for my needs it's a better route.

Had some help from my youngest daughter for the engine install. After laying on my back under the car holding the starter bolt with no luck, she moved to the side of the car I was actually holding the bolt and things went better. With all the bits in place I decided it was time to weld with the battery....not really, but the large spark I saw when attaching the negative was a sure sign something wasn't correct. Tracked it down to one of the starter wires being pushed down to ground on the starter body. This is one of the reduction starters, so the attachments are not in the stock location, requiring adjustment of some older large gauge wire. Yea another hurdle sorted out and engine all set.

Too much time hanging out in the rear, it was time to work on the front side of things a bit. I got out the welder and file and finally fixed the hood support which didn't want to engage/disengage correctly. Drained the tank of the cruddy old gas and noted the petcock was a little wet. I'm not a big fan of having leaking flammable fuel, so I'm currently waiting on the rebuild kit before installing the tank/petcock again.

Engine ready for first start. BTW this is a Dansk muffler from Porsche, fitment was quite good. Time will tell if the OEM version holds up.

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