Bringing a Porsche 356 Speedster Back to Life: Fuel System Overhaul | Tyrrell’s Classic Workshop

In this episode, Iain dives into the fascinating world of the Porsche 356 Speedster, a true legend in automotive history. This particular Speedster has been brought into the workshop for recommissioning after an extended period of inactivity.

The recommissioning process for this classic car is far from straightforward due to the unique design of its fuel system. With carburettors potentially filled with fuel, there’s a significant risk of hydraulicking when the engine is turned over. Additionally, a serious fuel leak presents a potential fire hazard, making it imperative to resolve these issues before the car can be safely started.

Join Iain as he introduces us to the Porsche 356 Speedster, providing an in-depth look at its history and technical specifications. Watch as Iain carefully inspects the engine, explaining each step to ensure there are no risks of hydraulicking or fuel leaks. The process involves turning the engine over by hand and thoroughly checking the fuel system.

Next, Iain lifts the Speedster onto a ramp to examine the underside for any signs of fuel leakage. With no immediate evidence of a leak, he proceeds to turn on the fuel valve, eventually discovering the source of the issue.

Throughout this episode, you’ll gain valuable insights into the meticulous process of recommissioning a classic car, highlighting the attention to detail and expertise required to bring such a beautiful machine back to life. Don’t miss out on this captivating journey into the world of classic car restoration and the revival of the legendary Porsche 356 Speedster.

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Chapters
00:00 Porsche 356 Speedster
11:02 Turning the engine over
14:16 Detail – Headlight stoneguards
14:55 Car goes up on the ramp
17:38 The culprit
18:46 Did you spot this?
19:13 Sniffer test

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IMAGE CREDITS

Sourced from Wikimedia Commons unless otherwise stated.

Title: Janis Joplin, 1943 – 1970
Creator: Grossman Glotzer Management Corporation
Licence: Public Domain

Title: Janis Joplin’s Porsche 356 in Summer of Love – Art of the Psychedelic Era (Whitney Museum, New York).
Creator: Sergio Calleja (Life is a trip) from Barcelona, Spain https://www.flickr.com/people/24899877@N00
Licence: CC BY-SA 2.0

Title: VW Käfer
Creator: Tobias Nordhausen from Sondershausen, Germany https://www.flickr.com/people/93243867@N00
Licence: CC BY 2.0

Title: Ferdinand Anton Ernst Porsche
Creator: OTFW, Berlin https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/User:OTFW
Licence: CC BY-SA 2.0

Title: 1953 Porsche 356 1500 America Roadster
Creator: Detectandpreserve
Licence: CC BY-SA 3.0

Title: 1966 VW Beetle 1300: back engine and pan
Creator: Günther Pöpperl / BICYCLE https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Benutzer:BICYCLE
Licence: CC BY-SA 3.0

Title: 1966 VW Beetle 1300: gear box and starter (cut)
Creator: Günther Pöpperl / BICYCLE
Licence: CC BY-SA 3.0

Title: Colin Chapman (1928-1982) in his Lotus Eleven car, July 1956
Creator: J Crosthwaite
Licence: CC BY-SA 3.0

Title: James Dean, publicity still for Rebel Without a Cause
Creator: Warner Bros.
Licence: Public Domain

Title: James Dean racing his Porsche Speedster at Palm Springs Races, March 1955
Creator: © Chad White
Licence: CC BY-SA 3.0

Title: Porsche 550 Spyder
Creator: Thesupermat
Licence: CC BY-SA 4.0

Title: James Dean memorial junction
Creator: Piotr Flatau
Licence: CC BY-SA 3.0

LICENCE LINKS

CC BY 2.0 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0/
CC BY-SA 2.0 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/2.0/
CC BY-SA 3.0 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/
CC BY-SA 4.0 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/

hello and welcome to another turell’s classic Workshop uh we’ve gone from the ridiculous to the sublime uh with this one the last video we did was on the 600 brake horsepower at land Roba Defender and we’ve got this little cutie in for some work uh a Porsche 356 Speedster which to a lot of people will need no introduction whatsoever because it is one of the legendary classic cars I would venture to say um it’s quite interesting because we we specialize in a lot of complicated Machinery here a lot of esoteric Machinery there are plenty of uh Ferrari Specialists and Porsche specialists in the UK and around the world um who do these cars day in day out but it’s always refreshing to have one in people choose to um not to take them nothing against any of the one Mark Specialists whatsoever um but it’s it’s always gratifying to have something like this arrive at the workshop and this is a genuine Porsche Speedster uh which means again I to use one of my oft-used Expressions it’s uh it’s operating in very rarified air this uh these can be worth up to $500,000 us they’ve changed hands for publicly at auction and it by private treaty sales Janice Joplin I think she had a 356 but but I couldn’t say exactly um but her particular car sold at auction for $1.6 million lot of money for a little flat four sports car flat four engine sports car however um it is what it is and this is this is also a highly imitated car uh and and easy to replicate in some ways because it is very similar its lineage goes back to the VW Beetle so uh Ferdinand Porsche or Ferry Porsche son of Ferdinand Porsche took over the family business and um the he decided to make uh his first sports car his first official sports car which was this they started off by handcrafting I think fif 16 of them which they called the America because that was the market they were looking to more of that later and then eventually they productionize the um the 356 into the coupe and the sport the Speedster and the Cabriolet a d Etc and it’s a real Minefield of um prea a um 356b uh D Etc it’s it’s just it’s it’s as almost bewildering as Ferrari’s V12 um exploits uh really that which engines they put in what Etc and the early years of Ferrari Porsche started they conceived this car it’s um it’s a very very cleverly engineered car it’s a unibody construction there’s no separate chassis frame um it’s the unlike the VW Beetle where you sort of have two round tubes longerons um sticking out the back of the chassis that support the engine the actual support for the engine is it is a genuine unibody um car this there is no body that bolts on to the chassis separately as far as I’m aware Max Hoffman uh who I’ve referred to in various other videos we did a video a while back on the Mercedes 300 SL goal Wing that we happen to have in a particularly interesting one and um max Hoffman was a an immensely powerful and influential figure in the American car market in the 1950s and he famously uh sat around sat at a board meeting with the Mercedes-Benz board members and said um this car you’ve developed this 300 SL for racing the gowin car um I want to sell those as a road car because Mercedes-Benz need to polish their brand image a bit in the US they’re uh very well known for stayed cars I’m digressing here but there is a reason he uh he managed to persuade Mercedes-Benz the management that he could sell a thousand cars off the boat when they reached the us and that he did um and that was how the 300 SL was born so for him to be able to sway the entire company policy of Mercedes-Benz was quite an achievement uh he also imported alfha Romeo and I think he was the BMW impor for the US for some time as well but he was also the Porsche importer and he was so influential with um Ferry Porsche that I have it on good authority he actually even influenced the design of the Porsche logo the badge we know it now but America was a huge market for cars I mean I think something like 80% of Jaguar’s car production in the 1960s went straight to America massive percentage it was just like a sponge it just absorbed interesting cars the Americans love their cars consequently Max Hoffman said to uh to fery Porsche if you can make this car under $3,000 this bearing in mind this is the mid1 1950s um that was a lot of money $3,000 was a lot of money then um if you can make a car for $2,955 I think it was as it turned out um minimalize everything down add lightness as Colin Chapman would say um so you you’ve got this tiny little sort of M do and mend um weather equipment the Hood um with a very thin frame the whole um there’s no wind up Windows or mechanisms the whole body is paired down um then that was the recipe that became the Speedster after those 16 cars were built it was a winning formula to the extent that now of course they are highly revered highly sought after highly copied and highly valuable um so it’s an absolute Delight to get this car in it really is I don’t know what these weigh and I’m going to find out what the actual we’re going to weigh this car and find out what the actual weight is but it’s comfortably under a ton um so the power to weight ratio whatever it has is pretty is pretty strong really they were a very credible racing car in Period a lot of people bought speed speedsters because they were very racist not least of all James Dean he had a 356 and he was so in love with it that he arranged his filming schedule around his Motor Racing exploits not the other way around um he was not he wasn’t playing Hostage to anybody even the movie studios and eventually he was very successful with his 356 Speedster and he traded his in for the mid-engined 550 the one that came afterwards and unfortunately had had a fatal crash he drove into the side of a Ford truck and that was the end of that but um he and the 356 are sort of inextricably linked because he was a very successful racer at that time which and a lot of these were campaigned the originally started life I believe with a 1500cc push rod engine um very heavily the bottom end the actual crank case I think was magnesium What Porsche did was re-engineer the Beetle engine substantially different Pistons different crankshaft different cam shaft ported cylinder heads um larger valve openings Etc I think the Beetle engine developed about 30 brake horsepower 35 this one uh in standard form developed round about I think the super was about 75 or 90 brake horsepower again people can correct me on that quite a lot of speeders speedsters have had the original engine taken out because it it’s too precious if some happens to it if It suffers with an oil pump failure or something and throws a rod through the block the original engine is is is toast you can give it away with the car but it’s obviously not a practical workable engine anymore so the easiest thing in the world swap it for another um this has got a 1,600 engine in it which has been breathed on and it’s up to over 100 brake horsepower so that’s a very interesting power to weight ratio the car has come in specifically for recommissioning it has been not used for quite a while the fuel system has got a leak on it so we’re going to have to investigate that before we do anything else um I believe he also wants us to check the antifreeze level in the cooling system yes I am joking there is no liquid cooling system it’s air cooled sorry just a little a little joke on my part um but uh we’re going to get it on the lift have a look what what can happen happen is they have a tap underneath the dashboard a a a drain for the the fuel system it’s either off on or reserve and very cleverly if you ran out of fuel on the main fuel tank you just Twisted it 90° and that gave you a reserve fuel supp supply in the bottom of the tank to get you to the nearest filling station very clever very pragmatic very Porsche it’s got a serious petrol leak the car underneath and it’s been losing petrol from the tank and this is where we have to ascertain uh what exactly is wrong so the tank is here the fuel pipe goes under the car and comes out just between the carburetors and the the bulkhead the floor what can happen with these is that the fuel the petrol comes from the tank under Gravity the way to the tank it comes into the carburetors and it can actually overflow in the carburetors and end up actually going down into the cylinders so the first thing we have to do you you don’t just check you’ve got a SP Mark you don’t just check that we’ve got fuel there is a procedure here as to how to bring this back to life and that involves first of all making sure that we put a 30 mm spanner on the the crankshaft poly bolt and turn the engine over very carefully to make sure that there is no dead there is no hydraulic there is no pool of Petrol in the cylinder that that causes resistance to the uh to the spinning of the engine because if you try and start the engine like that it will hydraulic it will bend the connecting rod it will break the Piston whatever you’re into terminal um engine damage so we we don’t just go at it like a bull in a china shop there is a set procedure and we observe that very carefully so um we’re going to observe that procedure now and see if we can slowly bring this duel this original speedster from 1958 back to life well this is um a bit like starting an aircraft with a propeller by hand uh there is a knack to this because what I really don’t want to do if there is any fuel present in the cylinders is to um is to actually compress it and I can do this fairly easily uh just pull that lovely and smoothly and because the this engine has got some grunt yeah there’s no there’s no there’s no bump there because this engine has got some grunt um the compression is fairly high on it um yeah um I could do this with the spark plugs out which would uh mean that it wouldn’t hydraulic but it do does mean I don’t get a feel for what’s actually happening inside the engine I don’t get a feel for any of the compressions I’m just very very slowly turning this and actually feeling what’s going on inside while I’m doing it so we just lost compression there which is good now we’re on to the next one this is going very well actually very well and again yeah just nice compression on that pot lots of compression but no no dead stops what I want is all four cylinders to be compressing evenly by feel which is what we have actually and we need to do two full turns of the engine because it’s a fourstroke engine um every revolution of of the engine every 360 de two cylinders are compressing and firing so I have to do two full turns to make sure that all four cylinders are equal this is lovely I’m very happy with this it feels excellent yeah I’m sure we’ve done two turns now there it is it’s gone off compression again quite light and then here we are the next cylinder’s resistance yeah great okay so what I can conclude from that is we will take the plugs out and have a look at them the spark plugs but what I can conclude is we got no petrol leakage from here from the carburetors into the actual uh cylinders in the engine so all is well that feels absolutely beautiful compression wise and smoothness wise no stuck p rings to a cylinder which can happen with a little bit of moisture no it’s all good I think we’re uh I think we’re on a the right track here actually this is quite relieving never quite know which way these things are going to go well an optional extra apparently on the 356s and the speedsters were these rather rather cute in fact I think James Dean had some couldn’t swear to that again um have to just look at photographs of the time but with these Stone guards um so they’re just quick release you literally have um like 10x Fasteners and they just come off light and very practical and could save a headlamp glass particularly if you’re racing on the beach in uh California but um yeah just just very very sweet and very practical as is everything with this car going up yeah oky dokie I thought this car was light there we are thanks jent [Music] okay well it looks dry at the moment so we’re going to turn the fuel tap on and see what uh see what we can get out of it it’s got to be leaking somewhere so uh yeah we’ll do that well here we are at the business end of the fuel system this is the fuel uh stop valve here which is currently switched off so I’ll now turn that to on um and that means that the fuel from the tank is by its own weight gravity fed down the middle of the car to the uh to a splitter at the back which goes to a carburetor on each side I mean it’s a very very simple fuel system but um I’m hoping it’s something really really simple it’s uh as I say the engine cranked over just felt perfect turning it over so I don’t think any fuels got in there it was smooth there was no rings picking up on the cylinders nothing like that so um hopefully that will Now show some results if it doesn’t I’ll be moderately miffed because the fuel system Le the fuel leak will have suddenly miraculously healed itself and I hate it when that happens um because you never know when it’s going to unhealed in the future but anyway let’s see what’s going on under the car well we’ve turned the tap on and this is the main fuel line in here and yes this is uh this is definitely the problem we’re going to have to if I look at this pipe here uh we’re going to have to change all the fuel pipes actually but at least it’s conclusive and very easy to uh fix that very easy indeed okay so this is the culprit if only everything in life was as simple as this a humble piece of fuel hose but it’s it’s actually very hard in places doesn’t look that old few years old but it’s also quite squidgy in other places not great this is a uh a leak that’s already established and an accident waiting to happen so we’re going to change every fuel pipe on the car and um yeah make it E10 compatible hopefully it never has E10 fuel put in it but you never know so um right that at least solves the fuel leak um I’m just going to um do the sniff test on the engine oil as a final test this is one of the the things that we can do before we even get to the stage of thinking about getting it running I’m going to have a good old sniff of the engine oil to see if it’s got any Petrol in it or not and if it’s generally if it does smell a patrol if it’s very thin and if it’s over the level of the the uh top of the dipstick we know we’ve had a fuel problem cuz it’s leaked into the oil in the crank case I very much doubt it but you can’t beat a good old sniff um the more Eagle eyed amongst you will also have noticed that we’re missing one windscreen wiper um so we we have to locate an original windscreen wiper to match that one which is an original uh one it’s not a modern replica so we’ll get on the case with that um just yeah I had to mention it because if I don’t everybody will say it’s only got one wind screen wiper so there it is we’re now going to do the sniffer test uh of the engine oil this is in the days when cars actually had dipsticks which they don’t know uh it’s electronic sensors and I can tell immediately ah yes Shadow shell 2018 I’d recognize it anywhere um yes yes just nicely matured not too much fuel contamination absolutely perfect um yes that’ll do basically that means it’s right on the maximum mark it means that uh it’s not too diluted there’s no Petrol in there yes I’m quite happy with that quite happy for the purposes of starting the engine that will be fine well that concludes another TI’s classic workshop for the moment there will be a part two along um and uh thanks for watching please remember to like And subscribe it does help and we’ll be back with something else very soon for