The Up-Fixin' a 1956 Porsche Speedster thread

[Baz]

Thanks for sharing those wonderful photos, Patrick! What a beautiful car!

[astrochex]

Originally Posted by wdfifteen

I drove the Speedster to a lot of 356 Registry events. This one was at the Indianapolis Speedway back in the Paleolithic era when I had brown hair.

The profile is gorgeous. Guess I never appreciated it before. Maybe its the black and chrome combination.

[wdfifteen]

Got my Speedster ready to go yesterday. There were only a couple of last minute items that needed attention.

I needed to take the serial number and paint type tags off of the door closing panels. I have seen hints of blue paint in hidden places and suspected that either the car came from the factory black and someone painted it blue at one time, or it was blue and someone did a heck of a job changing it to black. The color under the tags would tell the tale. But first I had to get the tags off. The rivets are about 1/16" in diameter. I tried grinding the back off of one of them, but that just obscured it. I couldn't tell the difference between the aluminum panel and the aluminum rivet. In the end I made a punch by grinding down a 4 penny nail, laid the panel face down on a piece of cardboard, and drove the rivets through. The rivets are still in the tags, so I'll probably glue them back on. No one will be the wiser. I'm storing the tags in my gun safe.



Annddd - it's "Speedsterblau." This is a color used only on Speedsters and not many of them, so it's rare. I'm actually glad it got painted black.



I needed to put warnings on the car about not folding the hood in half and tie everything down. I had a friend who was a Porsche dealer in the 1960s. He used to order hoods a half dozen at a time. Gas station attendants were always trying to shove the hood closed. If it didn't close easily the just pushed harder and bent it in half.






The car is so small, all stripped down it looks like a go-cart. I dated a girl once, a real farm girl who drove a F-350 diesel. I picked her up once in the Speedster. I thought she would be impressed. All she said about it was, "Kinda little, ain't it?" I knew that relationship was dead right then and there.


Cliff picked the car up this morning to haul it to Dave The Painter. It looked pathetically small on the flatbed.







It might be a bad thing that I know my towtruck driver by his first name. He's not typically the kind of guy you want to see a lot. Cliff is a great guy. When he hauled the VW it was the first time we did business together. He charged me $100 each way. We got to know each other and now he does the maintenance on my Tundra. He charged $75 for the Speedster. When I asked him why the change he slapped me on the back and said, "It's lighter!" True that. It weights 1900 pounds with me and a full tank of gas on board.

[wdfifteen]

Well, good news. The new dashboard script arrived. My old one has had all the gold and silver plating polished off of it. I looked into getting the old one replated. It was going to cost $200 to $300. I found out a guy in Switzerland made a few new ones. It's solid brass just like the original, looks real nice. For a little over $100 bucks, I'll take it.
I like the patina of the old one. I'll probably put it on my office wall or something.

This thread will probably go dark for a while. I go under the knife Friday for back surgery and will be out of commission for a while.

[Scott Douglas]

Good luck with the surgery!
We'll keep the light on for ya.

[herr_oberst]

Good luck with the surgery. (And take it easy on the sugary.)

Can't wait to see the Li'l Bastard wearing a fresh new coat.

[herr_oberst]

Recaro

[wdfifteen]

It's been a big week after such a long hiatus. My back is better now, I can walk around comfortably without the back brace for a few hours and I'm able to bend over - so I guess I can start buying parts again. The price of Porsche parts is astronomical compared to the VW, but I'm getting used to it.

Steve finished painting the car 10 days ago, but the weather has been too bad to bring it home. We got a break in the cold, snow, and rain on Friday (Jan 26) and Cliff went down to pick up the car.




The Speedster looks tiny on the back of that flatbed.



The car looks so naked and forlorn in the shop. I'll be fixing that soon.



The day before we got the Speedster home the rebuilt carbs arrived from 356 Carburetor Rescue. I used to rebuild my own carburetors and fuel pumps, but parts aren't readily available anymore. You need to have a few dozen old ones laying around to salvage parts from.



The first order of business was to give the old girl her identity back and put the serial number plate back on the door closing panel. I discovered that the last three digits of the serial number are stamped on the back of the panel - just another way to check to see if the car is legitimate.



I'm feeling strong enough to start polishing the aluminum trim, though I don't have a lot of stamina yet. It's rewarding to see the shine come out on a piece of dull metal.

[herr_oberst]

The forlorn car looks really good in those pictures. Are you satisfied with the paint work?

[wildthing]

This is my kind of Speedster... driven, autocrossed, upgraded...

[Evans, Marv]

It's so nice to see you energized and tearing into you car project again. That's one beautiful project too!! Take it easy and listen to your body.

[wdfifteen]

We had an above freezing day a week or so ago so I pushed the car outside and hosed out the interior. There was a lot of dust and crap from them sanding the primer and a vacuum cleaner just wasn't cutting it.

Got the estimate for having the gauges restored - $3000. No estimate of when they'll be finished. Got an email from Autos International, they say the carpet kit and tonneau cover should be here next week.

I have GOT to get my ass in gear!!

I noticed that the hood wasn't closing right. On investigation I found the paint shop used the wrong screws to install the hood seal. They were sticking up 1/2 an inch and holding the hood up. You can't get to some of the screws with the hood in place, so Vicki and I removed it. That was a real nail biter! There was the same mess of dust and crap under the hood, so I took the gas tank out and waited for another warmish day to push the car back outside an hose out the under-hood area.

It feels like I'm going backwards, but it all needed to be done.

To add a little bling I I cleaned up the headlights units and installed them.

[herr_oberst]

Steering wheel and headlights! It's coming together!

Should have told the speedometer restorer the gauges were for the tractor. 3 grand! Yeow, that's a bite!

[Bill Douglas]

Looking good!

[wdfifteen]

It's been a while since I posted an update. I spent most of March learning how to make vinyl behave. It kicked my ass at first, but I'm catching on.



I had taped up the vinyl on the dashboard because it was in good shape and I wanted to leave it in place. Well, the painter manged to drag something across it and put a big scuff mark right in the middle.



I ripped it off and started removing the old glue. Some paint came off with the vinyl, so I had to sand and fill until I got it smooth. Any imperfection will show right through the vinyl (ask me how I know ) Because of a series of "learning experiences it took four tries to get the vinyl on the top of the dash right.



I couldn't find vinyl to match the grain of the original stuff, so I had to replace ALL of the vinyl. This added two weeks to the project. It took a lot of tries to get the padding under the front strip right so it would "dive" under the hood properly. I still have to do some work in the door jamb before I can tighten up the ends. It looks better in person than it does in these photos.



When I took the black vinyl off of the hood over the gauges I discovered the original vinyl - RED! So the car was originally blue with a red interior . I'm glad someone changed it to black and tan before I got. I may never have bought it in its original state.



I wrestled the new black vinyl onto the hood as best I could, but still ended up with a bubble that I could not get out. The original vinyl was paper thin, which is how they did such a beautiful job of installing it. It was almost like it as painted on.



I injected some super glue into the bubble and that made it behave. Ever try to buy a syringe? No drug store would sell me one. I had to beg my vet.

In retrospect, I should have tried to dye the damaged vinyl to see if I could bail it out, but I thought replacing it would be a LOT easier than it was. Also wish I had put a thin piece of padding on the dash instead of trying to create a smooth surface to glue the vinyl to.

[Tobra]

Blue with red interior seriously?

I have boxes of syringes and needles. Gave a jeweler I know a bunch of scalpel blades he uses for filagree work

[wdfifteen]

I took a break from working with the vinyl and painted the floor with epoxy paint. The rubber floor mat lays directly on the paint and the paint gets abraded off in places. Hopefully the epoxy paint will resist wear better than enamel has.

]

The surgeon who did my back said I should continue avoiding bending and twisting for a few more months. Turns out there is a good reason. Bending and twisting around inside the car was killing my back, I could only take it for an hour at a time, so I took breaks by working on things that I could do sitting or standing. How about assembling the door? That’s easy. Ha!





I assembled the door latching mechanism, exterior trim, mirror, and the side spear and took a break. There was more bending and twisting to this than I thought. Later I added some bling with the rest of the left side spears and the “Speedster” script.



Anyone who has worked on the insides of a car door would appreciate this. Look at all that space! For a change I assembled a car door and didn't lose a drop of blood.



The “Speedster” script looks great -I love it - but being open as it is it’s a huge pain in the ass to clean and wax. You have to remove the scripts to clean between the letters, even Q-tips are too big to get in there.



A long time ago I got tired of prying off the steel clips that hold it on and made these rubber retainers from a piece of inner tube. It’s a snap to get them off – no tools required. Of course it’s a snap to steal them too if you know the secret.

[wdfifteen]

The new turn signal switch arrived this week. The contacts on mine were getting worn. There is a guy who rebuilds them, but he won't work on the "old" '56 and older switches. He only works on the "new" '57 to '60 version. Fortunately new OEM switches are available. It's the same switch used in VWs of the era, so there is still an adequate market to keep making them.



There is something in this cancelling mechanism that the rebuilder doesn't like. The old one looks more robust to me.



My painter warned me of this, and I’ll pass it along. Some microfiber cleaning rags have nylon or some other hard thread in the binding. He recommends cutting the binding off before you use them on paint to keep from scratching it. I checked and these cloths from Autozone had the abrasive binding. Cloths I got from Wal-Mart didn’t have any binding at all. I thought that made them cheap, but no, it made them safer.

[herr_oberst]

Originally Posted by wdfifteen

A long time ago I got tired of prying off the steel clips that hold it on and made these rubber retainers from a piece of inner tube. It’s a snap to get them off – no tools required. Of course it’s a snap to steal them too if you know the secret.

ClevERRRRR.........

I did a few clicks on the googledeedoo, searching for blue over red Speedsters.

Many of them looked pretty darn spiffy to my eye, all of them seemed to have plenty of light or medium grey square-weave to keep the red from becoming overwhelming. I think in 1955 they would have fit right into the automotive milieu.

[astrochex]

Love the detailed updates!

Originally Posted by wdfifteen

I took a break from working with the vinyl and painted the floor with epoxy paint. The rubber floor mat lays directly on the paint and the paint gets abraded off in places. Hopefully the epoxy paint will resist wear better than enamel has.

]

Perhaps something like this would offer better abrasion resistance as well as other benefits?