70 Standard Equipment Car, Still fixing the body Options

[nathanxnathan]

I've been looking for a needs-some-love car to do like a rolling restore on. — A car with not a crazy amount of rust but needing a lot of the parts that I've got 2 or 3 of from my other way-too-deep project. To put the 2nd best, not quite perfect parts from my stash on.

This past Friday I think I found the car finally, saw it on Craigslist. I sent the link to my girlfriend with the caption "so tempting" (IMG:style_emoticons/default/smile.gif) I kept going back to the page to look, and at about 3:30 called the seller, left work early and drove from Anaheim to Redondo B each to look at it.

Well it was a bit rough but so much good on it, that I bought it. Waited 5 hours for a tow truck, and got it back to my studio where it's parked now.

I hope to do like a focused restore, keep the project creep to a minimum, go in like a surgeon and take care of the issues. I'm going to try to keep the thread like here's the issue, here's the work, and how I took care of it... instead of like here's how I took my entire car apart to a bare metal cut up body and got stuck lol.

Anyway, here are some pics

From the Craigslist ad

[nathanxnathan]

I talked with the owner for a few hours looking over the car. He had it in his driveway for the past 15 years under a cover. He had a "914 sandrail" — had 914 suspension and mid engined that he was actually offering to give to me lol. ...if only had had more room....



He'd gotten it originally on a trade for some Fuchs. He'd originally planned to put the parts from the 6 that he had. He still had all the parts in his garage.



Pushed it out on the street



and when the tow guy finally showed up

[nathanxnathan]

Having got it back to my studio, I tried to make it look a bit less like a deralict, for my landlord's sake. I put some tail lights in, cleaned it up a bit, some hubcaps, replaced the cracked turn signal lenses.







Swapped out the steering wheel, I think it was a Grant wheel for the non appearance group wheel that I had. I put in a shifter as someone had cut the one in there for some reason. I felt like I was maybe opening too many cans of worms, but couldn't help pulling off the door panels..



First day was that and pulling out all the wiring bastardizations from the previous radio and alarm installs of years past.

[nathanxnathan]

The car was originally Tangerine. The Karmann plate



and now some issues...

Bolts broke off the bracket that hold the passenger seat bottom to the floor. I'm thinking of maybe using rivnuts and bolts rather than trying to get the brackets off to weld new bolts from underneath.

Also, a hole in the floor under the passenger seat. Hard to see in the pic, but it's between the inner seat bracket and the center console. There's a pretty big dent there from improper jack placement.

This was the "just remove the seat" shot. Maybe a coke mirror? Trident gum wrapper. 1.20 in change including a 1969 quarter, some 70's coins, latest was '83.



This is the worst right here, the driver's seat was just sitting in there. Someone tried to weld the back ot it to the floor and buggered up the brackets, no hinges in sight.



After removal of the tar to get a better look.. I wonder if I can use the access hole to spot weld new brackets on? With the reinforcements below, it's not ideal to use a tig welder to put new ones one, and I don't have a mig/wire feed... kind of an issue.






The driver door, someone went crazy with a plasma cutter putting speakers in presumably. They cut the housing of the window..track/driver thingy in half and the inner door feels flimsy with what remains of it. I'm thinking of swapping the door for 1 from my stash but I'll need to paint... The rear lid is pretty rusty on the inside by the latch, and the passenger headlight cover is dented up pretty good. I have better parts as seconds.

I'm torn on trying to color match this unknown red or doing the whole thing the original orange. Sucks they were so thorough with the red, like they did the door jambs and front and rear trunk, even the inside of the passenger door (not the driver door though). The interior and the underside and the engine compartment are still orange.

[914sgofast2]

It's amazing how much better it looks with all the lights in place and a set of hubcaps.
If it were mine, I would do a rolling restoration if I already had a running engine, trans and axles, etc.
On the other hand, your motivation to finish it might be stronger if you gave it a coat or two of the original orange color so you weren't tempted to just let it sit in the driveway for another 15 years! That would force a decision about replacing the driver's door with one that hasn't been butchered up on the inside.

[KELTY360]

That car is screaming for body color bumpers, regardless if you keep the red or go back to orange! Nice find...have fun with it.

[flyer86d]

Back in the mid 70’s, one of our PCA members had a non appearance group 71 in Bahia Red that was stunning. It looks like you found a good one. All the best!

Charlie

[mb911]

What is he doing with the 911 engine?. Just an FYI that looks yo not be a 914-6 engine but rather a 911 engine. Yes I know they are kind of 1 in the same but this example has 911 heat exchangers and a red shroud which likely is middle 70s and then carbs with steel air cleaner so maybe early 70s Induction but the a 914-6 came with plastic air cleaners.

[930cabman]

Welcome aboard and it looks as though you dove in head first. How are the longs? do you have an engine?

(IMG:style_emoticons/default/beer.gif)

[Shivers]

Cool, another one saved.

[rgalla9146]

Forget the car for now. No insult intended.
Chase that engine. It's early. It could be an S
Find the type number to the right of the fan support on the horizontal
surface....do your homework.

[nathanxnathan]

That car is screaming for body color bumpers, regardless if you keep the red or go back to orange! Nice find...have fun with it.

Yeah, definitely gonna have body colored bumpers. The targa trim was also originally orange — 1 side I think is original. I am going to pull off the top/center piece and see if that is original. At some point someone painted a lot of the trim black.

I'm not sure if the back bumper is original to the car I will check soon.

[nathanxnathan]

Back in the mid 70’s, one of our PCA members had a non appearance group 71 in Bahia Red that was stunning. It looks like you found a good one. All the best!

Charlie

I love the non appearance group cars. I even like the skinny tires. It has 165's on the 4 1/2 inch steelies — they are all mismatched, 1 might be the original spare.

It came with a set of horn grills, I think aftermarket though, they seem kind of rubbery. I have a few, maybe a set. 1 I recall is like white plastic and I think I have a chrome plastic one. I think these early cars the original would be metal. Probably pot metal though so it's probably hard to find decent original ones.

I was looking at the wiring harness in the front trunk and it looks like it may have had fog lights though. It's weird because the wires seem to be there but comparing it to the appearance group that I have, it doesn't seem to have nearly as many mounting holes in the front panel — my APG car is a 72 though so idk.

A few weird things the car does have a headliner. With the late door panel and the partially replaced targa trim, it makes me think a lot of things are not as original though.

[nathanxnathan]

What is he doing with the 911 engine?. Just an FYI that looks yo not be a 914-6 engine but rather a 911 engine. Yes I know they are kind of 1 in the same but this example has 911 heat exchangers and a red shroud which likely is middle 70s and then carbs with steel air cleaner so maybe early 70s Induction but the a 914-6 came with plastic air cleaners.

mmm, I didn't ask too many questions about the 914-6 stuff. I figured I couldn't afford it lol. The car was up for $2k and that's what I gave him.

The guy was actually a car dealer, still is sort of. He had some blue dealer plates that I thought were cool. When he filled out the paperwork for the sale he stamped it "Sundial Enterprises". He told me about the targa tops he used to make for 964's bitd.

He realized he didn't have the transmission at his house and we arranged to go pick it up from his truck which was at this other space 2 days later, on Sunday. I helped him hook up a trailer to his "racecar" which he didn't pull the cover off, but it was a 70's targa 911 with a Ginther windscreen from the shape of it. He had a lot of toys and parts all stashed away at his place. Pretty cool guy. He told me about how he was a weapons consultant for the movie Apocalypse Now and how he had a speaking part in it, and showed me his art which was pretty cool.

He did say that he had a real six that he drove, but it was rusted pretty badly. Anyway... it will remain a lowly 4 lol

[nathanxnathan]

Welcome aboard and it looks as though you dove in head first. How are the longs? do you have an engine?

(IMG:style_emoticons/default/beer.gif)

I'm almost afraid to look at the longs.. It kinda needs to be done though, if only to clean under the rockers and have a look at the jack plates. ...I'm hoping for the best...

I have a few motor options. I think I've got a good bottom end/short block. I need to get some heads looked at. The engine is on the short list. I've got tins for it I believe. A few pieces have some rust issues that I may be able to repair. I'm going to have to go through my stuff some more.

I've got some parts on the way. I guess I've resolved to focus on the seat which involves the floor. It will need a battery tray and support, there's a bit of the inner fender well that needs some attention, like it has no battery tray, just the support, and I think when they removed the tray part of the fender went with it. I think it may be not as bad as that sounds, but I'm gonna get into that this weekend I think.

[nathanxnathan]

I made some progress on the driver's side floor. TOmorrow's agenda is to get those brackets off.



Some pinholes toward the back (IMG:style_emoticons/default/unsure.gif)

Progress on the seat frame, I had one from a 71. I blasted, etched and painted it. I didn't realize that 70's were different with the straight rod for the adjust and a round knob. Also the part that engages in the teeth is brass where the 71 is steel it looks like. I swapped that out.



I couldn't get the spring tensioned and the roll pin back in, like how the heck are you supposed to achieve that? I was able to pry the spring back to position with a punch and get that to hold it. I then cut off the punch end lol. I know that's pretty ghetto, but Idk, is there some tool I don't have to do it properly? I couldn't figure it out.

[nathanxnathan]

1 question, is a 70 supposed to have the parking brake cover and the tab to screw it to?

You can see above there's no tab... I need to look closer under the back pad dampener thing to see if it was taken out/broke or what. Here is a pic of someone else's car. I can see on my 72 it is welded in.

(IMG:http://www.914world.com/bbs2/uploads/post-19896-1599931022.jpg)

[nathanxnathan]

It's odd there is no parking brake tab for a spring. The orange I think is original paint and there's not a trace of it. Also there's no hole in the guide to mount the cover. This car is pretty early, 11/69 so I'm thinking they didn't have return springs or covers maybe. How much of an issue is it to not have a return spring there?

comparing it to my 72..

[nathanxnathan]

Other developments, I took off the rockers. I was kind of stoked about the passenger side.

[nathanxnathan]

I thought the driver was gonna be better,I was expecting it to be like clean.

sad (IMG:style_emoticons/default/sad.gif)



some poking, it's through both layers and the jack plate





I don't know if there's much I can do about it. It seems to address it would entail going sooo deep. It's a bit heartbreakibng, like why do I do this to myselfbuying 914's thinking it's going to be different (IMG:style_emoticons/default/huh.gif)