I was looking forward to starting my engine build this past weekend. I then thought it best to check everything leading up to assembly one last time. I’ve invested so much energy and money into this project, I can’t bear the thought of a KERBLAMMO because I made a silly mistake. I’m doing this by …
Give me fire. Give me that which I desire. A small step forward over the weekend. I believe I successfully rebuilt our fuel-pump. Based on our engine number, it appears that the early style which was on the car is correct. Whew. Thanks to an extremely helpful article by Bruce Smith on cleaning Zinc alloy …
I’m assembling a batch of parts to go out for plating. There is a minimum order cost, so best to get it done in as few attempts as possible. Really need to get this done so we can move on with assembly of the engine. There is a lot of debate as to what original …
Made it back to California with the starter. Bosch model EED 0.5/6 L44 and date code is “9Q” which I think translates to Sept 1959. So the date isn’t completely out of bounds. However, looking at the DerWhites Bosch reference There’s no mention of this model starter for a 356. It appears the correct model …
Quite a lot of parts came back from Soren’s machine shop this week. Heads: Key among them the fly cut heads. The original black coating is mostly intact. The valve guides in place, new valve springs, and new intake valves. Crankshaft, flywheel, pressure plate all balanced Cylinder head studs that were badly corroded were replaced …
Our Solex 40P11-4 carburetors came back from restoration by Jim Kaufmann of 356 Carburetor Rescue. It took about 4 months, but they look great and seem like a lot of care was taken with them. Thanks to Candace Delaney for keeping track of things. I originally considered trying to rebuild them myself. Both for education …
Our crankshaft came home from Soren’s today. It is super clean and nicely bagged. He was able to lay claim to the 912 (counterweighted) crank we looked at before. Including rework, it will ultimately cost the same as a new AA crank, but is a Porsche original part. The numbers appearing on the lobes are …
Rods. Originally this post was to be titled “rods”, but then I thought I might mislead a bunch of porn searches and I’d hate for that to end in disappointment. So I thought it better to be more explicit and title it “connecting rods”. Soren pulled together a nice set of used connecting rods. These …
Received our rebuilt distributor from John Jenkins, the distributor part of 356 carburetor rescue, today. It’s (cast iron) heavy, looks like new, and was very well packaged. The distributor I found on the engine was a Bosch 0 231 129 010, and appears to have been original equipment on 1959-1960 VW Type 2 (Bus). In …
I think we’ve found a good path forward on the crankshaft. Unfortunately, new Super 90 crankshafts are not to be had anymore. There were more legitimate choices than I would have guessed: Keep the SPG roller crank that we found in the engine Buy a SCAT crank for just shy of $2500 Buy an “economical” …
