antique cars, automotive repair, automotive restoration, car body repair, classic cars, metal working, porsche, restoration, vintage cars

The door is hung for us to set the rocker in position, and later the 'B' post. Once the rocker is set, a simple process of welding remains.

1964 Porsche 356C Restoration: Part 9 Rocker panel build and hood channel replacement

This is the ninth in a series of posts on the automotive restoration of this 1964 Porsche 356C. Part One described condition of the Porsche after media blasting and the rebuild of the B-post, Part Two explains the fender reconstruction process, Part Three covered the front end reconstruction, Part Four described the rebuild of the right-hand front fender and wheel arch, and Part Five covers the difficult restoration of the right-hand rear quarter . Part Six demonstrated how off-the-shelf panels were used to make quick work of the restoration of the engine bay. Part Seven jumped ahead and showed the leading work completed to perfect the gapping at the doors, trunk, and hood. Part Eight describes the rear-quarter restoration of a panel, that you cannot buy replacements for.

In this post we talk about the first operations we undertook on this 1959 Porsche 356C in the rocker tear down and ‘B’ post replacement. What made this area of restoration cost effective is that replacement panels are available for both the rocker and ‘B’ post. The hard part was done – leaving just tear down and grafting in. To achieve satisfactory positioning on the rocker, the door must be hung and then a constant gap must be established between the door base and rocker/sill service. This gap is chosen somewhere between the Porsche factory gap setting and observing the gaps on the car you are working on. Typically you would be looking at a 4mm door/hood/trunk gapping. It’s essential that you stick with your desired width on all areas; this can be aided by making a ‘gapping tool.’ In this case, our gapping tool is 4mm thick and used to check all gaps, in all body areas.