[Gosoaus]

I purchased a 1964 356C coupe to restore at a favorable price. It has some good points. New interior, new brakes, new clutch, and NO RUST. Of course, the car needs a lot of work. The car was at one time used as a race car, so it's missing the tin behind the front disc brakes, bump stops are cut down, etc. It needs new suspension bushings and at one point someone cut the engine pan to install a corvair engine and there is a one to two inch gap between the engine pan and the body which will let exhaust heat in and cook the engine over time. The engine is a 356C block with 912 heads and recently ran a compression check at 140 across all cylinders. The DPO wired the car for 12 volts and got everything working on 12 volts except the gas gauge, which reads backwards. The wiring job he did is, to put it politely, amateurish. It needs paint and rubber body seals badly.

During shipping, the shipper left the DPO-installed aftermarket fuel pump on. The engine how has 8 quarts of fluid in it - 3 quarts of which are gasoline. In addition, the gearbox is leaking from a "side gearbox seal" and has leaked most of its transmission fluid out. I know the car runs well, as I drove it for a long time and hard before buying it . It runs now, but feels like it's running in three cylinders because the number 4 cylinder is not getting gasoline from the carbs. The front hood latch also does not latch properly. The heat boxes are 912 heat boxes and are not attached to the engine, so no heat in the winter.

The parts to make this car entirely original and to reverse the modifications the DPO made to the car will run about $2K including new heat boxes but excluding any engine or transmission work the car needs. The mechanic that the head of the local 356 graciously recommended refuses to work on the car because of the volume of work it needs and the bad hands that have touched the car before. I found this kind of strange, but he's entitled to turn down work I suppose.

Having no experience with Porsches, I am trying to find a good Porsche mechanic in the Atlanta area to change the oil, fix the carbs, and fix the gearbox leak. I just want to get it running so I don't have to have it towed everywhere as I restore it. Any suggestions?

Thank you very much.