Stalling

During several recent drives, I found that the car would stall at a stop. If I "goose it" (tap the accelerator) before the stall, I could get it back to idle. I sent a message to the 356 talk list and several told me to check my float level. I did so and found everything to be fine.

While driving last weekend, I found that I lost significant power. Once I limped home, I found gas pouring out of my left carb. Upon disassembly of the carb, I found the float to be stuck, thus allowing the bowl to over flow. I replaced the float with a spare from my parts stash and the problem went away.

In addition, the stalling at stop has gone away. Looks like the guys on the talk list were right. My stalling problem must have been related to the float.

Lone Star 356 Roundup

The Lone Star 356 Club (Houston) is hosting the Lone Star 356 Roundup in Marble Falls, TX November 2-4. Looks like it will be a geat event. Sadly, we will not be able to join the fun.

Rain, Rain, Go Away

This summer has been extremely wet for us in Houston. I think it has rained at least weekly since April. As I sit here, it is pouring outside again today. Between my new job and all this wet weather we have not been able to put too many miles on Annie. We have made a few short drives and made a few improvements.

Brakes Pull Right - All of a sudden, the front brakes started pulling to the right. I could temporarily fix it if I jacked up the car and re-adjusted the adjustment stars. I could drive around the block once or twice but eventually it would again pull to the right. I jacked the car up again, disassembled both front brakes including the brake cylinders and found nothing obviously wrong. I even bled the brake lines looking for air in the system.

While standing there in bewilderment (and on my 4th beer), I noticed that left drum had radial scores on the inside wall. It appeared that the brake shoes were so wide that they were rubbing on the drum preventing the shoes to expand to the stopping surface. Rather than grinding the shoes to make them narrower, I swapped the right and left drums. Surprise, this did the trick. I still don't know why we could put 200 miles on the car and then start having this problem. In any case, this was the fix.

Door Threshold Hardware - I installed the lower door threshold seals and trim. No big task (although it took 2 full days) but the chrome looks pretty cool.

Installed Sound Installation - I purchases sound insulation from JC Whitney which they strangely stopped carrying after I ordered it. I found that the original manufacturer was Great Southern Insulation. The material was supplied in 10" squares about 1/32" thick, and had an adhesive on one side. I could easily cut it with scissors. I applied it to the engine wall on the interior and it has greatly reduced the noise from the engine. I don't plan to add any more to the car as it is a convertable and I don't know that it would add that much benefit.


Installed the last of the engine tin, dash light, drivers window assembly, and various other trim parts. Within the next few weeks we will buy the carpet kit and start shopping interior shops for the upholstery.

Porsches and Wine - Oh So Fine!

Come out to the Haak Vinyard in Santa Fe (God's side of town) between noon an 4:00 October 7 for the quarterly Porsche Club of America concourse (car show). This will be our first official competition of Annie and will sure to be fun. There will be plenty of Porsches to drool over and you can tour the winery and sample local wine?

We need your votes for "fan favorate!"

Can it get any better than fine wine, expensive cars, and a cool fall Sunday?

Map to Haak here.

Call us on the cell if you plan to come in case the event changes times or we get rained out.

Rebuilt Generator

I realigned the tin between the engine and the fire wall and spent some extra time making sure that all of the cooling tin screws were all tight. As I left the garage for a test drive, I found that I could not get the engine to come down from 3000 RPM after the initial acceleration. Once I opened the deck lid with the engine running, I found everything shaking. Once I dampened the carb linkage with my hand, the engine would settle down. From this, I determined that the generator must have had a bad bearing.

I stripped the entire top end from the engine to give a good inspection to everything and remove the generator. Nearly every piece of accelerator linkage from the transmission through the carbs had damage of some sort. The generator was sent to Pearland Alternator for a rebuild and I ordered the new linkage parts.

Once all the parts came in and I had everything reassembled, Annie ran like a new car. Not a single rattle or shake. She has great acceleration and runs smoother than ever. My only regret is that the alternator shop painted the generator black instead of the original silver.

Stalled Porsche Between Turns 5 and 6

If we had any doubts about Annie being a race car, we certainly confirmed this Friday night at the Grand Prix of Houston. We participated in the Porscheplatz activities sponsored by PCA and IMSA and we had great time parked amongst more than 50 other Porsches. We were the only 356 and by far the oldest car between the Porsches, Corvettes, and Ferraris parked within the corral parking.

The highlight of the day was a parade lap around the Grand Prix track. We started in the middle of the Porsche pack with the Corvettes ahead of us and the Ferraris behind us. At no point in the lap did we ever top more than 50 mph.

As we exited turn 5, we had serious loss of power and then no acceleration. We sat on the side of the track at an idle as we watched the rest of the Porsches run by. After a couple minutes, I found that the accelerator linkage had broken loose behind the firewall. As the tow vehicle pulled up, we were able to speed away on our own power (with a cheer from the crowd) only to stall again in turn 7. Now we had to be towed out of the track as the Ferraris passed us by.

Once outside the track, I found that the cotter pin that holds the accelerator rocker on the back of the fan shroud had disappeared. In the spirit of ingenuity, I cut the wire to the trunk latch to use as a make shift keeper. This was good enough to barely get us home.

Once home, we found even more damage. The arm from the carburetor cross linkage broke off of the left carb which was why we only had two cylinders for the the last 2 miles of the 30 mile trip. I found that the tin between the body and engine had shifted causing the accelerator linkage to bind up. This put undue stresses and forces in uncommon directions on all of the linkage assemblies.

Public Appearance

Our first public appearance with Annie will take place this weekend at the Grand Prix of Houston. We will be displayed Fri-Sun in the Porsche car corral and will be participating in the Porscheplatz events

1st Real Drive

We made our first real drive this weekend down to the Sonic.

Locked Trunk Lid - Bonehead Tip of the Week

Like an idiot, I locked the trunk lid closed. We were trying to set the depth of the retaining pin and had to open and close the lid several times. Only we tried once too many and the lid locked and was hopeless to open. We could pull on the release cable and feel the spring pull it closed so I knew I didn't have a broken spring or cable. My assumption was that the catch pin (mushroom shaped pin) was not straight and the pin lip was catching on the side of the locking mechanism.

So how was I to get into the truck from the underside and work it loose? I had lunch with a 356 buddy this week and he suggested going through the tie rod cover. At least if I damaged it I could get another. This was a better idea than my plan of cutting a hole in the battery box.

I started by cutting notches in the back of the bolts on the underside of the tie rod cover. Fortunately, my bolts were 1/4" longer than they needed to be. The notches allowed me to back them out with a screw driver into the trunk. I had success with 3 of the bolts but the 4th was damaged in the process since I didn't get the notch in the center. As a result, I had to cut out the weldelet nut on the 4th. Once all the bolts were out and the cover off, I was able to reach into the trunk area and unbolt the locking mechanism.

I'll leave the tie rod cover off until I get the lock working like I want. Once I install the cover, I will go back together with notched bolts in the event that my cable or spring breaks. I think this will be easier access than Porsche's emergency access hole.

Another 356 Returns to the Road

Wiring Harness from YnZ....Too much to admit.
Body Panels from Zims and Restoration Design ....Wow, that was expensive!
Misc hardware and seals from Stoddard.......Do I own a share of the company now?
Paint and Body by Hamilton Classics........WOW!
Maiden voyage around the neighborhood........Priceless!!!

Today we drove Annie for a lap around the neighborhood for her first taste of the road. What a great feeling this was. I'm working on an engine issue right now and if things go well this week, we may make a trip to the Sonic next weekend.

Another Porsche 356 returns to the streets!

Vintage Texas Black License Plates

We registered Annie today complete with vintage "black plates." We are now legal to cruise - within limitations.

When I was researching the process to use black plates, I found very little support and everyone had a different understanding. The following is my process and opinions (disclaimer: I do not work for the state of Texas and this information should not be considered legal advice).

When you buy your car, get it titled. Many people buy cars based on a bill of sale and keep their car for years this way before it hits the pavement. I recommend that you title it as soon as you get it home. The title is your proof that you are the rightful owner of the car. If you decide to sell the car in the future, people would trust you more if you have a title as opposed to a bill of sale. If you buy a car on a bill of sale, each state has a process obtaining a title. You can contact me and I will offer more detail on how I obtained my title.

Once it is titled, get insurance. Contact the vendors such as Hagerty, Leland West, J.C. Taylor, etc and get an agreed value policy. You can read more about this type of insurance on the vendor's websites. This insurance is cheap and well worth it. Even if it is years before your car hits the street, you are continuing to invest money into your project. Don't leave it to your homeowner policy to protect you car in the event of a fire or theft.

Once you are ready to drive the car, you will need to have it registered. In Texas, we have a choice of Antique and Classic plates. In either case, the car must be 25 years old. Cars with Antique plates are limited to "use exclusively for exhibitions, club activities, parades or other functions of public interest. Vehicles displaying Antique plates may not be used for regular transportation or carry advertising; however, the vehicle may be driven to and from a location for routine maintenance." The definition of routine maintenance is up to you. The advantage is that the car is not subject to the state inspection. The registration sticker is small and nonintrusive and is good for 5 years ($50).

Cars with Classic plates are not subject to limitations on usage. You can drive them anywhere you would drive your daily driver as often as you wish. The downside is that your car is now subject to state inspections and the cost of registration is higher. Your insurance will also need to be adjusted for this level of driving activity.

With either an Antique or Classic classification, you can use a black plate. The plate must be the correct year and must be in good condition. You must also own both of the plates although only one needs to be installed on the car. The registration office will verify that the plate is not currently registered to another vehicle. The plate you use does not need to be an unused or previously unregistered plate. Just find a clean set of plates worthy of your car.

The process was easy and I much prefer the look of the black plate on my car rather than the state issued plate. It's a nice touch to the whole restoration process.

Window Frames

I installed the passenger side window frame assembly last week. Like any other window frame assembly, it's a puzzle to put together and your arms will be a pretzel before you get it figured out.

My only real challenge was that the channels for the glass had to be cut to fit becuase they were too long. These channels bolt to the bottom of the doors, which I had replaced, only I did not position the door bottoms low enough. My suggestion for replacing door bottoms is to install these channels so that you know the correct elevation of the door bottom.

I only have the passenger side window assembly, if you have a driver side available, please let me know.

Wiring Complete

We spent this past week finishing up the wiring. My complements to YnZ for the great job on the wiring harness. They really made this an easy job.

Early in the project, we made the decision to replace the original wiring harness. The previous owner was selling parts off of the car and cutting the wires to remove the components. Between the missing and short connectors, the fact that a bunch of cutting and welding was going to take place, and a whole bunch of splices and bare wires, we made the investment into a new wiring harness and yanked out the old.

Back in July 2005, we pulled the wiring harness throughout the car. At the time, I really thought that this was going to be a mess. It was actually really easier than I thought. All of the wires came out to the right length and to the right locations. All of the connections were well soldered or crimped. Only a few connection had to be changed from a bullet connector to a spade or vice versa - minor details. A nice detail is that the wires all match the original color codes.

The documentation from YnZ leaves a little to be desired. If you use their documentation along with a color wiring chart, you can figure it out. If you add in Joe Leoni's reference books, it gets real easy to figure out what goes where. Cyberwerkstatt also has a nice site for 356 electronics.

We complicated things a little by replacing the wiper assembly with a T6 wiper assembly. I also received a quote from Palo Alto Speedometer only to find that all of the gauges were junk and not worth rebuilding. YnZ also added for me a 3rd brake light connection so that I can install a LED brake light in the engine grill from Top Serve.

It's kind of cool now to turn out the garage lights and light the garage up with the car.

New Shiny Parts

Assembly is underway and seems to happen in short increments. Every time I turn around there's a small screw, seal, knob or other part that I am missing.

A couple weeks back we installed the hood seal with success. We followed the instructions in the registry's Technical and Restoration Guide (volume 1). There are many other references with the instructions but this was the most complete. Rather than detail the process, I'll let you buy the book (you should already have one at this point). The only deviation we took was that we did not glue the seal, we only screwed it down. One other detail that should be added is that the screw spacing should be about 6".

Other small parts are now being added daily such as hinge covers, Porsche scripts, Reutter tags, door seals etc. We have installed all of the switches and related wiring and the gauges have been sent out to be rebuilt. I also received new Ruetter ID and paint code tags from Zim's. They have the original size stencils to stamp these out.

This evening I sprayed the final coat of undercoating in the fender wells. Once this dries in the morning I plan to paint over the overspray that is on the rockers and suspension.

Annie's Home! Let the Assembly Begin

Yeah, she made it home without a scratch. I always get nervous pulling a big trailer down Interstate 10 when everyone is flying by at 80. We rented an enclosed trailer this time from Aaron's Trailers. I think that this is probably the only enclosed trailer in Houston for rent. The 20 foot trailer was a little more than we needed but the 12 foot trailer was too short. A 16 foot would probably been best. Size aside, the fact that it was enclosed is what had me sold.

We got home in time to catch the neighbors loading up for the deer lease. Seemed only fitting to have De help me offload her since he was the one that helped me offload her on the initial trip home in her original condition. He too was amazed at the transformation.

Now starts the fun. All I need is a blank check to buy seals, shiny stuff, and interior covers. Looks like I will just have to pace myself for now. Santa was good to me with a nice start to the seals and parts I need for reassembly. After a good coat of Meguiar's wax in the morning, we will start the reassembly.








I couldn't resist firing up the engine and making some noise and smoke once we had it in the garage. My neighbors are gonna love this. At least they won't have to listen to the welding and grinding any more. Actually, I have really good neighbors. They are all very tolerant of the noise and interested in the project at the same time.

Santa also provided to me a new car cover from Covercraft. It's a fitted Dustop model designed for the 356. It fits really nice. I just hope that we can keep the cats and other critters from sleeping on top of it.

Next tool purchase will be a new digital camera. I think that after 3 years of documenting the project with a refurbished camera off of ebay, I got my money's worth.