Body and Pan Assembly Time at Deluxe Customs!!

Stainless pan fasteners from VolksBolts in the UK look perfect against the gloss pan!!  

PERFECT!!

Check out the attention to detail in separating color from undercoating. 

  

Starting to take shape!!!!!

Wiring was all done to factory spec.  

Panel gaps are sheer perfection!

Polished stainless moldings with Euro side markers look amazing on the Aquamarine!!

As with everything else, lots of attention to detail went into getting the fender beading just right.

Custom dash extension to house the Koblenz Deluxe radio looks like factory equipment.  It truly came out just the way I'd envisioned.  NICE WORK!!

Pan & Suspension

Fall 2013:

Below is the completed rear suspension/torsion housing and transaxle unit.  Lots of detail here all and all.  I've posted before about the axle, but as for the suspension: housing is powder coated gloss grey, 1" custom drop-spring-plates (coated black) from Atomwerks Engineering, Bug Pack urethane bushings, chrome plated #8 bolts for the bushing retainers (also coated), all new rubber suspension stops, Rhino transmission mounts out back, OE replacement in front, 5-205 CSP disc brake hubs, polished stainless truss bolts from Flatlands Engineering in the UK, and soon to have anodized black Porsche axle nuts from Sierra Madre.

I'd originally planned to handle all the suspension restoration and detailing on my own, but ran out of time to complete the front end prior to body and paint.  So rather than have the guys at Deluxe Customs put a greasy, unrestored unit back in the car, I just took them all the parts, and they saw to the front end rebuild.

Front Beam with a fresh coat of matching grey.  Tie rod ends, trailing arms, and lots of other bits got a coat of gloss black powder.

Torsion and trailing arms were shipped to Old Speed in Paramount, CA for custom narrowing.  The car's front foot print will be two inches narrower than stock to allow full steering lock with lowered ride height.  Russ at Old sped also did a set of custom Type-3, 2 inch drop spindles for the front, which incorporate caliper brackets for the CSP disc brake conversion (hubs pictured here are originals).  

 Just like the rear end, all stainless steal or re-zinc coated original hardware used for reassembly.  Even the steering box got a stainless fastener treatment.

 

Luckily the pan was in great shape, no major splicing required.  Just some minor rust repairs which were taken care of properly.  No fiberglass BS on my car!!  

Powder coating came out awesome!

New seals everywhere, even for the pan.  

COLOR: Porsche Aquamarine Blue

Ton's of research went into figuring out exactly what color I wanted for the car.  Finally seeing the color I was after was just the beginning.  Internet resources and digital pictures can be poor sources of info, as to exactly what a color is or how it's supposed to look.  Hours of online reading, ordering of Porsche magazine back issues, contacting Porsche restoration specialists around the country, and even visiting Will Hoit Restorations in California for an in-person look at a freshly Aquamarine coated 356 A model, were all necessary steps to finding the perfect color.

As you can tell by the quality of this paint job, I've only posted pictures of a small fraction of the work it took to do this.  It came out absolutely gorgeous! 

On to polishing.