Porsche and Pastries
Back by popular demand!

Porsches and Pastries is tentatively scheduled for Saturday September 25th at 356Restore. This will be the start of our twentieth restoring the Porsche model 356. Over 120 356’s have been restored or made serviceable for driving in the last twenty years. We are starting to receive 356’s from out of state. We think we have restored most of the Colorado 356’s. We still need project 356’s for shop cars, so let us know if you know of one.

Progress
We realized the other day we had not done any welding for months. We had been working on the reassembly of the Wyoming Speedster, Shop ’54 Coupe and the Shop ’64 Coupe. We had to use the welder on the Wyoming Speedster. We were installing the driver side seat and it would not fit. The Speedster has Coupe seats. These were an option to the Speedster seats and many Speedsters were configured this way, as the servicemen that bought Speedsters learned that Speedster seats were uncomfortable on long trips.

The problem with the Wyoming Speedster seat was the seat rail that was supposed to be riveted to the seat bottom, was secured with small sheet metal screws and aluminum rivets. We could not use steel rivets without disassembling the newly upholstered seat, so we welded the rail to the seat bottom and it worked the first time. You can imagine what could happen to the driver seat in an accident if it had not been repaired.

The Shop ’54 Coupe was all assembled and ready for electrical checkout and engine installation when we realized we had installed the lower rocker deco. This is not correct for a Pre-A 356 but was done by many owners as an upgrade. We should have welded the rocker deco holes during the body work. We took the Shop ’54 Coupe to the painter for repair after we welded the holes.

We were missing a glove box knob for the Shop ’54 Coupe. While we have a lead on where we might get one, we decided to try and make one. We had a broken glove box knob base and found we could cut off the curved section of an original plastic coat hanger and epoxy them together to make a functional knob. We like the look and may leave it on the 356.

BJ was doing the electrical checkout on the Shop ’64 Coupe and could not find the ground wire that comes from the wiring harness to the side of the battery box and then to the horns and parking/turn signal lights. We checked the other harnesses we had and couldn’t find this ground wire. Then we discovered what the factory had done. A separate ground wire that goes into the harness, is doubled on itself and comes back out. It makes sense, as the ground is the battery box side and there is no need to run a ground wire through the harness. Plus by securing the doubled up ground wire in the harness, a separate ground wire would not have to be provided.

We have referred to the Shop ’64 Coupe as Heron Grey. Actually we had it painted the original Dolphin Grey. This is a great color with little red, green and blue in it that is attractive in the sunlight. Heron Grey is just a grey, like a business man’s ’54 Ford coupe. The Dolphin Grey ’64 coupe is almost all assembled but will have to go into storage as we discovered problems with the engine and have requested disassembly to discover the problem. The other Shop ’64 Coupe, BJ has just about ready for paint. It will be the original Signal Red. We know the original engine for this 356 will need a rebuild as it feels like a broken crank. So, we hope to sell at least the Shop ’54 Coupe and the Shop ’60 Cabriolet this year and hopefully one or both of the Shop ’64 Coupes. The remaining problem with the Shop ’60 Cabriolet is top fitment and we hope to get to this next month.

Newsletter
Not that we are complaining but mailing the newsletter has been an off and on hassle. First we had to sort by zip code and put special stickers on each batch. Then that went away but the hours for the bulk mailroom decreased to three hours a day. Now we have to deliver the newsletter to the bulk mail room, then walk to the front and stand in line to pay and get a receipt. No wonder the post office has problems.

Parts
We have not been selling parts from our large inventory as we find we need them for restorations. We do sell to local 356 folks. We recently looked at our shelves and could see a problem about to happen. We had built the shelves years ago with 2×2’s and quarter inch plywood. Over the years, the shelves were starting to sag with all the weight. We bought some steel shelves, and reinforced the wood shelving and rearranged the inventory using more plastic store boxes to separate items. Storage is now safer and we can actually find things.

Events
Don’t forget the Exotic Sports Car Show and Concours D’Elegance June 13th at the Arapahoe Community College. This is the twenty-seventh annual, and continues to raise monies for United Cerebral Palsy of Colorado.

Grandpa News
Alex’s kindergarten class presented the play “How Does Your Garden Grow”. Alex was a flower (prettiest of the bunch!), others were weeds and vegetables. All the students had signing, dancing and speaking parts. It was a lot of fun.