Friday, 29 July 2011

Difficulties #1



So far I'm felling lucky because I didn't find many troubles disassembling the car. Just a few broken screws, some screws heads smashed but nothing really serious and nothing that I could not handle (with some help).
However, that was a specific part that gave some struggle: the rear seat cover.
While most of interiors can be disassembled from the interior of the car itself (they're either fixed with glue or screws) this little piece literally revealed a bit of my rage, and make me force it to come out. Nothing was really lost as these parts need to be complete redone...
The problem is that this part has pressure rings in the engine compartment (that also holds thermic and sound isolation) and after removing that there are still more screws!!! I wonder if there couldn't be a hardest way to do this...




Pressure rings (which are actually squares)

Screws holing the interior rear seat cover


Cataloguing

One of the tasks that scares me the most is to assembly everything back. Who wasn't the kid that tried to disassemble their toys and when putting everything together again there were loose parts? screws or parts that didn't fit anywhere (and one could swear that that part was never removed) but somehow things would more or less work again. Well... It happened to me many times when I was kid.
Well, a car is not simply a toy, so I've tried to do it with much more care. One of the things that I've tried to keep is a photography record of the things that I'm doing, and again using pictures to catalog things. I hope this helps me to remember how to put things back again.

Here are some more pictures for the catalog.

Seats:



Right Door:



Carpets:

Sunday, 24 July 2011

Dreaming

And while I finish my thesis and start to day dream with the day the car will be ready. I know, it's still to early and that will take a lot of time... but I couldn't resist going to youtube :)
Here's how I hope mine will look someday!

Saturday, 23 July 2011

A Journey of a 1000 miles...

So here I mark the beginning of this journey of restoration. I don't know how many miles it will take me (1000 maybe more, mybe less, but I'm sure it will require me to travel a lot fishing for parts, and materials to use). I don't know how long it will take me either, and that is for sure the most scary thing. But whatever distance it takes, how much time it takes, as any other journey it starts with a single step! This is the step where you begin.
So this is the official beginning of the restoration.
After a couple of days working, I've removed most the interiors: seats, carpets and side panels; lateral windows; bumpers; all exterior lights; and external bumpers.

Exterior view



Interior view


Monday, 18 July 2011

Introduction

Before start, allow me to do the introductions.
"Ruiva" is a Porsche 356C Karmann Coupé that left the beautiful location of Stuttgart, Germany on July 6, 1964. It was initially registered in Portland, Oregon USA in 1965. Very little is know about her history, only that the last 10 years was in storage (probably due to mechanical - engine - problems).

Ruiva returned to Europe, Rotterdam in 2009 and was acquired by me in 2010.
In January 2011, small reparations were done such that it could be registered and road legal.
Here are some photos after her first bath.