For many years, I wanted an old european car. I originally had my eye on ones like the Karmann Ghia and the BMW 2002. However, in October of 2002, I became aware of a local Porsche 356 that needed extensive work, and down the rabbit hole I went.

Like many others who have undertaken restorations of these cars, I've taken the slow, winding road. I originally purchased my car on October 31, 2002. In the ensuing two or three years, I was a very active member of 356talk, as I disassembled the car and completed very extensive rust repair. I learned how to MIG weld, I rebuilt two engines (the '59 normal that came in it and the '64 C motor that I later found for it). I learned about how these cars were put together, and I learned to trust myself that I could do the work. Then work slowed down.

I went back graduate school. I switched careers. Then I switched back. My family grew; when I bought the car I had a 7 month old daughter. Now, I have 6 year old twins, and my daughter is 8. Time flies...

After I completed most of the welding and rough body work, and as my career sucked up a lot of my free time, I decided to outsource the finish bodywork, paint, and interior to a nearby shop. We don't need to go into extensive detail, but I'm sure it won't surprise many that it took nearly 3 1/2 years from the time it went to that shop to return to my house. Well today, it finally came home.



I've kept a sporadic journal of my progress on the car, which can be found at http://www.brown-house.net/356project. My picture gallery is at http://www.brown-house.net/gallery2/v/porsche356/. I do have many many pictures of the time I spent doing teardown and metal work. The pictures of finishing bodywork and painting are much more sporadic, because I wasn't doing the actual work. Now, as I begin reassembly of the car, I intend to get back into the swing of things and post more frequent updates with lots more pictures.

Much work remains; I need to reinstall all the electrical systems; much of the exterior trim; the door systems; everything under the hoods (gas tank, engine, etc); seats; transmission linkage; glass; the whole list. I'm not afraid though, I'm excited. It's been far too long that I haven't worked on this car.

I've been though a lot with this Porsche. It was my first one; now my daily driver is a 2009 911S. Before that, for 6 years, it was a 1987 911. Now I've got three and we've come full circle in the garage.

I'm not going to get started tonight, but I wanted to share a few pictures with you. Maybe some of you will remember, and have a smile. Best to all and keep the faith. I'm looking forward to talking a lot more in the coming months.

Here's a reminder of what my car looked like almost 8 years ago to the day:

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I remember your project well. I am into a similar saga with my 64 C. Maybe when I am done I will venture down to Raleigh one day. Meanwhile if you finish maybe a day trip to Charlotte would be in the picture. Encouragement for the one not yet done!
There are enough folks in the area to have a periodic informal gathering. Would be fun.

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Ashley
Davidson NC
#2249
Co-President of the Harper Lee Street 356 Club (along with Ladybug Page (American Foxhound) who is part owner of the clubs only 356).
Phone BR-549

Congratulations on your persistence Preston. You, like myself and many others are in that stage of life where free time is hard to come by. Glad to see you have continued to move forward.

Looking forward to seeing you achieve the completion of your Coupe.

Mark

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Bravo Preston.....the car looks fantastic. I certainly remember all your hard work on this project and I still have the bookmark to your site!

Time sure flies. Welcome to the project section and keep us all to date with your project.
Cheers,
Tom

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I bought my project back in 2003 and came across your website then - I've regularly checked up on your progress since. You were always a few steps ahead of me in the restoration.

I'm still half way through painting mine so it looks like you're going to beat me to the finish after all.

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Preston,

Get Crackin'.

Mike K

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And here I've been getting anxious because I haven't had my car in 4-5 months. What an excellent project and a very deserving car. Also that's one of my favorite color combos.

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Herrick Griffin
1963 S Coupe

Like you, I keep the original photographs of my car as the Avatar on the Registry, reminds us of how far we have come. Congrats on the journey and that shade of green is spectacular! Thanks for sharing and I hope the roads ahead of you and winding but smooth.

Sincerely,
Shane

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Shane Balkowitsch
1965 Porsche 356C Outlaw
Don't Hate Me for My Outlaw Tendencies
356 Registry Member #: 31354
http://www.btinet.net/~sharoncol/porsche356.htm
http://356registry.com/forum/viewtopic. ... 2623#72623

It is nice to see a neglected car come back to it's glory. Thank you for taking the interest to refresh your fine car. Don't ever let it go now!

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Figured I start with some easy stuff and get the car moving now that it is back at the house. I've got enough to do what with sorting through all the boxes of parts that I have stashed away, trying to re-acquaint myself with how I "organized" things when I originally put them in boxes. I can see hints of a system here and there, but really, it is pretty abstract.

356Talk suggested that after getting sound deadening and bumpers on the car, the next most important things to get done were the pedal cluster, brake master cylinder, and brake hard lines. So that's what I tackled yesterday. Problems started immediately; I noted that where I had welded in the pedal bracket support from underneath the floor pan was ever so slightly off from where it needed to be. The pedal cluster wouldn't seat properly. Cursing, I swore I tested this before I welded it in.

So....out comes the cutting wheel and the pneumatic chisel. Off comes the pedal board support on the driver's side, and from underneath, off comes the pedal cluster support bracket. Do some hammering to make everything nice and flat again, then do some grinding to get rid of old welding metal. Position everything up nicely, and MAN was it close before. I didn't even have to re-drill holes in the pan where the bracket pokes through. BUT, it did need to get done. Fire up the MIG, and tack the pieces back into place. Cover with some POR-type paint, and then shoot it with some rubberized undercoating that is a pretty good match for the Wurth stuff that I used everywhere. Total time elapsed: like 3 hours. What a waste.

Anyway, when that was done, I got the pedal cluster bolted up, and got the gas pedal installed on that, and hooked up the linkage through the tunnel. Then I hooked up the brake master cylinder from the front; amazing how much easier that is when there is no gas tank in the way. Lots of access. I'm going to reuse the master cylinder that was on the car when I disassembled originally. It is a dual-master cylinder conversion, using the original reservoir with a "T" fitting and two hoses that are long enough to act as additional capacity/reservoir space before they go into the MC. Those parts are probably about 20 years old (rough estimate), but seem to be working fine.

I hooked up the hard lines (left and right front; long line through the tunnel) to the master cylinder this morning, and then thought about what to do next. Want to reduce parts count! I decided to deal with all the hood latches. While hunting the cables down, I noticed that (a) I appear to be missing one, with knob, and (b) the one I do have appears to have gotten broken and is too short. Oh well, more things to add to the shopping list. It never ends.

I gave up on that and decided to do the gas flap latch instead. Similar but different. Here, I had ordered a replacement cable and release latch, because my original one was kind of in bad shape. After unscrewing the original latch, I fixed the new one in place and adjusted it (a little bit of bending, a little bit of height adjustment) until when the lid closes it is flush with the body. I had a moment of panic when I realized I had latched it the first time without the cable attached from inside the cabin; how was I going to get this thing open?!? Relief quickly set in when I realized I could reach through the filler neck opening and push the latch with my fingers to get it to release. Another stupid error avoided.

I installed the cable and had fun opening and shutting the flap for awhile. A working piece of the car! Finally.

Next, I decided it would look really complete if I put the mirror on. That was easy enough, but I'm not too happy with the base gasket that comes with this reproduction mirror. It's a bit too big and leaves a slight gap on the sides. Just looks kinda bad, but maybe I'll get used to it.

I'm going to try and work on the car a couple hours every night until I get bored. Got to make at least 5 hours of progress a week. That's how to keep the project moving and make sure it gets completed. Katy was clearly happy today and yesterday that I was working on the car. It's been too long.

I also went to a car show/pot luck picnic at Ted Hoffman's house today, which was filled with interesting cars. Old Fords, Mercurys, Pontiacs, a Studebaker, Buicks, probably about 10 Porsches from 356 up through 997. Lots of fun. It is really great of him to hold that get together every year, and I think this year was bigger than ever. I've got cars running in my veins pretty strongly right now!

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Got my fresh air vents, the rubber for those, the rear reverse light, the license plate lights, and the front hood handle all installed today. Goal was to install things to make it look more like a car (you know, inspiration!) that at the same time wouldn't interfere with reassembly of other things. Probably about 6 hours total working on cleaning up parts and then getting them installed. Had to grind away a bit of paint/filler around stud holes, etc.

Looks good. Pictures to follow.

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Nice car Preston! Also, good to see that your career-change seemed to have worked out well:

"Preston Brown
1965 356C (under restoration)
1987 911 Carrera
2009 911 Carrera S"

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I worked on getting my brakes back on the car yesterday. I'm not completely done but most of the work is complete.



I started out by getting my calipers down from a shelf where I had carefully stored them after I rebuilt them a long time ago. They still look good. There's no way they are going to look that good after even one reasonably long drive! But this is a car that is meant to be driven, and so it will be.

I hooked the front flexible brake lines to the front hard lines at the circular frame cutout, and then I bolted on the first front caliper. Whoops, I quickly realized I had to undo the flexible brake hose and attach it to the caliper first because the hose end on the caliper side doesn't spin freely; it is totally attached to the hose. OK, knock out the clip holding the hard and flexible lines together...that was kind of a pain as everything is new and very tight. Got the hose screwed into the caliper, and then hooked back up to the hard line. Now it was time for new pads. I got those out of the box and slipped the one on the inside (closest to the car) into place. The caliper piston on that side was fully retracted and it slipped in easily. I put a little anti-squeal grease on the backside of the pad. Now, the "outside" pad. In both cases for the front calipers, my outside caliper pistons were a little bit "expanded". Pushing them in with a big screwdriver showed visible movement, but then when I let go the square seals pulled them right back to where they were. It was very small, probably a millimeter or less, but just enough to keep me from inserting the pad. In the end, I had to use my screwdriver/pry bar from the other side from the "front" side of the caliper, and then simultaneously slip the pad in from the rear of the caliper. That worked, but now the fit is tight. I'll ask on 356talk if that's totally normal if nobody else has feedback.



Now it was time for the rear. First, I wanted to get the emergency brake all hooked back up. I got out my handle, which I had once lovingly polished, probably back in 2003. Still looked good. I slipped it into the housing/tube inside the car, and then spent about 15 minutes getting the cable end of it into the clevis attached to the e-brake bell crank on the front axle tube. Finally got that in place and slipped in the retaining pin. Now to put the cotter pin in the retaining pin. Wouldn't you know it but either there was a little rust in the pin hole, or my smallest cotter pin was just a tiny bit too big and wouldn't easily slip in. Eventually I got it all the way through after some careful placement and light tapping with a small hammer on the end. Even the easiest looking projects can end up consuming inordinate amounts of time.

Next I went to the rear and took off the wheels and rotors. I wanted to inspect the "star adjusters" for the emergency brake. Even though I thought I had assembled the brake shoes and associated springs, etc. correctly back in 2005 or so, it couldn't hurt. Good thing I checked them, because on one side the adjuster was frozen, and no amount of attempting to stick the screwdriver through the hole and turn the star would have worked. I had to remove it and put it in a vise and then crack it loose by turning the split end with a big screwdriver. Didn't take much pressure but it did free up. I took it apart and regreased it, and then I did the other side as a precaution.

I put the rear rotors back on and got ready to perform the shop manual adjustment procedure. First, I used the star adjusters until there was friction on the rear rotors but they could still be turned by hand. Next, I went to the tunnel and made sure that at the emergency brake "union bracket" or whatever the name really is, there was no free play in the cables leading backward through the tunnel where even. Next, under the front of the car to where the cable from the end of the bell crank goes back into the tunnel to meet the bracket. I adjusted the slack out of there and locked down the lock nut. Boy, looks pretty good with all the fresh rubber boots on everything. Next, play with each rotor to make sure nothing has changed, and finally pull the handle and make sure it engages the emergency brake without excess travel, and that it works. Victory! That took awhile. Longer than I care to admit.




Last job yesterday was putting the rear calipers on. The only snag I encountered here was that after I had already bolted the first caliper onto the left rear side, and put in the pads, I discovered that I couldn't fit the retaining pins in. They were just a bit too long to be slipped between the suspension swing plate and the caliper. I looked at things carefully to make sure I hadn't reassembled the calipers incorrectly when I rebuilt them, perhaps swapping things left-to-right and making it so the pin had to go in from the "inside" instead of the "outside". It didn't appear that I had made a mistake, so I took off the caliper again (with the bolts in back and no room for a ratchet that is kind of a pain as well) and assembled the pads, pad springs, and pins off the car. Then I put the caliper back on and everything worked fine. I'm not sure that is the correct or normal way to do it but it worked.



Today, I'll get the brake lines hooked up to the rear and fill the system and attempt an initial bleeding. I'm not sure what "major system" I should do next. Probably I should get the shift linkage hooked up. Thoughts?

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Your front flexible brake line doesn't look right. There should be a banjo fitting, pointing FORWARD. It is unique to the disc-brake cars because the threaded end is angled slightly away from the caliper. All the drum-brake brass banjos are straight. The slight angle is needed to clear the caliper. The hose will then assume an "S" shape. It looks strange, but is the only way to assure full freedom of movement with suspension travel and steering input. It may not be obvious when the suspension is in full droop, but if you load it to normal ride height, and turn the wheels side-to-side, it becomes very clear.

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vic skirmants

Of course Vic was right, and I realized it early this morning after I went out to work on the car some more. It has just been too many years since I've touched it to remember everything.

I fixed it, installed the 20 deg. banjo fittings with the copper crush washers facing forward. Luckily, I had these parts carefully packed away in the "small brake parts" box. Of course, that was stored totally separately from the "large brake parts" box...

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