356 A front axel beam

ed martin · 06-08-2006, 09:27 PM

Been perusing the web to find out if I can substitute a volkswagon front axle beam for the one in my 356 A project. Can't seem to find much if any information. The front axle beam in my project car is bent (the upper drivers side). Can the existing one be repaired by bending it back to shape or by cutting out the bent section and welding in a new section or does the whole assembly need replacement? The one obvious difference that I can see offhand is that the Porsche axle beam is welded to the frame whereas the VW beam appears to be bolted. I'll post pictures later.

id10t · 06-09-2006, 05:56 AM

I'd subscribe to 356talk and ask the registry experts. I don't think many vw parts were left on the As. If you need a new one, check with Jim @ EASY - he probably has a donor somewhere in his yard...

TC/TeamEvil · 06-09-2006, 09:06 AM

ED,

If you get any information on swapping out the beam, or WHATEVER, please post or PM me. I'm in the same boat . . .

Thanks !

TC

Jarhead · 07-19-2006, 06:12 PM

VW not the same. A difficult job. this is a three dimensional replacement. Anything not correct, the car will not perform properly. You really need a Celette bench.

If the housing noticeably bent, replace is the only reasonable option. Find a professional with the proper equipment.

ed martin · 08:24 PM

Been pretty busy with work to spend too much time on this problem lately. But I did find out a few things. Yes, I did find out that, that the tube is quite different from the VW tube. The VW tube is smaller in diameter, and it is wider. Also, the Porsche axle tube accomodates a needle bearing in the inner circumference at the end of the tube. Furthermore, as I understand it, there are bearings towards the center of the tube. I visted Callas Rennsport, and the owner Tony Callas was more than generous in providing me some copies of the original factory repair manual for the 356 A. Later I can post some of this information. Interestingly, the manual actually covers this topic. Apparantly if the displacement is less than 4mm the idea is to cut the affected side from the body and use a hydraulic jack to bend the bar back into shape. I think. I will post the instructions later verbatem, I don't have them with me at present. In addition, the manual has spec drawings of the body dimensions!

Talking to Johnsons alignment next door, they tell me to replace the control arms first and see if that doesn't solve the probem. Simple solutions first!

Something else I think is interesting is the fact that the control arm link and kingpin suspension is identical to my 356 C. They never graduated the design to ball and socket as Volkswagen did. Plus, the control arms on both sides of my A car are stamped VW. I think the repair or rebuilding of the Porsche link and kingpin design may be the same as VW. There is plenty of literature on this topic for
VW on the web or even in the Haynes manual. Or just spend a hundred dollars on the original A manual.

As far as having this job done professionally, that is probably the way to go. I have looked into that, and it is expensive. You need a special jig etc. I'm going to try the simple things first, and if that doesn't work than I'll go that approach. I'm always intrigued by the challange.

Jarhead · 07-20-2006, 05:26 AM

If the torsion bar housing is bent, simply changing the arms will not help straighten the housing. If the torsion bar housing is bent, the sheet metal to which it is welded is bent also, requiring straightening and cutting the housing loose is not a simple job, nor is welding it back. That area is the most intensely welded area on 356.

The housing tubing is relatively thin, so attempts at straightening with hydraulics require holding the tube creats more damage.

ed martin · 10:28 PM

Well, I made some forward progress on my project. My biggest regret is not having documented the process with a digital camera. I'll try to get some pickup shots later.

Upon further studying the problem, I realized that not only was the top element of the tube bent, but the sheet metal holding the bracket was significantly displaced. The car was hit hard on the driver's side. I consulted auto body shop next door and his feeling was that given the condition (rust) etc. that pulling it would only tear it apart. He suggested that I cut and weld. This is what the factory manual recommends as well.

Basically what I did was, using a long framer's level, find level position of the car using the front windshield opening as a reference. Once I had set the car level using the jacks, I then checked the level directly beneath the tube brackets and found that the driver's side bracket to be displaced maybe inch and a half upwards, which was consistent with the car heavily listing on that side. I then cut the sheet metal directly behind the bracket adjacent to the flange. This enabled me to drop the axle tube to the proper position. I actually had to stand in the battery box area and jump up and down to achieve the proper level. Once I was satisfied with the position I welded it into place. This left me with the problem of the lower brace not lining up to the bottom of the bracket. Since the bottom of the brace was pretty rusty, I ended up removing it with an impact hammer and refabed and welded all the rusted components and rewelded into its' new position. I also had to fabricate the bottom portion of the sheet metal in the bracket area to accomodate the new postition. I'll post some pictures later.

The problem remaining was the bent upper portion of the axle tube. After considering a number of approaches I decided to heat the affected area with acetylene and bend with a pipe. Luckily I have a machinist friend next door. I selected a cold rolled seamless tube 60mm diameter, which would just fit into the end of the axle beam ( with the needle bearing removed) but would not fit into the rest of the beam beyond where the bearing is housed. This portion I had turned by my friend on his metal lathe to just fit into the rest of the axle beam portion. We extended the turned portion to just reach the bent portion of the tube. My first attempt to bend back with the machined pipe and an extension ( eight feet total ) using the acetylene was a no go. That thing would just not budge. We heated three portions of the work but just had too much area to cover to get everything hot enough.

After a day of pondering I decided to cut the outer bracket area around the tube, leaving a degree of structural vulnerability and less surface area to heat. I cut about a quarter inch to three eights gap in the direction of the pull to give room for the bend. The idea of course is to fill the area in afterwards. This did the trick, but not without a lot of effort and amount of heat to get the inner bracket portion and the tube glowing red. I had to use all my strength ( I would estimate 200 to 300 lbs of pull later at the gym) giving a total of anywhere from 1400 to 2700 ft-lbs of torque! The bar barely seemed to give way but the telling was the perfect alignment of the bar with the torsion tube. Metal does have memory and it seemed to have fallen back into it's rightful place.

If anyone attempts this at home, don't forget to remove the inner bushing!

Well that's the update for now. Still a lot of challenges ahead, mainly fitting a replacement fender and the skirting and the proper alignment on positioning of the front fender and nose sheet metal.

Oh yeah, don't ask me how it drives because I haven't fitted the control arms yet. I'm still waiting for that replacement bushing.

ed martin · 11-24-2006, 05:53 PM

Well here are some shots of the car. They say never to show an unfininished product. In some of these shots the progress looks pretty rough, but I still have a considerable amount of grinding and fabrication to do. Had to add that drivers side front fender. It came through the mail all the way from Atlanta. There were some challanges in fitting that thing on though, and there are some discrepencies that remain, but I had to split the difference on and work with it.

On the hood I fabricated a small section of reenforcement. Used a three quarter inch pipe as a form. I'll blend it in with some all metal. and sand to shape. It looks a lot better than what was there believe me.

I'm dealing with the rust as best as I can. I grind it till I get to the metal and then treat it with either permatex rust treatment or the Ospho. They both incorporate phosporic acid to dissolve and change the rust to a stable compound. The permetex has a binder it seems that gives it some body, then a spread a thin coat of All Metal over that.

I've got a Volkswagen engine in there temporarily, just to move it around. Spent a fair amount of time setting up the transaxel which as it turns out is a later model 741 C transaxle. To make a long story short I used an old style VW throwout bearing I purchased for $25 brand new. The rod and the coupler are C style and I ended up trading a 901 shifter straight across for a C shifter from a local mechanic, Adrian Gang at Edelwiess, a super nice guy.

ed martin · 10:58 PM

Here's the preliminary result following the filler and primer. I've ground and treated the dark areas with aforementioned products for rust. You'll note the headlight bucket on the added fender (driver's side) is not quite right. I'm not sure if I should cut it out and replace it.

ed martin · 08:40 PM

Here's the inner area that I had to fabricate a portion of fender skirting as you can see. Before I All metal or kitty hair it, I want to make sure that the alignment of my improvements are correct.

ed martin · 07:05 PM

This area really looks like a mess. But it is vastly improved believe me. I'm either going to fabricate or see if can find the missing elements.

ed martin · 07:03 PM

Here's the axle portion that I straightened. You can see a portion of the bottom member that I fabbed and welded with some heavy guage metal.

ed martin · 11:19 PM

Here it is before the filler and primer. Oh yeah, and a lot of fabricating, fitting and making the curvature of the trunk opening smooth and continuous.

ed martin · 07:10 PM

Here's the floor pan that I welded in. You can also see the original color ruby red (I'm not too crazy about) and the condition of the sills are quite excellent on both sides.

TC/TeamEvil · 11-27-2006, 05:44 AM

UNBELIEVABLY GREAT JOB! ! ! ! And certainly not for the weak of heart. I'm still too scared to attempt a similar repair on my own car.

One thing though, before you go much further, you gonna need to re-orient the blinker switch, it should be rotated towards the left side of the column in a near horizontal position.

ed martin · 12:40 PM

I know what your saying about attempting a repair. Sometimes you may want to leave well enough alone. The potential to make the problem worse than better definitely exists. In this case however the decision was a no brainer. I mean when I bought this car, it was a complete basket case, and completely unrecognisable from the condition you see here. I should have taken some pictures but I didn't. The car had been sitting for years behind a junk store in lower South Central area of LA. I had observed it and studied it for probably a three year period as it just sat. At the time I started getting interested and involved with the restoration of some cars. It wasn't for a few years and garnering of a fair amount of experience that I began to see the potential of this wreck and decided that for me this could be doable. The guy wanted $3000 bucks for the thing and after a few years of thinking about it and having a better understanding for the value and the appreciation of an A car I offered him $2700. He accepted my offer.

Oh yeah, I'll do a search on turn switches. I'm sure there's a way to straighten that out too.

ed martin · 12-27-2006, 10:51 AM

Well, finally got the thing running. Of course I've gone through the whole braking system, the trans, the linkage for same and the throttle linkage. Not a small job. Many hours of labor intensive detail.

I can't really take it on the road at this point, mainly because I still have no windshield, but I tried to get it up to speed in the back alley. Preliminarily the results are not bad. Actually the first run I had some wobble from the affected side, but after changing out the top control arm which was obviously bent, I can't tell if I have a problem. I really anticipated some kind of a problem, but the truth is I won't really know until I get the car up to real speed, up to at least sixty where I would imagine some kind of harmonic balancing thing will take affect. The steering seems to have pretty decent response, not unlike my C, and if I take my hands off the wheel the car goes straight ahead. Plus, if I brake with my hands off the wheel the car brakes evenly.

It's really too early to determine conclusively at this point, but I figure if problems should occur at higher speeds then at that point it'll either need more refinment, or even the worst case scenario, have to be reset. Either way I'm prepared to go the distance.