Progress
We finished Jim’s Sunroof Coupe and delivered it on time and within estimate. As you may recall, it was a “bottom everything” job plus the typical in front of and behind the door repairs, foglight repairs etc.
Mark now has a Sunroof! After spending a week reconditioning his sunroof clip, we finally picked up our new electric sheet metal shear (Milwaukee, $150) and cut the hole in the roof and dropped in the clip. Actually, the clip is installed from below the roof, so as not to disturb the thick metal curve on the clip. We also picked up Cleve’s ’59 Coupe ski car. This is the 345,000 mile 356 that Cleve only drives in the winter. We hoped it only needed a rear floor but what we thought was a solid front floor turned out to be a rust sandwich! The rusted original floor was in between two pieces of galvanized sheet metal that were bolted together with small machine screws. We will also do his front and rear struts and repair the inner rear fenders. No metal! – just cardboard backing of the upholstery; about two square feet of rusted out metal. With repairs to the heater tubes, Cleve should have a little warmth for this 356 ski jaunts.
Buyer Evaluation
A new service from 356RESTORE! We have worked on a few 356’s that had been purchased and the new owner was very disappointed with the condition of the car once the carpets were removed and the undercoat scrapped back. So at no charge, 356RESTORE will evaluate a 356 you are thinking of buying and let you know what repairs may be required, how critical they are and what they should cost. You can then negotiate a fair price with the owner. Hopefully, we will get the repair work. This will be for a hundred mile radius of Denver and Thursdays or Saturday mornings are best. (I won’t object to paid expenses outside of the 100 miles, I did have a request to go to Florida!)
Restoration Tips
I take back my recommendation on bondo-in, bondo-out when having a 356 media blasted. I had recommended you leave in the bondo on doors, deck lids, bumpers and sun roofs. My logic was that if the underlying repair was done correctly, which you could observe on the back side, then you could save yourself some time. Well, it doesn’t work because by the time the blaster sees the bondo, he/she has already blasted away the blend line with the metal. Trying to blend in new plastic to old bondo doesn’t work. You get skip waves which really show up in paint. So the new recommendation is bondo-out when media blasting.
Steve at Blast-Tech is expanding his services. He now does plastic media, sand and soon the new bicarbonate of soda process. This means you have more options on replacing or repairing rusted metal, aluminum or plastic.
Plans
We will be closing our books on our first year of business on September 30, 1993. So the October newsletter will be interesting. Did he make money? How much did he loose? We did sell the shop ’59 Sunroof Coupe to Lynn and John in California, but this is offset by the inventory account and cost of goods sold i.e. we didn’t make much.
Barb and I will be attending the Holiday in Texas, so 356RESTORE will be unavailable from 31 August-7 September. However, Ryan will be in the shop so progress will continue. I will be taking small parts and pictures of parts to the swap meets in Texas and California. So if you have some parts you would like me to sell on commission (80/20), give me a call (840-2356 day, 841-6475 evenings.)
Shop Hours
We work Monday thru Friday from 8:00 AM to 3:56 PM and Saturday from 8:00 AM to noon. Saturday afternoon is reserved for open shop and usually, a few folk drop by to kick tires and check out the good work we do keeping the 356 Porsche on the road.
