Magnolia Garage

I’ve been a little slow lately due to the arrival of Anton Joelson Secor on July 02nd (Hi Anton!), but here is a quick update on the 356:
* crank is good, getting bearing surfaces machined a bit
* pistons (86mm) shot, need new set, bought from Sam
* case is good
* heads are good, cleaning up valve surfaces, getting new valves, keeping springs
* need to do something about the rear kiddie seats as Tam doesn’t want to make them and they are shot. Trevor’s Hammerworks?
* battery box is in
* undercoating is mostly removed

Super cool cars, totally not something I’d build …

More progress on the undercarriage has occurred, lots more elbow grease. We figure we have about 15-20 more days of scraping to go. We also split the case and examined everything. The crank looks ok, there is rust in the cylinder bore from water accumulation, the oil pump key is about to go, the cylinder heads look like they experienced a fair amount of detonation, and the compression was quite high. We’ll probably have to grind the crank a little, put in new cylinders, valves, and a few other bits and bobs. Also, it looks like the engine might have overheated, so we’re probably going to replace the oil cooler as well. More pictures here.

Lots of elbow grease (and not all mine, thanks Tam) to remove the undercoating on the 356. It’s uncovering a few other repair spots, but overall we’re pretty happy with the starting state of the car body. Next up is to weld in the floorpans and battery box. Those parts are on order but haven’t arrived yet. We might also get around to splitting the case on the engine, but first we have to buy beer for the guys at EASY who provided me with a nice, used windshield.

Over the last couple of days/evenings we’ve pulled the engine out of the 356 and taken it a bit apart. We then rolled the chassis over to a good body guy to help weld in the new pans to take care of the rust. After that, brakes, suspension, paint and exterior body, then we’re good to ride. I’ll try to source some cool wheels in the meantime and I also need a new windshield and quarter window.

Hopefully some more updates will happen soon as we work on it. I’d like to be driving it by the end of the summer if possible.

via Jalopnik comment

Alas, the engine that served us well through a couple races and several barrel rolls finally wheezed out its last the other day. Today was engine surgery time, and the steady hands of Pete and Jesse excised the old lump and started performing replacement surgery. Two weeks to go, hope we make it!

Taped up bodylines, investigated dual-engine fit measurements, removed various interior pieces, the Canamagon is officially in play! 917’s around the world will cower in its presence!