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Posted by: Superhawk996 Dec 21 2018, 04:10 PM

I purchased my first 914 back in 1987 (1973 1.7L) and had that car for nearly a decade and I personally put over 100,000 miles on it before it ultimately fell victim to a negligent driver that drove into the back end of it at about 40 mph while the vehicle was stopped at a red light. That rear end crash totaled the vehicle but what is amazing is how well it crumpled (early crush zones!) due to the kink in the frame where the halfshafts are. Everyone walked away unharmed.

I replaced it with a 1991 Miata. Great car in its own right but I've always missed my 914.

Purchased this "replacement" in May 2018 as a known poster child for a complete right side longitudinal rustoration.

This vehicle had been put into storage inside a pole barn around 2004 as far as I can tell.

Vehicle initially purchased in non-running condition:
Engine couldn't be started.
Transmission shift linkage was disconnected
Half shafts and CV's were in pieces, and the wheel stubs were not installed therefore the vehicle couldn't even be rolled without risking having the rear wheel separate from within the bearing.
Fiberglass laid into the floorpan . . . that can't be a good sign.

Vehicle looks great . . . until I got under it.

I spent the better part of the summer putting the items above back together and trying to confirm that it would:
1) Run under its own power
2) Drive though the neighborhood and shift though all gears.



Looks pretty nice eh?

Here is what is lurking underneath once the rockers came off.



and when I started cutting back the rust. Oh my . . . .

Posted by: Superhawk996 Dec 21 2018, 05:26 PM

With a new found 914 where else would I go but to the interwebz and I promptly found 914World! Much nicer than the old school 914 newsletters I used to have to subscribe to.



Everything you could ever want to know about 914's at your fingertips all on one place. At least this internet is good for something.

Basic Plan:
1) Find someone that has done it before
2) Follow their advice

I eventually found Jeff Hail's post on Bringing Out the Dead. Wonderful stuff and top level craftsmanship. It is so rare in these days to find someone so willing to share his skill and knowledge. I spent many hours reading that thread and many others on the site and I finally settled on a course of action. . . . copy Jeff!

http://www.914world.com/bbs2/index.php?showtopic=76791

Jeff's posts are so elegant and to the point. And to top it off he offered up a "blueprint" for his build cart.

So I copied it . . . ruthlessly . . . . down to the paint color. Yellow makes perfect sense to me. Leave it raw, and it rusts. Paint it black and you'll surely smack your head on it having not seen it out of the corner of your eye.

Posted by: Cairo94507 Dec 21 2018, 06:45 PM

Well you found the best place in the world for a 914 owner- The World is here to answer all of your 914 questions and to assist in locating all of those hard to find parts. Welcome and enjoy. Merry Christmas.

Posted by: Superhawk996 Dec 21 2018, 06:52 PM

In the process, I also fabricated up some door braces mounting them on the inside of the cowl area to allow the doors to be kept in place to gauge door fits. The upper ties into the B=pillar seat belt attachment. The lower goes to the rear bulkhead.



Additional rust excavation revealed that the fiberglass on the floor was a poor attempt to seal up the heavily rusted floorpan.

In the picture below you can see clear though the floor pan on the passenger side where it attaches to the longitudinal.

Posted by: Superhawk996 Dec 21 2018, 07:01 PM

At this point, it became clear that there would be more ordering of sheet metal than I had hoped for when I purchased the car. You know how this goes.

Hoping that maybe just a Engman or Restoration Design clamshell kit might be just enough to get er' back on the road for the summer and then come back at some point in the future to do it right. No such luck!

Posted by: Superhawk996 Dec 21 2018, 07:11 PM

This project started with a few goals in mind:

1) Save a 914 that otherwise might be a candidate for scrap despite how it looks from 20' away.

2) End up with a car of known pedigree. Going out and buying a $20K "rust free" 914 is no guarantee of getting a rust free car. As far as I'm concerned there really isn't such an animal. There are many nice cars out there. However, they all rust from the inside out. Don't get me wrong, I don't want to bag on anyone's car but I've been around 914's long enough to know they all have skeleton's in closet. For me, buying a known basket case is less traumatic than buying a $25K car and then finding out after the fact that someone creatively played a game of hide the rust.

3) Once I have a sound under body, then the possibilities are endless. Ultimately, I'd love to put a six in this car if I can ensure it is square and reasonably sound after fixing it.

Posted by: Superhawk996 Dec 21 2018, 08:07 PM

Alright, so now is probably a good time to plug a couple of vendors. I've been away from 914's for the better part of 20 years. It is so nice to come back and find that the internet has led to a vibrant 914 supply base.

Automobile Atlanta - they have been there since the start and though all my ups and downs as an owner. Good to see that they are still around.

Restoration Design. I am honestly impressed with these guys. Not only are they putting out some quality Porsche restoration sheet metal products, but I have a real appreciation for the fact that these guys are real tool and die shop type guys. Love the fact that they are making new parts that weren't even available on my last go round. I'm impressed with everything I've ordered from them so far and the customer service is top notch!!

Tangerine Racing. Awesome engine lift attachment for floor jacks. Why didn't I think of this after years of dropping engines as they wobbled around on a 3" diameter jack pad? I'm ashamed of myself! And to top that off, they make the bobbin's to replace the rear trailing arm fasteners. Not only have I broken one off myself in my original car (lots of work getting that out), my "new" car came with one pre-broken! Sure I could make one on the lathe but for the price, I'll gladly pay Tangerine $30 bucks or so and get onto the bodywork that this car so desperately needs.

Good job guys! Keep up the great work and thanks for keeping the faith!

Posted by: Jamie Dec 21 2018, 08:24 PM

You obviously know how to weld and have the tools, so dig in and good luck! We'll be watching for progress reports.

Posted by: Superhawk996 Dec 21 2018, 08:25 PM

So what are the skeletons on this car that I've found so far (other than rust!)?

3 coats of paint. Original is Alaska Blue Metallic. Two repaints in red. Currently done in BMW #138 Cinnabar

Car was the victim of an A/C install (DPD parts). I'm very torn on this. My original car didn't have A/C. I had many sweaty summer drives on hot black vinyl seats! Now that I'm older and have enjoyed the A/C on the Miata I think it might be nice. On the other hand, the install is pure butchery!



I'm trying to figure out a better way to do this. Maybe route the A/C lines though the tunnel when I have the floor pan off? Maybe do clean bulkhead pass-thru's into the cabin instead of just cutting holes with a hole saw?

Same for the York compressor and need to cut the right side engine shelf! No way.
There must be a slick way to mount a smaller Sanden compressor and/or do a top side center mount such that the butchery can be avoided.

There must be a better way. I've been poking around for ideas but haven'f found the right solution yet.

Posted by: Superhawk996 Dec 21 2018, 08:33 PM

How about this one? Mileage on the ODO is 60K (ish). Must be 160K.

Here is the clutch pedal pivot. That kind of wear simply doesn't happen in 60,000 miles.

Posted by: Superhawk996 Dec 21 2018, 08:43 PM

All new vintage vehicle acquisitions come with surprises.

a 45 year old vehicle has typically had unmentionable things done to it. I've seen a lot of shady repairs but this vehicle is providing some new stories.

For anyone that might be reading this . . . Please take this as a warning and as a plea, brazing is not to be done on structural elements like the suspension console. if the metal is too thin to weld to, replace it!

Posted by: Dave_Darling Dec 21 2018, 08:54 PM

There's a thread on here with a super-duper clean install of the AC in the stock cold air box. I know someone will be able to provide the link, hopefully soon. It is really an amazing build.

I have heard that you can use a setup like the smog pump pulley to run a modern compressor. Assuming it can hold enough power, that can give you room for the compressor without having to chop the heck out of the engine bay. You will still need to run the lines, though.

--DD

Posted by: Superhawk996 Dec 21 2018, 08:55 PM

This was another favorite. Some sort of home made Wheel spacers were glued to the brake rotors.



And to top that off, there was probably no more than 10mm of engaged thread on the lugs due to the added width of the spacers.

914's are already challenged with wheel balance since they are lug centric rather than hub centric. Adding in the imbalance of these wheel spaces must have resulted in "interesting" vibrations beyond 50-70 mph.

Luckily for me, my only "drive" so far has been limited to a 25 mph drive though the neighborhood once I got the engine running and the driveline back in operational order.

Unfortunately, that neighborhood drive also revealed a couple of brakes dragging pretty hard.

Posted by: Superhawk996 Dec 21 2018, 09:08 PM

Also found the driver side suspension console to have some stress cracking that lead to the start of rust. Not entirely surprising now that I suspect the chassis has about 160K miles.




Unfortunately, there is no aftermarket sheet metal to replace the left side. I had a nice e-mail exchange with Restoration Design. It sounds like they are considering tooling up the left side suspension console but that it will take some serious time.

I've got to believe that at this point in time, many other "rust free" high mileage 914's are beginning to show their age and have similar stress cracking on the left side. I'm hoping Restoration Design will eventually produce this part.

Until then, I'll repair and reinforce it. If you're in need of a left side console, I'd recommend that you reach out to Restoration Design to reinforce the market need for left side suspension console parts!.

Posted by: Superhawk996 Dec 21 2018, 09:31 PM

All right, one last fun post for the evening.

I previously mentioned the fiberglass on the floorpan right?

Well, upon getting the right side longitudinal cut out



and sectioning the floor, it seems that someone thought they were building a boat. I understand the idea behind using fiberglass to seal up the pinholes in the floor pan. I don't think 1/4" of mat and resin was really necessary.

Posted by: euro911 Dec 22 2018, 06:04 AM

I really enjoy reading these kinds of brutal rustoration threads. Although I've been extremely fortunate that none of the 914s I've purchased were anywhere near this condition (being on the west coast), they did come with some minor age-related issues and/or PO hacks that needed to be dealt with. I'm OK with mechanical things like building motors, changing parts and repairing electrical systems, but I totally lack the welding, bodywork and painting skills some of you fellers have, and am in awe seeing the talent you guys display.

Subscribed to yet another success story in the making

Posted by: 76-914 Dec 22 2018, 08:51 AM

That fiberglass added 40 lb's to the car. I always wonder why people want to dress up a basket case only to have the appearance of a nice care. Looks like she is in the road to a good recovery now. A while back we had a member who knowingly represented a "Polished Turd" as a jewel to an unsuspecting member. That went south in a hurry. Looking forward to following your build and .

Posted by: bbrock Dec 22 2018, 09:40 AM

Anyone crazy enough to save a rusted out basket case is my kind of guy. Jeff Hail's build has been a great guide for many of us. Looking forward to seeing more of this one.

Posted by: Superhawk996 Dec 23 2018, 02:25 PM

Thank you for the kind words of encouragement! Will be trying to do some hardcore garage time between Christmas and New Years while I have some time off.

I'll put up some new posts in the coming days.

Posted by: Superhawk996 Dec 23 2018, 10:05 PM

Overall pretty happy with progress so far.

Floor pan and Inner Longitudinal removed. Lots of drilling of spot welds! Used the demo saw to remove more of the passenger side floor.





Then put passenger side door back on to gauge door fit. Overall I'm pretty happy. However, it seems the only way to get a decent fit is to shim the bottom hinge slightly (1 washer). I don't recall my old car having any door shims. However, it also seems odd that there is no way to "tilt" the door without using a shim.

Overall looks reasonable for a rough fit up but needs a little more tweaking.

Posted by: Superhawk996 Dec 23 2018, 10:32 PM

Also did some more removal of the rear frame & inner wheelhouse.



I can see that drilling spot welds is really going to be a re-occurring theme.

I can't believe how many spot welds are on the outer suspension console for the trailing arm. This is in addition to some factory MIG welds.



Pretty much the same story for the engine mount but with even more factory MIG along the outer perimeter.

Honestly, it took the better part of the day just to get these two pieces of sheetmetal freed up for recycling. Sure wish that new metal was available.



Just about the time I was thinking I was doing OK for the day, I got a little surprise. Turns out that during the demo of the frame, the saw blade had banged the rear fender from the inside -- totally buggering the paint.

This was a bit of a let down. Since the paint on the car is in very nice shape I've been trying to avoid cutting out a piece of the rear fender to allow easy access to the frame / console area like so may others have done.

I thought I had been careful. Nope.



I think I'll still try not to cut out this section of rear quarter. At this point it is still easier to do a small paint repair than to deal with cutting into the quarter and having to deal with the fiberglass flares. Welding on the sheetmetal with the fiberglass is going to be a big problem that will likely force me to remove a portion of the flare, weld, and then have to reinstall the flare. Not a fun prospect.

Worst case . . . . paint will be hard to match. I had hoped to contain the re-spray to the door jambs and the engine compartment.

At some point, assuming I'm happy with all this structural work, I had planned to strip all paint in the future (maybe next winter) and return the car to original blue.

I had long ago resolved to never again have a red sports car. Can't tell you how many thousands of dollars I've paid to the highway robbers over the last 40 years or so. I've never changed the speed I drive but I can say with a straight face that white Miata never attracted 1/2 the attention my red 914 did!

Posted by: Superhawk996 Dec 23 2018, 10:42 PM

So after all that, I decided to take a look at how the rescued pieces will fit to the new sheet metal.

Gives me a good idea of what still needs to be trimmed & tweaked.





It also gives he a bit of hope and chance to forget the paint fiasco.

Two steps forward, one step back but focus on the overall forward progress.

I also had a chance to check out some of the projects you guys have posted.

Bbrock's project is awesome! Gives me hope that this is indeed worth doing. Likewise, I've been able to find a bit more info on a center mount AC compressor that another member did. Same thing, makes me realize that it can be done.

Such a shame the 914 had a relatively short life cycle. Had the line continued, think of the improvements that could have been made.

I was very excited a few years back when Porsche hinted of a return of the 914 (OK it was more like a decade ago!). But like a lot of concept talk around the auto shows, it was just a bluff!.

Oh well, if Porsche won't do it, I guess I'll have to keep the old school metal on the road on my own!

Posted by: sixnotfour Dec 23 2018, 10:46 PM

way to dive in...

Posted by: bbrock Dec 23 2018, 11:03 PM

Believe it or not, you can often fix a sagging door by just grabbing the rear bottom and reefing up on it. Alternatively, if you look carefully, you may find a slight bulge in hinge pillar at the upper hinge. Over the years, the metal seems to stretch there and cause the door to droop at the rear. So you can gently push that bulge back with a body hammer. I was surprised how a tiny adjustment fixed my drooping doors. I used a combo of the two methods to fix the droop and achieve the gaps I wanted fore and aft.

Nice work you are doing!

Posted by: Superhawk996 Dec 23 2018, 11:22 PM

Tried that to a limited extent. However I pulled by back out really bad about a month ago so I wasn't in a hurry to overdo it! The "reefing method" is what used to get done in auto assembly plants to tweak door fits and window channel fits as recently as the late 90's. I might use a floor jack though if push comes to shove.

That was the 1st time for me with pulling my back like that and it was not fun and had me laid out for a couple days. I was trying to move my engine a bit without a dolly or hoist. Made the mistake of lifting and twisting at the same time. Used to be able to do that when I was 20. No so much anymore! Not only are the 914's older and in worse shape than I recall in the 80's -- so am I!

Posted by: bbrock Dec 23 2018, 11:37 PM

Oh man, I feel your pain. I was actually in my 20s, and it was the 80s) the first, and worst time I put my back out. Did if lifting a stainless steel pan that probably weighed all of two pounds and something I did hundreds of times each week for that job. But for some reason, my back went out and my knees just buckled. I had to chest crawl back to my office to call my wife. Then I had to somehow drive my 914 across town to where my wife worked so she could take me home. The only way I could operate the clutch was to put my foot on the peddle and then push my knee down with my hand. At least you were doing something manly and can blame age. I hope it heals quick.

Posted by: Superhawk996 Dec 23 2018, 11:53 PM

So here is a fun picture of my original 914 back in the early 90's.

They say that a 2 seat sports car is of limited use. I beg to differ. My buddy and I ran a house painting business during my 1st summer of college. I learned two important things.

1) Don't show up to do estimates in a 914. I never got any of those jobs. Wasn't until I started using my buddy's Citation that we started booking jobs!

2) You make do with what you have. This was bout a 16' ladder. At one point I had a 40' ladder on it but never got a picture of that one!

Posted by: whitetwinturbo Dec 27 2018, 12:00 AM

............I'm popped out just reading this thread

Everyone is pulling for this one to be saved. Nice job!

Posted by: Superhawk996 Dec 29 2018, 09:02 PM

Getting back to work after a few days off.

Slow going lately. Still removing parts and cutting metal to get access to the Hell Hole areas.

Had to remove the trunk to get the old trunk hinges out. Of course that meant screwing around with the torsion bars which is always a smashed finger waiting to happen if not done properly.

Also a reminder that I need to move the battery to the frunk! Previously was crudely mounted in the trunk and taking up too much area in that already limited space. Plus I prefer the weight to go up front like I had it in my 1st 914.



Previous paint job used bed liner type spay on material to hide a variety of repairs. I already know the rear trunk bottom edge has had the fiberglass treatment. Afraid to dig into that one this winter. Non structural and honestly, it is pretty inconspicuous at the moment. I don't see a way to repair this right now without ending up with even more paint work on my hands.



The trunk hinges had to be pulled:
1) to make way for new sheetmetal to repair the AC butchery. Hole saw pass thru is absurd. I can't believe the sheetmetal isn't rusted around the edges of the holes and leading to even more decay. Finally, a blessing! That is the mystery of this car so far. . . . how is the underbody so gone but the upper is in decent shape?

2) Repair the trunk hinge brackets. Although not broken off they were welded in with snot welds and look like they will eventually break. Even if they don't break I don't want someone to think I welded them!.

3) Upon removal, I discovered that the proper hinge bolts are long gone. Replaced with a 10 mm threaded bolt that is enlarging the bracket hole each time the trunk is opened. So the bright side is that I found this out before they broke! New brackets will address #2.

I'm constantly amazed how poorly previous owners took care of maintenance and repair. I understand 914's not getting due respect but come on. . . .

Makes be a bit worried about getting to that engine and transmission. I already know there are a couple of dicey exhaust studs and the compression is lacking

Got around to cutting the firewall to gain access to the Hell Hole to install the wheelhouse inner. More spot welds and cutting.



Spent the better part of two days getting this far. I think I was in for about 4 hours just to rough fit the inner frame rail. The way it fits up the the front of the trunk is tricky. Had to spend a lot of time reworking of the frame rail flanges to get it to fit right.

The one thing that bothers me is this frame section is corrugated. The original is two layers of steel. Inner is corrugated but the outer is smooth.

I think I'm probably going to have to fabricate a 0.030" (ish) outer layer to smooth out the appearance of this. Ideally, I'd like the rail to look OEM. May be too much work. Time to think that one over for a while. Open to suggestions if someone else has traveled this road.





Lots of rough mock up to figure how how stuff will fit and what the best assembly sequence will be.

Discovered that the Restoration Design outer clam shell will need to cut into two pieces for my install. There is no way to weld on the upper portion without cutting off that rear fender so it will have to get welded to the wheelhouse section before that whole section is welded in. Also it needs to sandwich to the wheelhouse and the longitudinal which can't be done after the door jamb is finish welded.

Not a big deal but better to find it out now before welding starts!

Posted by: Superhawk996 Dec 29 2018, 09:31 PM

Posted a video up on YouTube. Posted as much for myself as a reminder that it did run . . . and why I want to get it back on the road.

Shift linkage was out of adjustment and I had some trouble finding reverse and kept catching 2nd. That my story and I'm sticking to it.


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jQ5_EblRToE

Posted by: Superhawk996 Dec 29 2018, 09:34 PM

Deleted duplicate post - oops!

Posted by: jmitro Dec 29 2018, 09:51 PM

https://www.harborfreight.com/4-ton-heavy-duty-portable-hydraulic-equipment-kit-62115.html

I used this tool to slightly stretch my very tight door gaps (and then I returned the tool for a refund after I got done )

Posted by: Superhawk996 Jan 1 2019, 12:08 PM

Spent a bit of time getting the 914 clock working.

Was initially non-functional when I first applied power to it.

Took a bit of poking around on the various forums to try to figure it out. Estimate to repair was about $285 from Hollywood Speedometer. I'm sure they would do a great job but that isn't in the cards right now.

Although I was able to get it working, it sill isn't fit for use and the front plastic lens is scratched. Oh, and the inner bezel is painted red (as are all my other gauges) -- Oh, the things people do to these cars! so at some point in time it may go in for a professional repair.

In the meantime, the curiosity of how it works and the itch to repair it was killing me.

When I first got it, the factory seal on the back of the clock was still in place which was a good sign. That meant only the front of the clock had been opened up to paint the inner bezel. Looking at the outer bezel closely did show signs of this but overall, it was done reasonably well and carefully without mauling the bezel too much.

Opening the back reveled the internal thermal fuse was open.

However, I put a jumper across it, and the clock still wouldn't run. It didn't start ticking on its own. I did eventually find that if I put some light finger pressure on the main spring gear that it would tick. I figure this was due to a gummed up mechanism.

Flushed the mechanism with denatured alcohol.

Repaired the thermal fuse. This one is a bit tricky. The back of the case says to only use 120C low melt temp solder. I can't seem to find this at a resonable price. I think the only solder alloy close to that temp is Indium based and the only places I could find it were about $250 for about 10 grams of it.

I did finally find some commercially available solder with a 138C melt point at Micro Center. Close enough for Government work. Certainly better than 60/40 Tin/Lead electronics solder with a melt temp of 188C but I'd rather eventually fix this in the long term. Luckily I have a power supply that I can do current limiting on so no risk in the short term.



https://www.mgchemicals.com/downloads/tds/tds-4902p.pdf

Powered it up and voila! Or so it seemed.

Although it would run it wasn't self winding properly.

This is the most ingenious thing about the clock. When a set of contacts close, a solenoid is actuated which winds the clock. As the solenoid reaches the end of travel, the inertia of the winder mechanism carries it just a bit further than the contact on the solenoid arm, and opens contacts, and shutting off the solenoid. All this happens in a fraction of a second.

So what was happening is that although the contacts appeared to be closed, there were ever so slightly shy and not making electrical contact. I suspect this is due to mechanical wear, arching, or maybe something has gotten bent over the years. I tired cleaning the contacts but no luck.

I found that by putting a small shim (tip of a small tie wrap!) on top of the solenoid arm, it added just enough preload to close the contacts and to allow the winding mechanism to operate on its own.

Video below is with the tie wrap tip, taped into place with a small bit of green masking tape.


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NCQlqokfIPI


If anyone has more information on these clocks or has a more successful long term repair idea, I'd love to hear it. Otherwise I may eventually use a bit of glue to hold the tie wrap in place until I decide if $285 to restore the clock is worth it. Not likely in the short term until I get this car back on the road . . . I already have a $15 clock in my garage that works!

Also, I've found that a 1/2 Amp fast blow fuse is adequate to protect the clock in the short therm. The solenoid measures about 9 ohms so maximum steady state current flow would be 1.33 Amps by Ohms law. However, a solenoid is an inductor and inherently limits current in-rush and its inductance will be much higher than 9 ohms. I could dig up the equation to figure out the instantaneous inductance but that is too much work when trial and error works as well. Anyway, when I use a 1/2 Amp fuse, I can see the filament "bend" as the mechanism closes and current flows heating the fuse wire. However before it can get hot enough to blow, the current stops. In the long term, this bending of the fuse filament will fatigue it but for now, it works fine to protect the clock.

Posted by: bbrock Jan 1 2019, 01:41 PM

Happy New Year! Thanks for posting your clock repair experience. My clock hasn't been plugged in for 35 years and I can't remember if it was even working back then, so I may have to reference this soon.

FYI, I had my local glass shop cut new glass lenses for my tach which had a plastic lens and it was a reasonable price. Lenses on my console gauges look good but I may eventually do the same for them. SEM Trim Black is a dead nuts match for the satin black used on the bezels. I resprayed both inner and outer bezels on my main instrument panel gauges and they look like new. Much cheaper than a full professional restoration at least.

I'm curious about the thermal fuse. Is there no way to replace with one with long leads attached so it could be soldered in with normal solder without melting the fuse? Having never seen inside one of these clocks, just wondering

Posted by: Superhawk996 Jan 1 2019, 02:42 PM

Pelican forum has a picture that is not very clear - I'll try to post something a bit clearer in a day.

The bottom line is that the answer to the question is No. if the internal fuse is melted it needs to be re-soldered.

I've read of others just using normal solder and then putting the fuse external to the clock. Per my post, 1/2A fast blow would do the trick. However if the internal fuse melted (as mine was) it would need to be resoldered to get power to the solenoid. If you get closer to doing this, I'd be happy to walk you though it with better pictures or video.

https://cdn9.pelicanparts.com/techarticles/mult_vdo_clock_repair/fig3.jpg

Posted by: euro911 Jan 1 2019, 03:24 PM

Is there enough room inside the housing to solder in a miniature fuse 'socket'? Then you can install a small replaceable 1/2 amp fuse without worrying about melting the element when it needs to be replaced. I've replaced mini-fuses in old VCRs and microwave ovens, they're something like 1/8" diameter x 1/2" in length ... (unfortunately, I forgot the size designation)

Littlefuse also has miniature ceramic fuses with axial leads that could be used if you heat-sink each lead while quickly soldering one in

https://www.littelfuse.com/products/fuses/axial-radial-thru-hole-fuses/pico-fuses/251/251_5.aspx

Posted by: Dion Jan 1 2019, 06:25 PM

Just spotted this thread. Nice work! & Good luck.
Look forward to seeing your progress. Looks like you have a handle on it all.

Posted by: bbrock Jan 1 2019, 06:42 PM

Yeah, those are what I was thinking about too. Here's an example of what I was looking at: https://www.galco.com/buy/NTE-Electronics/NTE8149?source=googleshopping&gclid=EAIaIQobChMIsoPKku7N3wIVoCCtBh0QYAJ7EAQYASABEgIvMvD_BwE

Posted by: Superhawk996 Jan 3 2019, 07:58 PM

I suppose you could add in one of those miniature fuses but it wouldn't serve much of a purpose.

What maybe isn't clear is that the internal "fuse" is the dab of low melting temp solder itself. Tthere are basically two "eyelet" loops.

One is fixed firm to the solenoid. The other is "sprung" down from the rear of the clock. This is just a piece of spring steel that is copper plated.

The sprung eyelet portion is pulled down to the fixed one and then the solder is placed which holds the two pieces together.

If a short were to occur in the solenoid, or if the mechanism were to jam preventing the winding contacts from being opened after only momentary contact, the thin spring steel will heat up, melting the low temp solder and the "fuse" then springs open breaking the current flow.

Remember, the purpose of the fuse isn't to protect the clock, rather, it protects the car's wiring.

So if the internal fuse is already opened from whatever cause, the root cause needs to be fixed. In my case this was to flush the sticky internals with alcohol to free up the stuck rewind mechanism and the mainspring gearing.

In theory, if you either put the mini-fuse inside (maybe between the eyelets) or outside the clock, it wouldn't really matter. Just protect your vehicle wiring.

I looked at the spec's on the mini-fuses you linked to. Those take quite a while (up to minutes) to blow depending on size of the fuse. It would take some careful sizing to get the right fuse vs. time to melt it. I'd prefer to just go with a simple external 1/2 fast blow automotive glass fuse since I know this works to run the clock but would also be low enough amperage to blow well before melting the clock power feed if a short were to occur.

Attached is a closer view. Sorry for limited resolution. I can send high res photo via e-mail if that would help.

Yellow arrow points to the "sprung" eyelet. Red circle is around the two eyelets that are now soldered with the low temp solder.

Posted by: FourBlades Jan 4 2019, 08:40 AM

Great looking restoration!

Check out this page for rear suspension inner console reinforcement plates:

http://www.tangerineracing.com/chassis.htm

John

Posted by: bbrock Jan 4 2019, 08:49 AM

Thanks for the details on the clock. Makes sense now. I'm thinking maybe I should open mine to clean and relube before plugging it in as a preventative measure.

Posted by: Superhawk996 Jan 5 2019, 05:59 PM

Happy to be of help!

I ordered some special watch oil that is supposed to be used to lube the clock jewel and other mechanical pivots. We'll see how that works!

I especially appreciate the tip on the trim spray and on getting glass cut - something will definitely have to be done to correct the red inner bezels!

I think I may try to polish out the plastic lens. If that doesn't work I'm going to try your glass tip.

Posted by: Superhawk996 Jan 5 2019, 06:07 PM

Didn't get much done that looks impressive.

I did sandblast and prep the engine mount with POR Metal Prep.

Back side was pretty heavily pitted. It cleaned up but there is some metal loss.



Does anyone have any tips on what to do with the heavily pitted material?

Front slide looks good.



Seems like if I've gone to this trouble to do all this removal and salvage of the part, I'd rather know that there is enough material there for sure.

I think there is still enough base metal there to weld to but would feel better if I maybe doubled it from the front side?

Posted by: Superhawk996 Jan 19 2019, 11:35 AM

Thank you -- Love Tangerine!! Bought a set but haven't had time to get to these yet.

Posted by: Superhawk996 Jan 19 2019, 12:08 PM

Have not posted in a while but I've been working. Not terribly exciting visual progress.

At this point I'm basically struggling with too many degrees of freedom on placement of the inner wheel house panel.

I was finally able to settle on that and have since Cleco'd it into place after I was satisfied that the panel is in the right fore aft direction and also that the basis of the interface to the inner and outer longitudinal are at the right Z height and are basically level to the other driver side rail as a reference.



Spent the last couple weekends on two tick points:
1) Jack post location & prep
2) Getting outer suspension trailing arm mount prepped

On the jack post front I ran into a interesting issue. Since I've been using Jeff Hail's Thread as the basis for getting me started and rationality checking what I do I found that the dimensions he had noted didn't match to my vehicle for the jack post location.

Jeff has kindly posted so much information and he's a much better artist than I will ever be. I think this one may have been a typo.



Dimension of 43 1/4" didn't match my vehicle though all of Jeff's other measurements for things like the suspension console mounts did match exactly.

This lead to much double checking and trying to figure out if I was doing something wrong. Ultimately the measurements from my car need to be considered "master" for my project.

In my case my jack post needs to be at 47 1/4 inches as measured from the very front of the front fender lip that the outer rocker locates from. It was the same for the driver side on my car.



I can't reiterate the importance of doing mock up work just to double check.






In my case, installation of the outer rocker confirms that 47 1/4" is the right measurement for me.



So satisfied that I had things in the right place, I've welded the jack post to the Wheelhouse panel.

Posted by: Superhawk996 Jan 19 2019, 12:34 PM

The trailing arm mount on my car came with one of the three bolts pre-broken and better yet, there were remnants of a broken EZ-OUT in inside the bolt hole. The only real way to fix this is to either use and EDM machine to burn the hardened extractor out (not possible on vehicle) or to replace it.

This lead to me ordering a bobbin from Tangerine (Did I mention they are a great vendor ).

First I cleaned up the other two holes with a tap and Proof Torqued the fasteners to make sure they were sound and would hold torque. It would be really crappy to find out later after welding the console mount that one was weak and would strip.



Putting it in the new bobbin took a bit of time. However the one thing I can say with absolute certainty is that this was much easier to do on the bench. I wouldn't look forward to doing this under the vehicle

Started by removing the bad bobbin.



The new bobbin is on the left.

Since my outer console mount had some metal loss on the floor of the mount, I decided to put in some new metal as reinforcement. Had to do a little pattern development.





Welding in the reinforcement





I also ran into a little problem where the new bobbin wasn't at quite the same height as the other two. It was maybe about 3/32" too low. I used the old trailing arm outer pivot to serve as a datum. By tightening the other two bolts first the third can then be pulled up to the right height. At that point I began tacking and final welding.




I also predictably ran into some issues blowing holes into the thin pitted metal that was previously reinforced. Patience . . . and TIG welder really helps with this.




All in all things turnd out to may satisfaction.







Next step: Gotta get this located properly to the inner wheelhouse panel. In my case, since I didn't cut the outer quarter panel for access, it needs to be welded to the panel before I weld in the wheelhouse panel.

Posted by: euro911 Jan 19 2019, 04:44 PM

I drill two holes in the bottom of each jack point support to allow for better drainage.

Then a small dose of Eastwood's Internal Frame Coating can be sprayed in there to keep the inside surfaces protected.

Posted by: Superhawk996 Jan 26 2019, 10:11 AM

Thank you for confirmation others are doing this. I think this probably is the right thing to do. I was thinking of this when I was welding it up. the two options are keep water out which is near impossible or give it a way to drain. I will drill holes and coat the inside with paint before I do final assembly to the vehicle.

Posted by: Superhawk996 Jan 26 2019, 10:32 AM

Having a rough go of getting the trailing arm mount positioned properly. I've been chasing measurements around the past couple of weekends. May be drifting into OCD territory on this but I'd really like to ensure the suspension mounts are located as exactly as possible.

Would appreciate any insight from others that may have fought this battle.



Currently can get X/Y dimension correct but Z dimension is too low by 5-6 mm. Trying to force it up in Z results imparts a twist to the body at the rear locators of 4 mm. I'd rather not do that.

Due to the geometry of the frame rail, the X dimension and the Z dimension are interrelated. the dark blue line is where the mount wants to be if Z dimension is correct, the current (orange line) is where X/Y dimensions are correct. You can see the variability between them and how they are related by the angle of the frame.



I've been using a trammel to measure the body locations but this measurement technique seems to have about 3mm of error on each end depending on how square the measurement point is to the trammel. This could account for up to 6mm of measurement error end to end.



Ideally the trammel extensions should be kept as short as possible to minimize parallax error. However, that isn't possible given the need to clear the body cart and the difference in Z height between the front mounts and the rear trailing arm mount.
The error is actually much larger than 3mm unless I use a level to ensure that the trammel extensions are 90 degrees to the trammel bar.

I had loaned a laser plumb bob to a buddy for the last couple years to do a basement remodel. I've gotten that back and intend to remeasure everything today using the laser to drop the suspension locators to the floor and then measure that with a simple tape measure.

The laser plumb bob specs are +/- 3mm at a 15m on the laser projection upward and +/- 6mm at 15m on the downward projection. The downward projection is literally an inch off the floor so that error is negligible. Likewise, the up projection will only be less than 1 meter so again negligible. . . . . IN THEORY.



We'll see how this works out today.

Posted by: Superhawk996 Jan 26 2019, 10:47 AM

Also picked up some front brake calibers from PMB to address my old ones that were sticking during my October "test" drive.

This is always a tough call given that I'm a pretty cheap bastard. Rebuild myself and save money but takes time OR pay someone else $$ and save time. Right now my time is in shorter supply.

I've rebuilt 914 calipers before and quite frankly it is a bit of a pain. And even when I've done it they still end up looking ratty even though they are perfectly functional.

I've got to say that the work PMB does is top notch. Automotive jewelry !



I intend to pick up some rears and to have my proportioning valve freshened by PMB as I can cash flow that in the coming months.

Posted by: Superhawk996 Jan 30 2019, 09:59 AM

Update on the trailing arm mount madness:

Laser plumb bob only confirmed the trammel measurements and that although X/Y position is reasonable, Z is off.

My solution was to notch the wheelhouse frame rail section. The radius of the stamping doesn't match my OEM part exactly and is pushing the mount low in Z.

By notching the rail I was able to tighten up the radius to match my trailing arm mount and move it up to proper Z location while maintaining X and Y dimensions.





Once the part was correctly positioned I used a body hammer and dolly to return the flange to mate with the part and then welded the flange back where it belongs. In the photos below, I still need to add a doubler reinforcement on the inside to replace the material I removed.







put the panel back into the vehicle and reconfirmed my measurements. All in all I'm pretty happy. When everything is metal finished and painted, the modification won't be evident and will be as structurally sound as the unmodified panel.



I'm still off on the diagonal by a 3mm (~ 1/8") but that can be adjusted when I instill the inner section of the frame that resides in the engine bay.

Looking forward to moving on!! I know fitting the inner frame rail is going to be time consuming based on the rough fit work I had to do already.

Once that is done, I hope to make more rapid progress. February is here and it takes forever to heat up the garage in order to accomplish any work!

Still have lots to do!

Posted by: Superhawk996 Feb 9 2019, 06:24 PM

Back to work. Last couple of weekends have been limited work due to other priorities and some ridiculously cold weather.

Back to mocking up pieces to tweak fits. First order of business was to get the inner frame mated to the outer wheel house and to the fit up the connection at the rear trunk.

In my case I found that the outer house sheet metal which as a doubler welded to it was causing the inner to sit too high. I did some creative reforming with a hammer and dolly and got it down to the point where the angle of the two frame rails is within 1 degree of each other.



I then started to mock up the inner longitudinal. This one is a bit surprising that the sheetmetal overlap between the inner frame rail in the engine compartment only overlaps the inner longitudinal by about 1/4". That just isn't going to do. That joint will be too weak and it's right at a highly stressed location.

I'm considering welding in a good 6" of overlap and then installing the whole inner longitudinal + the engine compartment inner all as 1 big piece.



Overall, I'm pretty happy to see something roughly resembling a "frame" back under the car even if it's only a mock up. It will likely be a while before I can weld. I have quite a bit of pin hole rust up in the front wheel wheels that needs to be fixed before I weld in structure.

Question: Does anyone know why the AA inner longitudinal has two seat belt bolts? My driver side and the cutout part only had one. I can't see the point in this. I'm likely to cut the 2nd out and fill the hole so that I only have one like the original.

Posted by: R8CERX Mar 1 2019, 02:19 PM

WOW--AWESOME work!!
Cant wait to see end result!

Thanks for the advise!

Felix

Posted by: Superhawk996 Mar 15 2019, 09:45 PM

It's been a while since I posted. Things have a way of getting side tracked.

Posted by: Superhawk996 Mar 15 2019, 10:08 PM

Although I had a rough mock up there is still more work to do on the wheelhouse inner panel.

I finally decided to commit to final welding of the outer trailing arm mount.

I plan to add the Restoration Design outer clam shell to reinforce the whole outer longitudinal.

The problem is I'm not cutting my fender so all work has to be done from the "inside". This means that I can't assemble the whole longitudinal and then go back and add on the clam shell.

Much scratching of the head resulted in the decision to deconstruct the clam shell so that it can be added in pieces rather than one whole piece. The other thing is I don't like how the added layer of metal will push my existing door jamb outboard. I'll try to post picture of this as I go along. Hopefully the pictures will make things more obvious.

Here is the picture of just the rear section of the clam shell reinforcement in place. I feel that this piece is especially important since it adds another layer of metal to the transition area. This area where a lot of stress occurs and this area of the "frame" is weak since this area is where the inner longitudinal panels meet.

Even if I decide later not to add the rest of the clamshell for some unforseen reason, I feel that having a triple layer in this high stress area is time well spent.



You can see the overlay for the jack post with the spot welds drilled in the background. I'll eventually install that but it needs some trimming to avoid pushing out the door jamb.

Welded in place.



In the process of final welding I did get some warping of the panel that needed hammer and dolly work to put things back in the right place so the inner longitudinal in the engine compartment will fit as it originally did.

Likewise, this will require re-measurement all the way around the chassis again before I can put this panel in place for the final fitment.

During this whole process the Galvanneal steel is giving me fits with a TIG welder.

The zinc that is in the Galvanneal is constantly contaminating the electrode or causing popping that splashes the weld puddle up onto it.



The only good thing is the constant stop / start to regrind the Tungsten helps avoid overheating the panel.

Posted by: Superhawk996 Mar 15 2019, 10:19 PM

The other thing that has derailed my effort to get the long in place is that the Tin Worms have consumed the lower 1" of just about the entire perimeter.

I suspect that someone repeatedly left the Targa off this vehicle and it got filled with water. leading to all the corrosion on the lower 1" of the entire floor pan.




So before I can weld in the longitudinal I need to get some solid metal back in the lower cowl and wheelhouse area.

I started to fabricate the lower couple inches of the longitudinal outer.




But the more I got to thinking about doing a from scratch fabrication I decided to see if I could find some donor sheet metal. The tight radius bends and the compound curvature of the wheelhouse weld flange was just going to be agonizingly slow to do from scratch.

Posted by: Superhawk996 Mar 15 2019, 10:32 PM

@http://www.914world.com/bbs2/index.php?showuser=7898

Came to my rescue and provided a whole front lower cowl as a donor. I can't say enough good things about Vince!! His prices are reasonable and he was willing to help ensure I got sound metal and the right cuts to work with my need.



The time it takes to deconstruct stuff is amazing. Lots of drilling spot welds and maybe some profanity is the order of the day.



Piece by piece I finally started getting to the individual panels I'll eventually need to piece this all back together into my vehicle.

Posted by: Superhawk996 Mar 15 2019, 10:37 PM

I'll end up with some odds and ends that I won't be using.

If anyone is in need of the front tunnel section or the floorpan plug (previously filled empty hole) let me know and I'll pay it forward by sending to you for cost of shipping only.

With a little luck, I'll get a chance to start cutting out the bad metal on my tub and start fitting up this new donor sheet metal.

Posted by: bbrock Mar 15 2019, 10:41 PM

That area gave me fits for the reason you mentioned. I got plenty of practice making multiple attempts until I got it right. Donor piece is the way to go.

Looking forward to seeing more about how you tackle that rear wheel house and long without cutting the fender. I'm really enjoying watching the quality work.

Posted by: Superhawk996 Mar 15 2019, 10:44 PM

@http://www.914world.com/bbs2/index.php?showuser=20845

You've set a pretty high bar. I'm just trying to keep up.

Posted by: mgphoto Mar 17 2019, 10:11 AM

I bought the same part through Sierra Madre collection, it only had the single hole.




I bought it about 3 1/2 years ago. It was a challenge to install, you’re doing great, do you have a picture of the long from outside of the car?

Posted by: Superhawk996 Mar 17 2019, 10:20 AM

@http://www.914world.com/bbs2/index.php?showuser=10225

Nice project photo. I love seeing the rest of you guys that are tearing into and fixing up cars that would otherwise get scrapped.

Not sure what you mean on the photo? Are you looking for a specific shot or angle. I will photo what ever I can to help you out.

Thanks for confirmation of one hole on other aftermarket longitudinal parts!!!

Posted by: mgphoto Mar 17 2019, 10:41 AM

I would like to see a photo of your car sort of the same as mine, I want to see the position of the second hole.

Posted by: Superhawk996 Mar 17 2019, 11:42 AM

@http://www.914world.com/bbs2/index.php?showuser=10225

Here are two views. I can't get the innerwheel house / jack support out of the photo that is what currently holds it all in the car.

If these photos don't help I can take a picture of just the long with a tape measure.

My thought is the 2nd hole might have something to do with the early longitudinal on passenger side that had a fixed passenger seat and may have had the belt in slightly different spot.

The other more cynical view is that in the 1970's we were all much thinner and maybe now we are all running out "Belts" out a few more notches than we used to?

Posted by: Superhawk996 Mar 17 2019, 11:45 AM

Photo of passenger side donor sheet metal rough trimmed & sandblasted.

Still need to fix a few of the holes from drilling spot welds and then will do a quick dip in metal prep.

Posted by: bbrock Mar 17 2019, 12:20 PM

Early vs. late is the only thing I can think of, but I think your "Fat Ass Hypothesis" has merit. I concur that factory only had one hole but have no idea if they changed the position when they moved to movable passenger seats and American butts got bigger.

Posted by: mgphoto Mar 20 2019, 11:54 AM

I don’t think so, I think the original mount was welded in the wrong place. It looks like the seatbelt mount might be to close to the bulkhead for it to swivel cleanly.
Take your original carpet and see where the holes line up.

Although I might not weld it up, it does leave an access hole. When I started, I got advice from a number of people on this board, one was Brad 914ltd, he said “belt and braces” paint the inside of the long and use cavity wax after assembly.

The original longs have a rubber patch which covers the holes. The extra hole might be useful.

Posted by: Superhawk996 Apr 6 2019, 04:17 PM

Time to post a little progress for March.

Here is the problem:



Everything starts with the simple task like getting ready to fit up the inner longitudinal. But then you have to deal with the fact that the metal it's supposed to mate to has been consumed by the tin worm. Then you have to stop the original task and then focus on this new one before you can do the main task. That is the way rustoration goes.

I took 3 vacation days from work that butted up to a weekend and went to town.

So with my newly prepped donor parts it's off to the races. Let the cutting begin.

First victim - getting rid of the rear steering rack mount on the passenger side. Like the rear suspension console, it came to me "pre-stripped" by the previous owner. That didn't really matter though because the sheetmetal was shot.

Tunnel was also removed. Like all the other metal, it is shot at that transition between to the floorpan. I got tired of getting a kink in my back attempting to work around it & scratching my back on it! Good riddance.

A donor tunnel has been sourced - we'll deal with that later



This car must have flexed and been as loose as the dickens given that the upper body sheetmetal is separated from the lower by rust though on the lower 1" all the way around. I often wonder how people don't notice chassis flex.

Garbage metal on the back side of the rear rack mount; absolutely no structure left here



The donor metal I obtained was then fitted in on the passenger side floor



Then moved on to reworking the passenger side wheel wheel







With that metal in place moved on to fixing the "frame" extension that comes in to the passenger compartment from under the fuel tank



View from the Frunk



Spent some time fitting in the lower cowl and then returning my upper cowl access flap to its home.



Although I'm making progress, I'm a well behind where I hoped to be by April. I think I'm about two months behind at this point. I would really like to keep this project contained to 1 winter season for the sheetmetal work but it's getting dicey. Not sure what I was thinking.


Gratuitous Parts Porn:



Got my proportioning valve back from restoration by PMB. Beautiful.

@http://www.914world.com/bbs2/index.php?showuser=1110

Posted by: bbrock Apr 6 2019, 06:02 PM

Just your mark-up is a work of art. That's quite the puzzle you are piecing back together! I think your car would have defeated me. Incredible work.

Posted by: Superhawk996 Apr 6 2019, 06:26 PM

Please. . . I cheated and used donor sheet metal to do the wheel well. I can't imagine how you had the patience to do those compound curves from scratch.

Posted by: Superhawk996 Apr 6 2019, 06:35 PM

I was saving my effort doing complex metal forming for motorcycle projects that are currently on hold while I do the 914.

Wife no longer willing to ride on the back of motorcycles.

Started this Norton Commando cafe in 2012. Metal fab still stuck at this state although I did get the engine and trans rebuilt and added into the mock up.



Previous aluminum tank of similar design.

Posted by: Superhawk996 Apr 23 2019, 07:31 AM

Been a little bit slow posting lately. Spring and yard work and honeydew list is competing for time.

Today I'm at the butcher having bits of of my face carved up to remove some minor skin cancer. The good news is I can catch up on my posts between butchering sessions.

I am still working on the passenger side cowl to get that fixed up.

Here is a before & after view.






Attached image(s)

Posted by: Superhawk996 Apr 23 2019, 07:52 AM

This cowl area has taken way too much time.

A few lessons that I've had to remember the hard way. I knew better but sometimes you get in a hurry and try to shortcut things. It rarely works.

1) Panel fit up is paramount. you have to have gaps that are 1mm or less to get a nice weld.
2) Use lots and lots of tack welds. Don't leave big gaps between the tacks. This helps eliminate warping and more importantly as the tacks increase in number, it yields more heat transfer paths to prevent burn through. When you think you have enough, double it!
3) Do very short welds between the sport welds with minimal filler. if more filler is needed its easier to add more later.

I disregarded all three of these points and have regretted my choice!

I initially mis-trimmed the lower cowl a little bit under size. This lead to a 2-3mm gap. I should have just closed the gap up to 1mm and then had to bend the flanges down to the floorpan to make up for it.

Instead, I fitted the flange to the floorpan and then let the gap be 2-3 mm. This was a critical mistake. Trying to fill a gap this large is just asking for trouble.

I then did a awful lot of tack welds to bridge the gap . . . but not enough. I began to rush the job and wanted to get er' welded up. When I tried to close the open spaces between the tack welds I just ended up burning holes. This cowl sheet metal is only 0.036" thickness. Not very tolerant of being overheated.

To further compound my mistakes, I ended up having to add lots of filler rod to keep from burning holes. This leads to big booger looking welds and the need to grind welds which is very time consuming.

I then went back and ground down all the excess filler only to rediscover lots of pin holes that didn't fully fuse due to the large gap between the panels and the rapid addition of filler.

Then tried to fill the pin holes and proceeded to blow more holes now that the weld was thinned excessively. This was a viscous circle.

At some point you just realize you are making a mess and need to stop the madness.

It took several welding sessions just forcing myself to slow down and to fix my mistakes as best I could. Ultimately I ended up putting a light in the gas tank area so I could see the pin holes and then carefully filled them.

Posted by: Superhawk996 Apr 23 2019, 08:15 AM

The other thing that led to rushing the job was all of this welding is out of position welding and needed to be done with me sitting or kneeling in uncomfortable positions on the floor while working in this area.

Nothing leads to rushing more than being uncomfortable.

The other key thing is that is worth repeating is you can't weld what you can't see. some positions that I was forced into obscured my visibility to to the weld puddle. Not being able to see the puddle is a great way to let it get too hot and to burn through.

To top all this off, my cowl area has an abundance of holes (other than rust) that needed to be fixed.

1) A/C holes were cut for lines to pass through.
2) Sheet metal screws were randomly punched though the cowl area to support the A/C unit itself under the dash.
3) whenever a previous owner wanted a ground connection, they just shot another screw though the cowl.

I've started to address the large A/C line holes. The only problem here is this is overhead welding. Even more fun!



These holes are tucked right into the corner of the cowl & fender area.

I tried to weld this in from above but my welding helmet prevents me from getting my face in a good position to see the weld puddle. You can see this by the tack weld at about the 7:00 position of the hole -- completely missed the weld gap! Cannot weld what you cannot see! . I resorted to doing the other tack welds from inside the passenger compartment and from below.

I don't like this solution. I think my next try will be to use a gas lens and hang my Tungsten as far out as I can hoping to get better visibility to the weld. Trying to be slow and patient and find the best welding position to do this. If I start blowing holes in this area I'm screwed.

Posted by: tygaboy Apr 23 2019, 08:32 AM

with all the "can't see = can't weld". I'm living some of that now, too.
From my experience, I will say that in some of these situations, I've found MIG is my friend (vs TIG) in that it was easier to find a workable position, I didn't have to worry about how to work the pedal or find room/see the filler rod.
If I could TIG everything, that would be my preference but...

Your build is looking great, btw. Really nice work!

Posted by: Superhawk996 Apr 23 2019, 08:35 AM

These are the easy ones. Just a quick dab or two of filler to weld up the sheet metal screw holes.



In just this photo, there are 3 holes! There are more on the driver side and one of them is about 0.5" diameter. I'm not sure what was run though that hole but is just the right size to be a a PITA.

1) it's behind / above the fuse block which will necessitate removal of the fuse block and wiring to access it.
2) 0.5" is just big enough that you can't easily trim a metal blank to fill the hole and therefore you just have to fill it by gradually adding filler around the perimeter of the hole until it can be closed up.

Can't wait to get to that one. I'll defer until I start working on the driver side of the car.

One point that I wanted to make as an engineer to those that might be thinking why worry about a few little holes. Don't forget that just in front of you is the gas tank. In a worst case crash / fire type accident, you don't want holes in the front cowl that could easily allow fuel and fire to enter the passenger compartment.

I know that the plastic vents and paper heater tubes won't last long in a fire but they do buy you seconds to minutes of time. a big 1" hole like one of these A/C hose pass through holes would allow fuel and/or fire access to the passenger compartment completely unimpeded.

Better safe than sorry!

Posted by: Superhawk996 Apr 23 2019, 08:48 AM

@http://www.914world.com/bbs2/index.php?showuser=19241

I'm a TIG lover due to the flexibility to weld so many types of metal and for the control it offers. If I burn holes I can't blame the equipment - It's my fault.

But boy is it slow for this type of work! Every week I contemplate buying a MIG but I haven't rationalized it yet. I do think that if I do I would sell it once this is done and try to recoup some of the cost.

For you other TiG lovers, I have to plug this product. It is a pressure sensitive Amptrol. No need to move finger to control amperage - just press harder or lighter.

I really haven't done much out of position TIG welding in the past. Most of it has been on a nice comfortable bench. I couldn't live without this.

When I first started to weld up my build cart, I was using my standard footpedal and doing all sorts of Yoga to try to weld and control the pedal with my knee, leg, elbow or whatever. I was pretty much impossible and led to the purchase of the TIG button.





http://www.6061.com/tigbutton.htm

Posted by: Superhawk996 Apr 23 2019, 09:04 AM

The other work that has started in April is beginning to think about what to do with my engine.

As purchased it was setup with carbs. I've been thinking about returning to fuel injection.

As part of that I pulled the tin to see if the cylinder head temperature (CHT) sensor was still there.

As the subject of another thread, I found that the CHT is missing and even worse, the head isn't drilled and tapped for the CHT. It isn't on the cyl 1/2 side either. Apparently at some point the heads were swapped.

Turns out that they are at least the proper 2.0L cylinder head as verified by part number. In the photo you can see the start of the proper 2.0L P/N 039 101 371A



I pulled out my old broken 1.7L head from my original car just compare when I was in a panic thinking that they might not actually be a 2.0L head.

Also notice that some goober welded up the breather hole.

I guess I'll be doing some machine work!



That 1.7L head was broken when my original 914 was rear ended. It has served as a learning bed for how to remove valves, valve guides, and how to weld cylinder heads! Still got some use again as a comparison to remind myself of what the difference looks like between 1.7L and 2.0L heads. My wife calls me a pack rat and can't understand why I would still have a cylinder head around from a car that was wrecked before the turn or the century. Women!

I still haven't dug into the engine but fully expect that the cam has been swapped given that the heads aren't original.

My new engine yoke arrived yesterday.

@http://www.914world.com/bbs2/index.php?showuser=20845
Thanks for the recommendation and helping me save $$ on this item!

Posted by: Superhawk996 Apr 23 2019, 09:27 AM

Here is a bit of previous work. I removed the tunnel to better access the cowl for repair and because it was completely shot.

I figured it would be easier and a better repair to replace it completely rather than patch up what I had.

Here is the dissection to show it's internal condition.



For any of you having problems removing and/or installing new throttle and/or clutch cables, don't rule out this possibility.



When I 1st was getting this car running, the throttle cable was stuck. When I pulled out the old cable, it hung up about half way out. I had to break it to get it out!

In order to get the car running, I cut a hole in the tunnel, and cut out a section of the tube and just fished the cable up to the pedal sled. It was a quick fix but wouldn't have been a good long term solution. The photo above shows why!

Posted by: Superhawk996 Apr 23 2019, 09:34 AM

For all you guys that think just a little rust in the floor pan isn't a big deal, here is what the bottom of the tunnel looked like from the outside. There is always way more rust than what you can easily see.



Random pin holes were hidden underneath the undercoating.

Not much of the previously shown damage was visible when I purchased the car but it was there none the less. Keep in mind how pretty this car looked top side. Really nice looking cars can have extensive rust hidden within and/or not easily visible without detrimming the carpets, rocker panels, etc.

Here is a reminder of how the car looked as purchased. Rust is Deceiving.

Posted by: Dave_Darling Apr 23 2019, 12:05 PM

Would a copper backer help with the blow-through issues? Or with some of the pin-hole problems?

I'm not a welder, but other folks on here have described how well a copper backer can help with some tricky welds.

--DD

Posted by: Superhawk996 Apr 23 2019, 02:02 PM

Indeed it does. That was part of my slow down and do it right solution.

The problem was holding the copper in place given that I can't hold it with vise grips and I can't "reach around" the cowl to hold while I weld.

I ended up using a couple of rare earth magnets to hold the copper in place. Problem is the heat of welding then destroys the magnet. Doh!

If I got desperate I was going to use cleco's to hold the copper in place but that would have entailed drilling 1/8" holes to use the cleco. That seemed like two steps forward and one step back since I would have to then fill the 1/8" holes.

Arguably, had I just backed the large gap with the copper in the 1st place, I could done the weld, and fixed the cleco holes all in less time then I spent blowing holes, creating pin holes, and then doing fix it work. Lesson learned (again ) - taught by the school of hard knocks. Hopefully someone reads this and learns from it and/or maybe by writing it down I'll follow my own advice next time.

Posted by: Superhawk996 Apr 28 2019, 04:49 PM

Well since I'm not supposed to be doing any heavy lifting per doctors orders, I decided to teardown my engine instead of doing bodywork with all the welding and grinding dust to get in the stitches in on my face.

Doc said not to lift more than 5 lbs. I didn't - the hand winch did.

Pretty uneventful weekend but I'm still sticking with the I hate previous owners rant.

When I pulled the oil breather off the top of the case I was horrified. Here's what I saw.

Worse than the rust debris / garbage there is some sort of round metal object in here. Luckily it was too big to ever fall into the case.



I have no idea what this is or where it came from. Any ideas? Here are two views of it

Posted by: Superhawk996 Apr 28 2019, 05:03 PM

On a more positive note. Most of the other engine components are in pretty good shape upon 1st look.

Lots of oil leaking on the case from push rod tubes, some weepage at the base of the cylinders.

Crank seals are hard as rocks and leaking profusely from getting it running and the brief neighborhood drive. Oil cooler seals were hard too and leaking.

Oil pressure sensor hole is indeed stripped and leaking and will need to be re-tapped.

Overall I'm relieved to find the cylinder heads are 2.0L parts and I think the valves may be original. IIRC the exhaust valves with the little dimple in the center are the original 2.0L sodium filled valves. I'm not sure - have to do so research on that. Regardless, all valves will get replaced at rebuild.



I also was happy to find the exhaust stud that I knew was missing appears to actually be a pulled timesert. The hole appears to have been drilled properly by a machine shop since it's located properly and not offset to the original stud bore.



A couple of the cylinders are scored and one appear to be pretty corroded on the bottom of the bore. Probably from the long period of storage and condensation inside the cylinder forming. New pistons and cylinders planned so not a big deal. Was also happy to find the cylinders are 94mm and not some big bore conversion that machined the case or the heads.



I haven't had a chance to split the case yet but after pulling the oil pump, I'm pretty sure the cam was changed based on the appearance of the cam gear. I can also see that someone covered the Cam plug and the oil galleys with epoxy or something like that. Hopefully this was a preventative measure rather than some crappy fix that I've become so accustomed to finding.

Posted by: bbrock Apr 28 2019, 05:13 PM

When I rebuilt my short block, I filled all the galley plugs with JB Weld as a preventative base on a tip I read (probably in VW Porsche Magazine) at the time. Seems like that might not be the best method but it was the best info I had available then. Maybe whoever did yours read the same article...

Posted by: Superhawk996 Apr 28 2019, 05:24 PM

I've gotta admit JB weld is pretty good at resisting oil.

I punched a hole in my Miata's sump going up a goat trail to a house out in Idaho. I didn't realize it until the lifters began to clatter and then I looked at the oil pressure and it was zero. Hmm, now what to do?

Being quite a way from town, I used JB Weld to patch up the crack. Filled it with oil, and it turned out to be a pretty robust fix. I was always afraid the JB weld would eventually let loose - that never happened.

Now in the interest of honesty . . . that is not my idea of a good fix. But the car had in excess of 220K miles on it at that point and they body was rusted away by mid-west cancer. Spending $$ to buy an new oil pan and/or for welding would have exceed the value of the car. I know . . .

Posted by: Superhawk996 Apr 28 2019, 05:27 PM

Here is the Miata in it's prime as a MUV. Miata Utility Vehicle.

Posted by: bbrock Apr 28 2019, 05:57 PM

Love it! It remains to be seen if I'll have the nerve to strap my canoe on my 914, but it would check off two of my most favorite things to do in one trip!

I was exploring JB Weld as a potential high temperature filler to smooth out some pits and dents on my valve covers and was surprised to see it rated up to 500 degrees. Too bad had just run out or I would have given it a go. Great stuff.

My brother lives in Sulphur Springs, TX where J-B Weld is located and has met the founder/inventor. He said the guy was sitting on a plane one day waiting for take-off and looked out to see a J-B Weld patch on the wing.

Posted by: Superhawk996 Apr 28 2019, 06:12 PM

@http://www.914world.com/bbs2/index.php?showuser=20845

Wait a few years, but, you definitely should do it, I'm biased given my penchant for strapping oversize items to sports cars.

Posted by: Superhawk996 Apr 28 2019, 06:18 PM

Here's a video of the posted Miata turning 220,000 miles.

I had a bet with a buddy that it wouldn't make 220K the way I drove it without an engine rebuild.

Video was sweet victory.


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6-m2IT4Xojo

Posted by: Dave_Darling Apr 28 2019, 07:02 PM

Interesting. It looks about the right diameter for the cover over the bottom of the PCV valve, but the cover is much thinner. Perhaps it was a home-made block-off for the PCV system?

The cover comes to mind because it always seems to fall off and land right in the spot you show

--DD.

Posted by: bbrock Apr 28 2019, 07:31 PM

That was my first thought as well but I just took mine apart to clean and repaint a week ago and the cover was plastic.

Posted by: bbrock Apr 28 2019, 07:36 PM

Badass! We'll just assume you weren't on a public road.

Posted by: Tenner Apr 29 2019, 02:55 AM

A few posts earlier, you've been talked about the repairpanel of the inner frame section and it bothers you that it's not made like the original which is two layers of steel ...
This bothered me too and I decided to build my own repaipanel. The Panel will be a combination off an own build outer layer and the Restorationdesign repiarpanel as the inner reinforcement layer. This is what I've built so far.




The panel is made from one piece of 1.2mm sheetmetal and fits nearly perfect to the inner wheelhouse repiarpanel. It took me about half a year and 4 tries to make it right. I ended up making my own tools to get the edges properly bended.
Next step is trim the overlap, fill the gaps, fit the inner layer and finaly fit it to the car before welding it in.
If anyone is interested in the building process, I will open a new thread to discribe the process

Posted by: injunmort Apr 29 2019, 04:33 AM

to fill pits in rocker covers, try boiler cement. I have used for similar purposes. dries rock hard (hard to sand) but stands up well to the environment. good enough to seal boiler fireboxes good enough for some light cosmetics. way cheaper than jb weld.

Posted by: Superhawk996 Apr 29 2019, 04:44 AM

@http://www.914world.com/bbs2/index.php?showuser=11863

Looks like nice work. You most definitely should open a thread. That is the biggest advantage of the site, the shared knowledge base and the ability to learn from others.

I probably would have never purchased this car and/or started this level of rehab without having seen some of the other build threads particularly Jeff Hail's and Brent's.

@http://www.914world.com/bbs2/index.php?showuser=1570 Hail
@http://www.914world.com/bbs2/index.php?showuser=20845

Both of those vehicles were just like mine - candidate for scrap. Without seeing that it could be done and more importantly, that it was worth doing, I would have never gotten started. At least here in the mid-west, good solid 914's are getting harder to find. When you do find them, they are priced such that at those price levels ($15k-25k) I'd be back to considering another Miata or a Lotus Elise with modern build quality vs. a 45 year old car that I know is going to have issues anyway.

Posted by: restore2seater Apr 29 2019, 08:04 AM

I have no idea what this is or where it came from. Any ideas? Here are two views of it





Not sure the size in the picture, but it looks kind of like one of the four ends of a ujoint off of a drive shaft.

Posted by: bbrock Apr 29 2019, 08:11 AM

@http://www.914world.com/bbs2/index.php?showuser=11863 +1 on opening a thread. I also made my own double wall patch for that inner but not as nice or complete as yours. It is a PITA job so I think sharing your approach would help a lot of people!

Posted by: injunmort Apr 29 2019, 10:18 AM

brake piston

Posted by: Superhawk996 Apr 29 2019, 11:40 AM

Good guess . . . but it would have to be off a Smart Car. Hard to see scale from the photo but it is 1" diameter and about 0.75" in height. Made of steel.

Maybe from Motorcycle caliper . . . . ?

I have a feeling this is going to be one of those mysteries that I just end up chalking up to "what were they thinking".

Even if it were a home brew PVC block off, that doesn't even seem to fit in my engine's history since they had a EMPI type breather box hooked up to one of the heads and the other off the oil fill / breather box. Both of those lines were then fed into the top of one of the carbs.

Posted by: jd74914 Apr 29 2019, 12:08 PM

Wow, that is cool. Thanks for the info! I hate the finger slide or rotary track so much I've always either resorted for scratch start and constant current or ended up in weird positions working the pedal with my knee, elbow, thighs... Kinda pricey piece though.

Posted by: Superhawk996 Apr 29 2019, 01:49 PM

Not so bad if you consider that it is only about 10% of cost to get into a TIG rig to start. Then there is the sanity element. I tried the Yoga thing and quite honestly, I had a hard time controlling it while welding on 1/8" tube. There was no way I could pull off the out of position welds on sheet metal without it.

Owner of the TIG button is a real down to earth guy. The site didn't specifically have my Precision TIG unit listed as compatible. He offered to let me try it risk free. Worked great right out of the box. After trying it there was no way it was going to be returned. I don't even use my foot pedal anymore . . . even if I'm welding on the bench. It's that natural.

Posted by: Superhawk996 May 5 2019, 08:44 AM

So I got around to splitting the case and the results aren't good. Did I mention I really dislike the way the previous owners treated this vehicle?

The source of the rust that was in the top of the oil filler has been found. I quickly put the oil filler & breather box aside when I was doing the initial teardown. I could see had some rust & oily gunk in there but I didn't dwell on it.



If someone has one of these they would care to sell, there will be an ad going up in the classified section to replace this one. PM me if you have an extra you want to get rid of!

What I can't believe is how much more rusty garbage is down in the sump.

There is a staggering amount of rust and crap sitting on both sides of the case.

\

I find it a little bit hard to believe that all of this came out of the breather box.

There are other indications that this engine was not rebuilt properly.

I found a metal shaving behind one of the cam bearings. luckily there was no way for this to get though the bearing oiling hole. But it does speak to the fact that the oil galleys probably were not cleaned properly before the rebuild.



Of course the bearings are worn from all this garbage in the oil and the crank is lightly scored. Hopefully the crank can be cleaned up with either an aggressive polishing and/or maybe a 1st size under cut. I need to measure the journals today to see where they are at.





And now let's move on to the truly egregious and incompetent stuff.

Front crank seal bore has witness marks in it from someone threading a fastener into it. Maybe they had no idea how to pull a crank seal?



This case was literally covered in oil. It also tended to leak oil even when it wasn't running. As it sat on a dolly in my garage all winter, I kept wiping up weeping oil from under it. Eventually, I put a carboard box under it to catch the oil.

Now I know why. As far as I can tell there was little, if any sealant between the case halves!

Now keep in mind, someone plastered up the back side of the case with Epoxy / JB Weld type material over the cam plug and the oil galley plugs. After this find, I suspect they were trying to stop the oil leak that was actually coming from between the case halves from not having proper sealant on them.

There were also a number of other hits that the rebuilt was done on the cheap.

1) There were no vibration dampers on the six main bearing through bolts and/or any sealant under the washer heads to help bolt vibration and to help prevent leaks and weeping from these main case bolts. I'm always amused when a shade tree mechanic throws away parts. Surely they weren't serving any purpose and those stupid Germans were just putting extra parts in.

2) Numerous gaskets that looked like they were reused.

3) Lots of screwdriver marks on sealing surfaces where somebody was prying surfaces apart that shouldn't be touched by tools.

None of this appears to be un-fixable but it speaks to the horrors that you can find in an amateur engine rebuild by someone that clearly is just learning.

Posted by: bbrock May 5 2019, 10:10 AM

Gross! The curse of a great "beginner's engine." I should have you covered on an oil breather. I need to open it up to make sure there are no surprises inside. Should be clean though. I'll PM you later.

Posted by: Superhawk996 May 5 2019, 10:37 AM

By the way,

This engine had at least enough oil pressure to turn off the idiot light. So no guarantee that a used running engine with oil pressure means that the engine is in OK shape.

Brent, if you have a breather that would be stellar!

Posted by: Superhawk996 May 5 2019, 05:47 PM

Can’t catch a break. Both rod and main bearings are 0.010” undersized! Going to be looking for a new crank

Posted by: bbrock May 5 2019, 07:43 PM

I was hoping to have better news for you. Looks like this breather would clean up okay, but it's missing the cover for the PCV. It's yours if you want it, but you know me, I'd want one with all the right bits. I'll try to get out to the storage shed tomorrow. There is a small chance there is another breather of two hiding out there.

Posted by: Superhawk996 May 6 2019, 04:34 PM

That’s funny because mine doesn’t have a cover either and I can’t find a picture of it nor can I recall from my original car what it looked like.

Posted by: bbrock May 6 2019, 05:56 PM

I assume this is to prevent oil from splashing into the PCV and gumming the valve. You could probably find a plastic button to snap in and slit the sides to let it breath.

Posted by: Superhawk996 May 6 2019, 06:28 PM

I hate to even ask. What's the 3rd hole for? Maybe slightly different for 1.7L/1.8L?

Given the appearance of the button that would be pretty easy to fabricate out of Delron of something like that.

I just looked of AA and of course the cover button is NLA. I'll have to do some digging I wonder if 914 Rubber has it.

Definitely needs to be some sort of soft plastic given potential for it to drop into the case. Yikes!

Posted by: bbrock May 6 2019, 09:17 PM

Ha! Never noticed the third hole before. The breather on the right came out of a 1.7L. Don't know if that makes a differences though.

The hole under the PCV is just shy of 1 inch and I'll bet a 1 inch plastic hole plug would fit. Should be able to pick one up at the local auto parts store. Let me know if you want me to pop my extra one in the mail.

Posted by: bbrock May 6 2019, 09:18 PM

BTW, might not be clear in the pics, but the third hole on the breather is not a hole, just an indent stamp in the metal.

Posted by: FourBlades May 7 2019, 07:40 AM

Great job on the build!

Really enjoying the thread so far.

Once you get to drive it, it will all be worthwhile.

Mine needed a little work when I got it, can you say flintstone car?



But it all worked out eventually.



John

Posted by: Superhawk996 May 7 2019, 08:01 AM

Inspiration!

So nice to see others that have come back from the brink. I'm right in the middle which is the land of desperation where you start thinking why did I do this?

Only one way to go. Soldier on and finish it.

Posted by: FourBlades May 7 2019, 09:39 AM

I find it helps not to:

(1) Add up how much longer it will take to be on the road.
(2) How much it has cost so far.
(3) How much more it will cost to finish.

Just tackle the project you have selected for the day and enjoy the satisfaction of crossing another thing off.

John

Posted by: Superhawk996 May 16 2019, 06:01 PM

My stitches are all healed up and I'm looking forward to getting back to doing to what we do around here.



I've been collecting up parts to put my engine back to stock 2.0L form with 94mm pistons and a stock crank and hopefully getting D-jet back on it instead of the carbs that it came with.

I know . . . . . the horror of it . . . . stock!

Today the mailman was really pissed. Pistons and Cylinders arrived and I think he might have broken a sweat carrying them up to the door. In his defense, they are heavier than a letter. More likely he's mad that he has to keep getting out of the truck with all the regular parts arrivals.

So happy to have found NOS P&C's with proper dish. You can see the PO simply put VW BUS deep dish pistons in on the last rebuild. 914 compression ratio is pretty low by modern standards. Those deep dish would have lowered it even further. I'm sure they were cheap though!

@http://www.914world.com/bbs2/index.php?showuser=20991
Thanks for facilitating this transaction!



Fed Ex man isn't doing much better because my "new" crank showed up today too! The crank that came out of my engine had already been ground 0.010" on both the journals and the mains so why take a chance with that one. This new one will go to machining for a very light polish and a quick magnaflux check. Initial measurement of the mains and journals shows it to be on the high side of stock tolerance which is AWESOME!


@http://www.914world.com/bbs2/index.php?showuser=18761
Thanks for providing a heat transplant for this engine.



I've also picked up some stainless heat exchangers that will clean up nicely and have now been pressure tested to make sure there are no leaks in the actual heat changer that provides cabin air.

@http://www.914world.com/bbs2/index.php?showuser=17736
Thanks for making this an easy transaction!



@http://www.914world.com/bbs2/index.php?showuser=3457
I'm sorry that you're cleaning out your private stash . . . . well maybe not!

Pedal sled has been rebuilt. I honestly can't even recall who I got the donor from . . . regardless thanks! My original base sled is too heavily rusted to even think about using. This one cleaned up nicely!




So many others have provided parts that would otherwise be an absolute pain in the to source off Evil Bay.

I've left off so many others that have sold me parts either recently or in the past months only because I can't immediately recall your user names to provide a shout out. I've not had a single bad transaction which is a huge advantage of this community. I honestly can't imagine how I'd pull this rebuild off without 914World.com

For those that might be on the fence, go ahead and make a donation to this site. Let's keep this afloat and thank SirAndy for doing this!

@http://www.914world.com/bbs2/index.php?showuser=179


Thanks to all of you guys!!

Posted by: bbrock May 16 2019, 07:18 PM

Great progress! Anyone know what the CR on those bus jugs were? Man that's gotta be low. Jeffrey is the man for brokering NOS deals. I need to post up what he did for me when I update my thread.

Keep the postman angry. Stock rocks!

Posted by: Superhawk996 May 16 2019, 07:32 PM

Special thanks to both Brent and Kevin for donating free parts, you guys are awesome. I’m sure I’ll have a few extras floating around after I get this back on the road. I will be sure to pay it forward as you guys have kindly done for me. Cheers

Posted by: 914_7T3 May 17 2019, 06:54 PM

My pleasure, we stock '73 2.0 guys need to stick together. Even if @http://www.914world.com/bbs2/index.php?showuser=20845 is running a Carb set-up

I will take some time to catch up on your thread!

Posted by: Superhawk996 May 19 2019, 09:36 AM

I did a little more "clean" work yesterday to take a look at my oil pump and sifting though FI parts.

As expected, oil pump is toast. With all that rust in the sump, it clearly has been pumping chunks! Now the real problem starts - trying to find a replacement oil pump.

Unlike when I built my last motor, type 4 pumps are now in short supply. I've reviewed a bunch of the threads on this site, and, I don't really like the options around using a type 1 pump.

Here's the trashed pump. The two issues are heavy scoring of the pump body and the pushing out of the stationary shaft that occurs as a result to having been overheated at some point (remember some damn previous owner pulled thermostat and cooling flaps )



The camshaft I took out of the engine does show witness marks from the shaft contacting the cam gear bolt heads.



This situation has me thinking about ways to rebuild a Type 4 pump. I'm sure it can be done but the problem is time and effort to do so. I'm sort of surprised no one has come up with a CNC aftermarket replacement since there are still a lot of Type 4's running around in 914's and VW busses.

I've resorted to rolling the Evil Bay dice. I bought a pump that looks great on the outside - but it very well could be money down the drain once I open it up.

If it were able to be used, I'll certainly modify it to pin the stationary shaft in place so that well known failure mode can't occur. In reality, I reused my oil pump when I rebuilt my original 73' 1.7L to a 2.0L and that pump went about 100K miles before that vehicle was totaled by a rear-ender. When I tore the engine back down, that oil pump was still solid. Wish I had kept it but it was sold at Hersey decades ago.

We'll see where this eBay path leads.


I've also been picking my way though D-Jet parts trying to ensure I have usable components. The injector points need a bit of help. I'll fix these with a bit of new copper braid and some solder.

Posted by: 914_7T3 May 19 2019, 10:41 AM

Why didn't you say so, I have an extra trigger plate that is lightly used. Picked it up as a spare, but then found a NOS one

Let me know if you want it and I can email you pics and we can work something out.

Posted by: Superhawk996 May 19 2019, 11:14 AM

@http://www.914world.com/bbs2/index.php?showuser=20991 You're the best. If I wrote down a list of everything I "need" you'd have to send me your car!

Points already fixed.



If only everything were that simple.

I will be looking for an Ambient Temp Sensor (in photo) and posting it at some point on WTB classifieds. Just in case you happen to have one sitting around.

Posted by: Superhawk996 Jun 4 2019, 06:40 PM

Finally got a call from the machine shop that was cleaning my case and seeing if they could polish out the crank that was already 0.010" undersize.

The case turned out nice but will still need lots of love. This engine had massive rust in the sump. All galley plugs will need to be pulled so that the ends of the galleys can be cleaned to ensure there isn't a nice little pile of rust at the dead end just waiting to come out inside a freshly rebuilt engine.

There will also be machine work to deck the piston seats lightly, and the oil pressure sensor hole is stripped and will need to be re-tapped.



Now for the bad news. One cylinder is cracked at the boss for the valve guide. Likely a result of prior poor workmanship. I can see evidence of the valve guide having been replaced previously.

I'm undecided on next steps for this head. I hate to toss a 2.0L head. May weld it but that will be down the road since it will involve lots of work to weld it and then to re-machine the valve guide boss properly. I will probably bead blast it just to see if there are other cracks in the combustion chamber to help seal the deal.



Ah . . . the joy of restoring 40+ year old cars.

Posted by: Superhawk996 Jun 4 2019, 06:46 PM

The crank actually did polish out pretty well but I need to measure it for myself to see where it is at. However, there is a bit of rust pitting just below where the Cam gear sits. This surface doesn't get bearing wear but it is a defect that I couldn't see with the cam gear in place.

I ended up getting another used standard size crank that is in good condition from Kevin W that will go into this engine.

If anyone is in desperate need of a 2.0L crank 0.010" under on both the mains and the rods. I will send this one to you for the cost of shipping (~$45) based on what I paid to get mine from Kevin.

Otherwise, it is probably headed toward becoming a lamp, a door stop, or something like that.

Posted by: bbrock Jun 4 2019, 06:54 PM

Is the plan to put the guts of the engine you just picked up into this case? Is this one numbers matching? Just curious.

Posted by: Superhawk996 Jun 4 2019, 07:12 PM

That is a question I pondered for 14 hours while driving to/from Wisconsin.

I started this project with the mindset of saving a scrap car and not feeling bad that I'd eventually like to put a six into it after running the stock 2.0 Type 4 for a year or two.

To answer the question would take a COA. I don't feel good about sending those fools money given other members experiences with them.

Likely out come will be I'll cherry pick the best parts from each (both are 73' engines) and build one prime engine for me.

The other engine (if truly low miles) may just get pistons cleaned, cylinders honed, and put back together with fresh bearings etc. as a basic runner for sale later set up with my Dell's to someone in need? That is a very optimistic scenario.

Worst case, I'll part out what's left.

Posted by: Superhawk996 Jun 4 2019, 07:16 PM

Also as a point of note, KevinW donated a 017 CHT sensor to me before I bought engine GA000099.

I intend to fully document the resistance vs. temp behavior of both sensors for a sample size of two. I'll post the results since 017 CHT sensors seem to be a mystery. May be a bit before I get to this.

I have a few irons in the fire.

When done, I'll pay it forward by donating the extra sensor for cost of shipping to next user in need like Kevin did for me not knowing I'd end up buying another complete motor.

Posted by: Superhawk996 Jun 9 2019, 11:29 AM

Tool Of The Day Post.

I've been working to get my original case ready for some machine work.

Needed to pull the cylinder head studs.

I love these stud installers & extractors from Snap-On.

I know this can be done by jamming nuts together and hoping for the best. I did that for a lot of years when I was broke.

These collet type extractors make the job a pleasure rather than a pain. No risk of galling threads. Work the first time, every time.

Posted by: Superhawk996 Aug 28 2019, 06:27 PM

Well it's been a while since I posted to this thread. Chassis work is on hold due to the Melanoma surgery stuff, but I'm still plugging away at the small stuff I can do without stressing my shoulder.

The engine that came out of this vehicle is GA004310. Whoever had this engine had a knack for screwing things up.
The flaps were removed from this car and the engine tin is sort of mangled on the passenger side tin at the corner where the flap rod passes through.

In anticipation of having tin sent out for media blast and power coat, I've been fixing tin cracks, stuck cheese head screws, and trying to straighten this tin back to original shape. Luckily I have decent tin from GA000099 to see what it should look like.

It's actually so bad, I'm sort of wondering if it was just a bad stamping. Otherwise, someone really worked to screw it up.

Here is the starting point.



Just basic hammer and dolly work but the tight radius and the raised semi-circular formations are making it a tough slog. The photo below is getting closer but still needs a crack welded and some more shaping.



Getting a little closer to the right shape but I think a few of these creases are going to get locked in as the material work hardens.




It also appears that the rear tin had two extra holes drilled for some reason. Will need to fill these.



Now in the process of comparing tin between the two engines I noticed the tin from GA000099 had the 621 and I.0. markings that Brent has so carefully reproduced.

However, I did note that the I.O. mark is in a different location. Hopefully this doesn't mean he has to start all over again.

@http://www.914world.com/bbs2/index.php?showuser=20845

Posted by: bbrock Aug 28 2019, 07:57 PM

Ha! Jeff Bowlsby has two pics of the I.O. stamp on his site. Neither show it where yours or mine were located. Seems they allowed creative license on that one as long as it was in the general neighborhood. Let me know if you want to borrow the stamps, or just pass them along to the next person who needs them. I can't imagine how tragic it would be to be driving around in a car with an engine that wasn't certified "in order."

Posted by: Superhawk996 Aug 29 2019, 05:04 AM

@http://www.914world.com/bbs2/index.php?showuser=20845

I think I just might take you up on that and continue the trend you've started.

I'm still a few weeks from having this tin stripped and powder coated. I had hopped to drop off a massive batch of tin before the holiday weekend but I still have several pieces with cracks to weld up, one that needs fab work to repair A/C damage, another that needs a fuel pressure regulator bracket fabricated and those rear tin holes to fill.

But when that is done, the tin could get stamped quickly and then continue to the tradition of passing the stamps along if anyone else is crazy enough!

Posted by: Superhawk996 Sep 2 2019, 09:18 AM

More tin work in progress.

Tin on GA004310 was hacked up for dealer installed AC. Time to fix.

1st fabricated a new fuel pressure regulator bracket, the original had been cut off as part of the carb conversion and someone taking this engine apart and rebuilding with the deep dish bus pistons.

This piece bracket is made out of 0.057" and has a stamping dart in it for added stiffness. I was able to approximate the stamping dart with a small bench brake.



Started fabrication work to address the missing sheet metal section that was cut out of the cylinder 3/4 side tin to accommodate the York compressor.

Here is the start of it.





Will finish this up today.

Posted by: Superhawk996 Sep 18 2019, 02:45 AM

Well, 9/17 was my final skin graft surgery so I'll use the downtime to post up some work that I was able to get accomplished prior.

Engine Tin repair was completed. I did use a little bit of silicon bronze TIG rod to help fill in low spots and/or minor porosity to help with quality of final powder coating.



Mocked up to fan tin to determine where hole needed to be.



and there you have it A/C butchery repaired. Would have been way easier to buy tin, but, it made more sense to fix this and not break up a full set.

Posted by: Superhawk996 Sep 18 2019, 03:02 AM

Not having enough to do with two 2.0L engines already torn down and and various stages of rebuild, I decided to pull the trigger on the 2.4L six that was floating around over on the Classifieds forum.

You know, cause I really need more to do. But at some point, I have always wanted a 914 with a six. 914/6 prices are in the Stratosphere so a conversion is my best bet to have a six in my lifetime.

The plan:
1) Tear this engine down
2) Figure out what I have
3) Try to recoup some cost by selling off the 1973.5 CIS components to a needy 911 owner
4) Cash flowing the rebuild over time as finances permit
5)Offset this engine cost by selling GA004310 (engine from my car) 1st after it has been rebuilt
6) Selling GA000099 after a year or two when I have this engine rebuilt and the funds for the conversion parts (Need a set of Ben's awesome SS heat exchangers and a nice SS muffler, a DIY oil tank kit, and other hoses, engine mounts, etc.) These costs stack up pretty quickly and will be done over time to ease negative cash flow.
7) Determine induction -- PMO carbs would be nice but I'm contemplating modern MegaSquirt based FI with PMO ITB. Has to have a ITB's or Carbs for that look and oh so sweet induction noise.
8) Question my sanity again!

I want to post up front that this engine was bought as a core, at core price with no assumption that this would be a running motor. Engine was purchased from a terrific guy with no warranty expressed or implied! Thank you for selling this to me.

@http://www.914world.com/bbs2/index.php?showuser=22330

Upon arrival in my garage and finally up on the engine stand after a long drive, and lots of mid-west style sweating.



Also right up front I want to reinforce with you guys buying cars and then having overheating problems. Don't assume that the mice haven't set up home while your car and/or engine was in storage.

Here is the standard oil gunk, pollen or cottonwood fluff crap that clogs up oil coolers plus some deposits from Mickey Mouse.

Posted by: defianty Sep 18 2019, 03:02 AM

Nice work.

Posted by: Superhawk996 Sep 18 2019, 03:36 AM

As I mentioned over in the buid thread for GA000099 I absolutely love tearing down old engines.

It is sort of like Christmas. You never know what is in the box. Sometimes its good, sometimes, it's sheer terror.

I purchased it in part because it is a 1973.5 7R motor. My car is a 73'. Seems like a good match to me.

Case shows signs of having been disassembled before as witnessed by RTV sealing the case and timing chain covers + heavily loaded in around the oil return tubes. I'm really hoping that someone didn't cut the cylinder spigots. Cylinders are cast iron so I have high hopes they are 2.4L originals.

Early plan of action:
1) Do leakdown just to see if I got lucky.
2) Teardown completely and assess what I have.

This engine purchase was a bit of a risk due to it being a 1973.5 2.4L and that only being a 1/2 year engine with CIS. The heads are different, CIS parts for 1973.5 are hard to find because, well you know Porsche. They were so hot to do CIS in 1973.5 that they turned around and changed a bunch of stuff for 1974! Hopefully some of this works to my advantage in trying to unload the CIS as a cost offset.



Another risk is that the air box has a ton of dirt in it. This could be debris from storage, engine shipping to Rolinkhaus, or it could be somebody was doing a track day and ingested this crap during an off course shunt.



When I pulled the CIS boot, at least the throttle body and the CIS valve look to be clean. Not a guarantee a bunch of dirt / dust didn't come through though.



Opening up the rocker boxes to get a look at the valve gear, cams, and to be able to see them in preparation for leakdown checks.



Not pristine but engine was supposedly 90K so not outlandish either.

Between the fact that the CIS internals and the fact that the side of the rocker boxes exposed air aren't covered in dust matching the air box, I'm going to say the airbox dirt probably came during shipping or storage.

Posted by: Superhawk996 Sep 18 2019, 03:47 AM

After pulling all rocker covers, I did a leakdown.

Not so encouraging. Bank 1-3 is 16% to 30%. Definitely rebuild time.

Bank 4-6 is more concerning. Basically, complete blow though with 70-90% leakage. Leaking into the case partially and hard out the exhaust valves. No compression feel when air is applied via the leak down gauge and starting before TDC and cycling up though and past TDC. Nothing . . . Nada.



There is a lot going on in my head at this point. This is the sheer terror part!

Valves seem to have clearance to rockers on the compression stroke so we really shouldn't have this much valve leakage. Might be burned valves.

I did pop a borescope into a couple of the cylinders before I purchased and didn't see any holes or valve heads in there and the engine turns freely. likewise, I can see all valve heads are attached. Whew!

I may go back and back off the exhaust valve adjusters just to be sure but honestly, it doesn't matter since a complete tear down is going to occur.

Posted by: Superhawk996 Sep 18 2019, 03:50 AM

Next order of business is to get the shroud pulled.



Easier said than done. CIS had to come off which is easy enough but the CIS injectors proved to be a challenge.

I've read all the Pelican forums about how hard these are to pull. I honestly can't imagine trying to do this in car.

I ended up using a slide hammer. I made an adapter to thread onto the CIS injector body and then to get a nice hard straight line pull out. They still didn't come easy.

Posted by: Superhawk996 Sep 18 2019, 04:13 AM

Removal of the shroud came with a few unpleasant surprises. Like all machinery of this age, it has been abused at some point in it's life.

This one appears to be no exception.

I found the fan housing to be cracked and a slight chip out of the backside of one of the fan blades. Most likely from an inept mechanic trying to wedge a screwdriver or pry bar between the fan and the housing to loosen the fan belt nut rather than using the proper holding tool.

You would think Porsche 911's might get a touch better attention than the 914's. . . but nope! Not if you happened to be in Iowa in 1974 and needed a fan belt replaced. Sorry - not trying to pick on Iowa . . . . just an analogy. Could have happened as easily in Detroit back in the day!




I've got to say, I'm continually confounded by American mechanics that never seemed to really grasp things like Magnesium.

1) It isn't as strong as cast iron and deserves a little more respect.
2) The legend that it can't be welded without starting on fire.

I also found this cracking on the case. The case is the desirable 7R case and is the bulk of the reason I chose to purchase this core.

I think this is just casting shrink at the casting gate where molten metal flows into the mold. The gate intentionally provides a place for metal to shrink from when the casting cools.

The fact that there is no oil residue here likely means this doesn't penetrate the case. We'll see when I get the case split. I'll keep my fingers crossed that it is indeed gate shrinkage. Or worst case, it is repairable by Otto's or the like.

Posted by: Superhawk996 Sep 18 2019, 04:19 AM

So finally after much cursing and a little more disassembly, I finally got it down to a long block.





This is the current state of affairs.

Once I'm past this 2nd day of post surgery pain, I'll get back out into the garage and start working toward a complete teardown and determination of what's going on over on the bank 4-6 side of the engine.

Posted by: bbrock Sep 18 2019, 04:31 AM

Your sanity was never in question. It's 5am and you are posting on this forum Then again, it is 4am here and I'm reading...

Your project(s) escalated quickly from insisting on dished 94mm pistons for your 4. Looking good!

Posted by: Superhawk996 Sep 18 2019, 04:43 AM

@http://www.914world.com/bbs2/index.php?showuser=20845

Pain from surgery not allowing me to sleep. What's your excuse? Burning the 4am oil and getting an early start on the 914 today I hope. I hope you can get your paint work done before snow flies and/or that you can move indoors with a temp paint booth arrangement.

Yeah. I was just going to post on that topic of the NOS parts.

@http://www.914world.com/bbs2/index.php?showuser=20991

Jeffrey sure went out of his way and to extraordinary measures to hook me up on those 94mm KS NOS pistons, cylinders and NOS cam.

I had a long phone conversation with him about what is the right thing to do. I wanted to make sure that he is 100% on-board with the plan before I do anything.

So I think what is going to happen is:

1) I'll reassemble GA000099 with existing 94mm low dish P&C's which are in good shape and came out of this engine. I'll likely, use the original un-cracked Porsche 2.0L heads (after rebuilding those). Regrind the slightly worn stock cam that came out of this engine and put on stock FI. That gets me a stock NOS 2.0L for use until the six conversion can happen. This keeps an interesting low serial number GA engine NOS. I'll drive this until I can fund the 2.4L engine rebuild and conversion.

2) I'll rebuild GA004310 with the 2.0L AAP heads prepped by HAM, and 96 mm P&C's. I think it will be easier to unload a 2056 with HAM heads as a cost offset for this 2.4L 911 engine. The catch will be if I can actually make any money for my rebuild time and effort. Doubt it. I at least need to recoup the costs. I've thought of selling off the new unused HAM heads, the case, 2.0L tin, crank, etc. as parts but I suspect there will eventually be someone that needs a properly rebuilt 2.0L that doesn't have the means or time to DIY. Might be a long wait though vs. just parting out. Plus, selling parts piecemeal is a pain for me with all the postings and subsequent shipping time, etc. Or, list as a lot price for engine core parts? Undecided.

3) The KS 94mm pistons, cylinders and cam stay NOS and unused. It would be a shame to put into an engine just to drive it a year and then sell to someone that doesn't fully appreciate a stock 2.0L. Parts get put on the shelf for the next guy that wants to build up a 2.0L engine with 94mm NOS parts and really values that.

Open to better options but this is what Jeffrey and I came up with.

Posted by: 914_7T3 Sep 18 2019, 10:33 AM

"Your project(s) escalated quickly........................................."

and it's more like your insanity was never in question

Posted by: euro911 Sep 18 2019, 12:57 PM

NEVER, EVER bead blast anything that passes air, fuel or oil in your motors ... especially anything that has little nooks & crannies where the beads can get stuck. It only takes a few of those little marbles to destroy a motor in short order. Soda blast them

Even when rinsing the parts in an ultrasound tank, you may not dislodge all the beads. They'll eventually come loose while you're driving 90 mph on the turnpike

That's why I'm building a new soda blasting cabinet ... I have numerous parts including carburetors that I need to clean up.

Posted by: Superhawk996 Sep 18 2019, 02:55 PM

In the case of heads, All valves, guides, etc. come out. No where for the bead to get stuck. Agree completely if the heads were not to be fully disassembled.

Whenever I've done a case, it is exterior only and all oil galleys get sealed off and ultimately galley plugs will get pulled anyway to ensure no other 40 year old debris resides within the galley.

Agree soda is a better choice but let's be honest, walnut shells and bead have been a mainstay for years before anyone came up with soda blasting. Even better yet is Dry Ice blasting which leaves absolutely no residue. I'm still waiting for someone to come up with an affordable dry ice blaster though.

It all comes down to diligence in getting things totally clean inside and out before assembly. That is true for any engine rebuild be it a lawn mower or a high end race engine. If I can't eat off of it, it isn't clean enough.

Posted by: Superhawk996 Sep 18 2019, 03:04 PM

Have to agree with you on that. Had I been sane, I would have started with a beautiful rust free CA car. I'd be driving by now.

Posted by: euro911 Sep 18 2019, 06:32 PM

Even some folks who have rust-free cars still don't have them on the road after more than 10 years.

Ask me how I know

Posted by: Superhawk996 Sep 28 2019, 10:55 AM

OK - Feeling better and getting back at it.

1st order of business was to get the right side cylinder bank heads off to see what happened. The curiosity was killing me.



When the cylinder heads finally came off the problem is obvious. Mr Piston met Mr Valve.



In addition cylinders 4,5, and 6 are trashed. Multiple causes here. Storage and corrosion are one issue but there is evidence in cylinder #4 that the cylinder is pretty torn up probably from deformation and side load of the piston when it met the valve.

Hopefully rods are OK but we'll figure that out later when I finally split the case.

On the head side, at least all the valves are intact but they are surely bent based on the leakdown test and the air escaping via the exhaust valves. Not a big deal, valves would be replaced anyway. Will have to wait to later to get a good look at the valve guides and particularly the casting around the valve guide.



Well, at least now I know what happened.

Doesn't appear to be catastrophic at this point but I certainly will need to do so measuring on the granite surface plate to see if the rods are bent.

Posted by: Superhawk996 Sep 28 2019, 11:14 AM

Now here's the real mystery.

I'm a bit embarrassed to post the carnage to the CIS injector cups but I'm here to share the good, the bad, the ugly so you can learn from my own impatience with trying to get a cup out. This was literally a 1/2 model year solution by Porsche for 1973.5. For 74' the CIS injectors were moved up into the intake runners and have a proper insert in the runner to both insulate it from heat, and to seal it. The 74' CIS injector insert is serviceable. Imagine that. 1973.5 maybe not so much.

In the process of pulling the CIS injectors the rubber seals were so hard, I couldn't get the injectors out even when I heated them gently to "operating temperature" to try to soften the rubber. I'm sort of wondering what other trick might have been tried to soften the seals enough to allow the CIS injector to pass out without blowing out the thin wall cup perimeter. After the fact, I thought of maybe a solvent to soften the rubber. Too late!

As the CIS injectors came out, they trashed a couple of the CIS injector cups. Not really a concern since I'll end up either running carbs or more likely ITB's and modern FI via MegaSquirt. These cups need to go and get the holes tapped for plugs if they are not already tapped.

Before I bought the engine I did some research and thought the cups were threaded into the early 73' MFI threads. It is looking like that is not the case. Information on how to remove them is pretty much non existent. I did find one instance where someone converted to carbs and just make "plugs" to fit into the seals and cups were the CIS injectors were previously. That would work, but I'm to OCD for that. The cups need to go bye bye.

A post over on the bird came up with one fellow that indicates the CIS cups are press or shrink fit. They don't appar to be designed to be serviceable. I couldn't find them in the PET parts guide. Strangely, the crude ISO view seemed to show one on the head assembly but no separate part available. Not a good sign that they were ever intended to be serviceable.

Worst case I'll machine them out in the mill.

Posted by: Superhawk996 Sep 28 2019, 11:30 AM

Given that I now have three engines in pieces, keeping the balls in the air is getting tricky.

All the tin from the two 2.0L engines (GA004310 & GA000099) was dropped today for sandblasting and powder coat. One set will be done in black, one in red for my project.



There are three fan shrouds because back when I needed flaps, I purchased a complete shroud off e-bay just to get the flaps.

All fan shrouds will be done in silver. Don't worry, I'll clean off the powder coating at the attachment points to make sure I have a good ground between the shroud and the case.

The extra shroud will go up on classifieds forum in a couple weeks when it's complete.

Posted by: bbrock Sep 28 2019, 01:39 PM

I've never touched a real Porsche engine so am learning here. Hard to believe those injector cups came from German engineers. What was the purpose of mounting them in the heads vs intake runners? Better spray pattern?

Posted by: mepstein Sep 28 2019, 01:53 PM

Porsche made so many changes on their engines from year to year. Some were good, some not so good. We have about a thousand heads on the shelf and it's often hard to match up 6 since they made so many changes and had different port sizes and injectors for carbs, MFI, CIS, T,E S, Turbo, 2.0, 2.2, 2.4, 2.7, 3.0, 3.3, etc.

Posted by: Superhawk996 Sep 30 2019, 07:03 PM

After much sweating and maybe a little swearing here is the weekend scoreboard.

Headstuds: 23 of 24 removed without lifting out the magnesium threads. There is always that one that refuses to go along with rest.

P&C's
Yup, the 1,2,3 bank pistons also kissed the heads. I guess that makes a perfect score of all 6. At least we have consistency.

Crankshaft:
Visually looks good. only the lightest of scoring that can't be felt with a fingernail. Standard bearings in place.



Case:
With respect to the previously mentioned casting gate, the shrink is over the main webs, in a very thick section, and is indeed casting shrinkage. No chance of perforation of the case.

Initial visual upon 1st splitting the case was great.

But, then I got to bearing #7. Not good. Something went very bad. Either casting porosity, corrosion, or major fretting. I don't see any fretting on the other bearing web's. Likewise this is the only place inside the case that looks like this. I'm going to rule out corrosion as I can't see how it would be localized to just one web. That leaves casting porosity as the likely suspect.





I had planned on this being a core engine and needing machine work. Sent pictures to Ollie's today and they think all can be made well in exchange for $$. Likely to be on the order of $2600 to include potential welding, machining, line bore, adding case savers, oil bypass modification, extraction and repair of a couple transmission studs, etc. Life if good if you're Ollie! 10-12 week lead time to even get to it. Good thing I have at least a year!

Overall not a bad weekend! Beats being at work but I had to go back today to pay for this endeavor.

Posted by: mepstein Sep 30 2019, 07:12 PM

Just saying...





Attached thumbnail(s)

Posted by: Superhawk996 Sep 30 2019, 07:23 PM

@http://www.914world.com/bbs2/index.php?showuser=10825

You had me tempted but I'm not a chase the HP kind of guy. I will actually have more fun driving this car as a 2.0L Type 4 for a year or so and then go to the 2.4L when parts and funds permit.

I personally think 2.4L is the sweet spot for a six and the 2.0L for the type 4. I also wanted to keep a period correct engine. 1973.5 2.4L could have just as easily been installed by Porsche had they not been afraid the 914 would outperform their beloved 911.

7R case not highly stressed. 140-160 HP is just right for the type 901 trans to avoid having to baby it, or update to a 915.

Keeps a nice balance of HP vs. handling with an emphasis on handling.

Posted by: Superhawk996 Sep 30 2019, 08:03 PM

@http://www.914world.com/bbs2/index.php?showuser=20845

I think it was part of the learning and evolution. Evolution from Carbs to MFI was great for HP but costly. CIS was next logical step to bring down cost without hurting HP and CIS probably had an emissions advantage in an era where emissions controls was ramping up.

MFI was always in the heads. I think when they did the 1973.5 CIS they didn't have time to get the 74' intake runners tooled up for production so they put the CIS injectors in the heads for expediency. This caused issues with vapor lock and carbon deposits on the CIS injectors similar to what happens on the back side of an intake valve.

Moving the injectors to the intake runners yields better atomization, less carbon, and less vapor lock potential.

Given that I could see the need to quickly migrate from MFI to CIS I assumed they would just make an injector cup / adapter that threaded into the MFI ports. Silly me.

What did amaze me though was just how thin the aluminum cup is. It literally cracked when the rubber injector seal wouldn't yield from rubber hardening. another 0.020" of wall thickness would make these very robust. No idea why they made them so thin.

We all like to think Porsche was pretty smart but given the issues I've seen now with the GA000099 casting (early 73') and this 1973.5 911 case, I think quality control was . . . ahem . . . lacking in that era. Too much dope smoking is what I'm going to pin it on!

I don't have much memory of 1973 other than moving from Massachusetts to Michigan. I was only 6. However I vividly recall 1975-1976 and there was plenty of dope smokin' going on around me with friends older brothers and what not!

Posted by: sixnotfour Oct 1 2019, 09:44 AM

Wow, that sucks.weird porosity down in oil hole too ?? Here is my oh-shit, numbers matching -6 case , spun main bearing.....


Attached image(s)

Posted by: Superhawk996 Oct 1 2019, 10:31 AM

Yeah porosity appears to be in the oil hole too. Someone not paying attention in the foundry and/or Porsche was willing to accept it. Hard to tell which was the case.

The good news for both of us it can be fixed with Welding, machining and line bore. Like mine the bad news is the cost to do so.

There is very little that can’t be fixed. The issue is always cost and timing.

Seems like it would be worth the cost to keep matching numbers on a -6.

Posted by: mepstein Oct 1 2019, 10:53 AM

We are seeing this often on 2.7’s


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Posted by: Superhawk996 Oct 1 2019, 11:02 AM

Apparently 1974 casting process was getting getting better with time.

Honestly there will always be some porosity in castings. In my case it seems a bit excessive but honestly it isn’t a show stopper at 140hp which isn’t going to flex or fret the case as much as a 2.8L RSR !

I’m just OCD and want it to be the best I can manage within my budget.

Posted by: mb911 Oct 3 2019, 06:54 PM

Also know that there is considered "acceptable" levels of porosity with magnesium and welding per all FAA repair manuals which is considered the holy grail of weld repair of magnesium

Posted by: Superhawk996 Oct 3 2019, 07:27 PM

@http://www.914world.com/bbs2/index.php?showuser=9892



You are correct for sure.

The porosity in the saddle is less concerning to me since that has a large surface area that the bearing load is shared over.

The main thing I don't like is how the end of the shell bearing is left unsupported right there at the case split line.

The case will need case savers, the oil bypass modification, and a few broken studs on the transmission end that will need to be repaired anyway so it wasn't as if I was expecting a pristine case. I'll measure case main bearing bores to see if they are oval. If they are still circular then it will be a much tougher call on the welding, case machining, and subsequent line bore that creates its own set of compromises.

I would have expected that certain areas of the case would be deemed critical and would be under higher quality control. Just seems odd that they would accept that defect that leaves a portion of the bearing unsupported albeit only slightly.

Posted by: GTSandberg Oct 4 2019, 07:20 AM

Inspiring thread, lots of knowledge and know how! Always encouraging to see people diving in to even more challenging project than your own

Posted by: Superhawk996 Oct 9 2019, 06:49 PM

Continued tear down of the case has finally resulted in a "basket case" engine. No more big parts sitting around. Everything now fits in bins! It's nice to have my limited floor space back.

I got the crank torn down. Still need to measure all the journals. Overall, the bearings are showing wear consistent to a high mileage core. It was purchased with the understanding that it probably had 90K on it. I'd say that is probably accurate based on bearing wear.

Crank and crank bearings


Rod bearings


IMS bearings.


Next step is to get the bulk of the oil residue cleaned up off the case internals and to get it ready for shipping to Ollies.

Posted by: 914forme Oct 10 2019, 07:11 PM

You ever thought about picking up another case? I have a few just a few hours south. PM me if you want to talk it over.

Posted by: porschetub Oct 10 2019, 08:49 PM

Looks like that case has been 'fretting" on the bearing saddles,that shows in the main bearing wear,lots of excess point loading due to the case being out of round.
Best to replace the case as the work to fix what you have isn't a good $$$ solution,go for a case half machining and a linebore to resize to std main bearings,you appear to have the skills to do the rest yourself.
Good luck.

Posted by: Superhawk996 Oct 13 2019, 09:13 AM

Spent some time wrestling with parts.

I finally got time to get the fan, alternator, and the fan housing separated.

1) Non OEM alternator - when I pulled the fan shroud, I found a SEV Marchal alternator tag sitting on top of the engine. I had hoped as a long shot that maybe the engine would still have the original alternator. No such luck. Generic rebuild.



2) I wanted to get a better look at the fan housing cracking. A bit worse than hoped. If anyone has a spare 901.106.101.5R housing sitting around in good shape PM me. Otherwise, this one will likely go to Ben for welding and I'll have to do machine work to clean it back up.



3) Someone savaged the fan hub. It is still useable but it looks like someone went after it with a cut off wheel - probably to clean up botched workmanship when the alternator was replaced. Damn Hacks!



My bet is that some shade tree / low end mechanic is responsible for all this.

One blade of the fan has a small chip out of it. Probably from wedging a tool between the fan and the housing to try to loosen the pulley nut rather than using the proper tool.

That likely lead to the cracked fan housing which then propagated over time.

45 year old parts!

Posted by: Superhawk996 Oct 13 2019, 09:27 AM

Also had more fun than a barrel of monkeys trying to pull broken, damaged and corroded exhaust studs.

So far I'm 7 for 12 but wasted a ton of time trying to get the last 5. I started soaking with penetrating oils 2 weeks ago. All my usual tricks seem to have failed me on the last 5. Ollies charges $22 drill them out,so at this point, it seems more cost effective to just pay the $110 to get them drilled rather than to keep wasting my time. Heck, it would take me longer just to set them up in my mill than the $110 of time is worth. I'm sure Ollies has a nice jig that makes quick work of them. Heads need full rebuild anyway due to bent valves, and valve guides that are worn.



Thought it might be great opportunity to buy another cool tool from Stomski Racing, but, the cost of the tool is more than the cost to have it done by Ollies. Plus Stromski the drill jig counts on having at least one good stud to secure the tool to drill the other. Cool tool though but it is pricey. Would be worth it though if you had to do this under the car. No new tool for me!

https://www.stomskiracing.com/products/exhaust-head-stud-repair-kit

Posted by: Superhawk996 Oct 13 2019, 09:32 AM

@http://www.914world.com/bbs2/index.php?showuser=18995

Agree that there is some fretting of the bearings there but that really shouldn't be surprising on a high mileage (90K) case.

Problem is I REALLY want the 1973.5 7R case because it matches the vintage of my car. Machining the cases and a line bore back to standard is pretty much a given for these old Mag cases so I'll just roll with the punches and get it fixed properly.

Hope to get the case boxed up and ready to ship today.

Posted by: bbrock Oct 13 2019, 11:34 AM

Those @#$% exhaust studs. About a third of my head rebuild bill was for extracting and replacing studs and busted engine tin screws. And that was for a /4

Bummer about no new tool. You'll just have to keep playing with the old one.

Posted by: mepstein Oct 13 2019, 12:09 PM

We have the entire catalog of Stompski tools. Great stuff. We use the stud tool but most of the time just leave them in and the machine shop removes them while rebuilding the heads.

Posted by: Superhawk996 Oct 13 2019, 05:08 PM

Well each day it seems I have a couple of wins and couple of losses.

Let's cover the win 1st.

I finally got the funky 1973.5 2.4L CIS injector cups out of the heads. Turns out they are indeed a press fit.

I created a tool from some scrap material that let me pull them with a slide hammer and some gentle heating of the head.



Here are the dimensions of the tool that worked for me just in case it can help someone else down the road.



Head without the CIS injector cups. Now I need to start making plans to plug them!

Posted by: Superhawk996 Oct 13 2019, 05:30 PM

Now for the loss of the day.

In the process of pulling the case studs in preparation for shipment to Ollies the upper engine mount boss cracked. I'll spare you the profanity that was uttered.

In taking a look at the broken off piece as well as the boss itself, I can see the boss had been cracked for some time. I just manged to finish the job. Magnesium is such a fickle material. The lightweight nature of it is awesome. The fact that it is prone to stress cracking over time . . . well, I guess you have to take the good with the bad.



On the broken piece, notice the nice fresh white magnesium that cracked on the right side. Now look at the left. Dark and corroded.



This was a pre-existing stress crack that had been propagating over time. It might be a good thing that it broke now, but, it sure doesn't feel that way. If it had broken after the case machining, I'd be absolutely screwed.

The way you can tell it was pre-existing is if you look closely at the dark section, you'll notice a characteristic "beach heading" sort of like the way water creates wavy patterns in the sand at the beach. This is a form of gradual crack propagation. Sort of a gradual erosion pattern over time. Then look at the white section. It's uniform, rough, and granular, sort of like a sugar cube surface. This is characteristic of the instant yield crack that coincided with the "snap" when it broke.

Usually I'm looking at these types of failure on parts at work. It hurts more to see it when my wallet is affected.

So off it goes to Ollies, they should be able to weld up the boss, building it back out and then doing a drill, tap, and facing on the boss. What a bummer. I've seen worse repaired. Luckily it will be buried under tin and between the engine and the firewall so I won't have to look at it.

The case got double boxed up, and it should go off for a final inspection and formal quotation request at some point this coming week. We'll see.

Posted by: porschetub Oct 14 2019, 11:40 PM

Posted by: Superhawk996 Nov 9 2019, 12:54 PM

Goodies arrived in the mail this week:

Ben fixed my cracked fan shroud for a mere fraction of what I was looking at to replace it with another used part. Welding mag just isn't on my bag of tricks.

Ben did a great job of not only welding the mag shroud, but he also clearanced the weld to allow the alternator to fit. I had assumed I'd have to take car of that myself. Thanks Ben!





Now before anyone gets their panties in a wad about the size of the weld bead, keep in mind that none of this is easily visible with the fan installed.

I would much rather have the strength and extra material from the bead than trying to blend this back purely for cosmetic purposes. Even more so knowing that when this is actually installed in a 914 with the fan facing toward the rear bulkhead you can't see anything.



The fan spins perfectly with no contact to the welded shroud. No deformation of significance. Great job Ben!


To top that off, I purchased Ben's DIY oil tank kits. Looking forward to putting this little puzzle together! I did a quick bench top mock-up and the pieces are all nicely bent and look like they will fit up well with minimal tweaking.



Hat's off to Ben!

Posted by: mb911 Nov 9 2019, 01:38 PM

Glad your happy with it.. The mag welding is always fun.. Porosity is nature of the beast..

I now have to decide on another run of oil tanks or not.

Posted by: mepstein Nov 9 2019, 02:30 PM

I’ll take mine welded. Thanks Ben.




Attached thumbnail(s)

Posted by: porschetub Nov 9 2019, 03:15 PM

Excellent to see the fan housing repaired..many over on Pelican say it can't be done Ben has the skills,one thing I noticed with my housing was the importance of torqueing the mounting strap to spec,my fan had contact because I had done it up to tight,done up correctly the problem was sorted.
911 exhaust studs are bastard things ...1 third of mine were ok,the rest were too rusted @ the threads to reuse,heated and chilled them a few times and most came out,the rest I double nutted and welded the lower nut on,I let them cool and they came out.
I went for genuine replacement studs from Pelican and because I had heard conventional nuts loosen after a while I purchased a BMW 8mm "crush" exhaust nuts,they haven't required a retorque yet with my headers.
Good luck with your build.

Posted by: mepstein Nov 9 2019, 04:29 PM

Ben’s been repairing fans and housing for years. He’s also done a 3.2 manifold and a 915 trans case for me. His welding credentials go way beyond small repairs but it’s nice to have his services available. Just wish he was closer so he could weld on my car.

Posted by: Superhawk996 Nov 9 2019, 04:47 PM

I couldn't be happier with Ben's work.

I'm still amazed at how many folks on forums will say that Magnesium can't be welded. I wish I had a proper welding shop, I'd give it a try buy there is just too much clutter in my garage should things go wrong.

I'll be taking next week off so I hope to get back to some welding on my chassis now that I'm pretty well healed up.

I also plan to go up to my father's house and retrieve a coupld of donor 901 transmissions that I stashed there about 20 years ago. They were stored off the ground, under a lean to, and with a vented tarp cover. Not sure anyting in them will be salvageable after 20 years but we'll see.

Posted by: Superhawk996 Nov 10 2019, 07:19 PM

Did a little measuring and it turns out that the bore used for the 911 engine 2.4L CIS injector cups are about 0.020" oversize to the standard drill that would be used for a 3/8 NPT tap.

This should be OK. Since a NPT thread form is a taper the oversize hole will result in two things:
1) the tapped thread will have slightly less than the standard thread engagement within the thread form.
2) the plug having to sit just a little deeper in the taperd thread to estalish a full seal.

So I went ahead a trial tapped one of the heads for a 3/8 NPT plug.

I'll go ahead and pick up a few Earls Aluminum NPT plugs and will make sure it fits and seals well before I do the others.

Posted by: Superhawk996 Nov 10 2019, 07:31 PM

I also did a little machine work on the GA004310 case that came with this car.

The first job was to drill out and Heli-Coil one of the M6 cheeseheads that was seized. This was straightforwad and drama free. Love when that happens.



The other job is a bit of a head scratcher.

When I got this engine running it was leaking oil pretty badly from the oil pressure sensor. Somewhere in it's life, someone swapped the OEM pressure sensor and managed to strip it. Their hope was that lots of PTFE tape was going to seal it and that just wasn't the way it works. This car and this engine had such a rough life -- it is almost laughable if it weren't so sad.



I had hoped that there would be enough material there to run the 1/8" NPT tap in a bit deeper and get enough thread to get a decent seal. As it turns out, that isn't going to happen either.

Although I was able to reestablish some thread, the tapped bottomed within the bore before I was able to create much new thread.

So now I think I have only two options

1) Weld the hole, drill, and retap. I don't see a good way to weld up this bore, it is pretty deep and I don't want to put a ton of heat into the area and end up having to remachine the oil cooler ports or something stupid.

2) Cut the bore oversize to 1/2", create a shrink fit aluminum plug, weld that around the top to ensure a leak free seal, then drill and tap a new NPT bore. I'm leaning toward this option.

Need to think about this overnight and see if I come up with a better plan before chips begin to fly tomorrow.

Anyone else ever repaired this oil pressure sensor thread area? How did you do it?

Posted by: gereed75 Nov 10 2019, 11:35 PM

This may not be a fix that meets your standard, but why not drill and thread for 1/4 NPT and put in a 1/4 x 1/8 adapter?

Posted by: Superhawk996 Nov 11 2019, 06:04 AM

@http://www.914world.com/bbs2/index.php?showuser=15674

This is a really good suggestion. It speaks to why I felt the need to sleep on it before making chips. I need to do some closer measurement but I"m concerened about 3 things:

1) In side view of this area, there isn't a whole lot of meat there for anything other than a 1/8" NPT thread bore (see photo below of 1/4" adapter on top). The size of a 1/4" NPT is large enough that it is going to be a close call on thinning out the material too much. This also seriously limits how big I can make an aluminum plug.

In the case of a 1/8" NPT tap, the top of the taper is about 0.403" (major diameter). If I make a 1/2" plug, that only leaves 0.097" of diameter and 0.0485" (just over 1mm) of wall thickness (worst case @ full tap depth which won't happen) once I re-tap the machined the welded in plug. That really isn't much wall thickness after re-tapping. I wouldn't worry about it in steel but obviously we're dealing with aluminum here. Might not be so bad since I would never go full depth on the NPT tap.

Here is a quick sketch (Not to Scale) of what's being considered for an aluminum plug.



2) the added height of a 1/4" to 1/8" NPT addapter won't fit under the engine tin nicely. Likewise, it could be difficult to service later on with the tin installed. All my tin is out to powder coat - so I don't have tin to check this.

3) In general, the threaded in 1/4" to 1/8" adapter adds another potential leak path.

Here's the situation from the side view.

Posted by: Superhawk996 Nov 11 2019, 06:27 AM

I've also considering 1/8" NPT Heli-coils or Time-Sert now that I've thought about this a bit more after a good nights sleep.

The main issue is that the NPT Heli-coil uses a 3/8" drill. A 3/8 drill is already a loose fit to this hole. Having an oversize hole on a Heli-coil bore seems like a near certain leak path.

The other issue is a 1/8" NPT Heli-coil kit runs from $80-100. I don't see myself ever needing to use it again in my lifetime so it becomes a pretty large cost for a one use solution, that might still end up leaking.

A 1/8" NPT Time-Sert looks more appealing since the drill size is 13/32 (0.406") and this will be just barely large enough to clear out the stripped threads. I trust a Time-Sert to seal better than a Heli-coil if installed with some Loctite. About the same cost as the Heli-coil kit. Hmm.

Posted by: Superhawk996 Nov 11 2019, 07:38 PM

I pulled the trigger on fabrication of a ferrule to fix the stripped pressure sensor port. It just seemed like the right thing to do. It will be a solid fix that won't leak and there is no extra cost for one time use Time-Sert's (just my time), and there is no need to wait for Time-Serts to arrive. I wanted to keep this machine work moving forward.

After some measurement and a bit of a rethink on the dimensions I decided to only cut the lower bore to 7/16". The upper counterbore is 5/8". The upper 5/8" segment is 0.375" in length and the lower 7/16 segment is 0.25" in length. The bore in the case was cut on-size and the ferrule was built 0.002" oversize for a shink fit.

Here's a little video of the work to find the center line of the pressure port bore.


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FtXTVeNxI7w


Reamed the lower bore for a nice smooth finish.





Then the 5/8" counterbore was cut 0.25" deep.



Then it was time to make the ferrule.






Put the ferrule in the freezer for about 1/2 hour, then heated the case with a rosebud oxy-acetylene torch and then tapped the ferrule home.



You'll notice I made the ferrule so that it stands proud of the surface by about 1/8" to give me something to weld to. It also gives me more material for the taper. The OEM Oil pressure sensor only theads in about 1/4" so having a 3/8" long section that is 5/8" diameter will give me plenty of material to tap into without thining the wall of the 7/16" diameter lower section. Once I have the port tapped to 1/8" NPT, I'll surface the top of the ferrule again for a nice flat surface.

And for good measure I welded the top



Drilled, tapped to 1/8" NPT and milled the top once things cooled back to room temperature.



And finally, this critical machining project is finished.

Posted by: Superhawk996 Nov 14 2019, 08:13 AM

Sorry to be jumping back and forth between the Type 4 GA004310 build and the teardown work for the 2.4L 911 engine but unfortunately this is the way I'm having to work at the moment.

Needed to get the 911 heads torn down and off my bench to free up space and to get them ready to be shipped to Ollies.



During the tear down I thought I find nearly all the valves to be bent based on the witness marks in the pistons. As it turns out only the #6 cylinder exhaust valve is bent to the point that it can easily be seen visually.


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x_P2JQpI5S8


Curiously, the #6 intake valve retainer was also cracked.



All the other exhaust valves had some pretty excessive carbon and light corrosion around the seat area but didn't seem to be terribly torn up to account for why I was getting such high leakdown off the exhuast valves.

I may chuck up the #4, and #5 valves today out of curiosity and put a dial indicator on them. However, it is a moot point. Since #6 is clearly bent, I'll reaplace all valves, springs, retainers, and keepers.

At this point I'm still not exactly sure what happened to this engine but I'm going to lean towards it having been over rev'd to the point that valves kissed pistons and cracked the #6 intake valve retainer.

Posted by: Superhawk996 Nov 14 2019, 10:17 AM

Looks like the 3/8" NPT plugs are going to be a workable solution for plugging the CIS injector ports.

Might need to think about making plugs later that can completely fill the old CIS bore so that I don't have a flow interruption where the old CIS port merges with the intake port but at this point, I think that is over-thinking it.

I can make custom port plugs later on if it becomes necessary to improve airflow and/or to keep fuel better atomized. The only real way to answer that is on a flow bench.

I suspect it isn't much of an issue given that the orginal 2.4L MFI 911E made 160HP with a similar flow interruption in the intake port area. The 911S was good for 190HP but did have larger valves and larger intake ports but the MFI still would have had an interruption in the intake port for the MFI injectors.

Posted by: kroelofsen Nov 14 2019, 11:33 AM

That is realy nice work! With the right machinery things become much easier...

Posted by: Superhawk996 Nov 14 2019, 12:39 PM

Indeed. However, believe it or not, I didn't have to do any machine work on the CIS injector ports. The CIS hole was very close (slightly oversize) to the size needed for a 3/8 NPT tap. I just got lucky on that one!

For anyone that thinks you need all the fancy tools, I can tell you I did my 1st car's restoration with not much more than a basic socket set, a pair of vice grips, a couple of adjustable wrenches, and a ball peen hammer.

I only bought an air compressor right before I did the paint work and at that point in my life, the compressor amounted to 1/2 month of pay!

I also distinctly remember deciding about 30 years ago at that point in time that I had to find a better paying career that would allow me to play with cars full time and would afford me the opportunity to have nicer tools. I eventually became an automotive engineer. I'd say it all worked OK.

Posted by: Superhawk996 Nov 14 2019, 12:55 PM

Given that I've had the sickness for about 30 years why stop now. I've been on vacation this week and mostly trying to catch up on neglected errands, and spending time with family.

Yesterday while visiting my father, I decided to retrieve a couple of transmissions that I've had in storage with him for about the last 24 years.

Total on hand - 4



One that came with this car, one came with engine GA000099, and now these two on hand. 3 are side shifters and somehow I have a tailshifter even though I've always had 73's. I must have bought it ages ago for parts

I should now have plenty of donor parts to put together at least one really solid transmission. Won't know until I get inside them though.

@Dr Evil

A while back I purchased a Dr. Evil trans rebuild DVD to get a different perspective on how to properly rebuild these even though I've done a couple in the pre-internet era. Highly entertaining DVD's. Every now and again there is a comment in there that he just slips in that is hilarious. The best part might have been the labeling on the disks.

Posted by: Superhawk996 Nov 24 2019, 04:01 PM

2.4L case, rods, and heads are now off to Ollies. Now its just a waiting game until they can do the work and wait for the bill.

Looking forward to the holiday weekend to get some quality garage time in. Neck is healed, pinched nerve is finally under control courtesy of Advil. Should be able to do some chassis work this coming long weekend.

In anticipation of that, I've just been continuing to gather parts. 5 lug conversion plan is starting to come together courtesy of Garold and Larmo!

Posted by: Superhawk996 Nov 24 2019, 04:15 PM

The negative cash flow from the 914 is bad enough but I've also come to realize a new problem.

With the 914 tying up the garage, I don't have anywhere to work on the rest of the fleet. The choice is either work on them out in the open or pay someone else to do the dirty work.

My Jeep has penchant for developing dragging front calipers that need to be replaced every 4 years or so. With winter coming it was time to get that taken care of so I have a snow vehicle. Simultaneously, while commuting to work last week, the Mazda MPV parts hauler decided to spit out the #1 spark plug. I purchased the MPV used last fall for dirt cheap. It served me well so far by picking up two engines and hauling parts to/from storage, but, apparently somewhere in it's past, someone stripped the spark plug threads and it finally let loose.

My wife now realizes just how much my labor is worth. $1000 bill to repair the two of them in the same week! That sucks! I really hate paying others to do what I can for myself! Next time, I may just have to do it in the driveway!

Posted by: porschetub Nov 24 2019, 04:35 PM

Really impressed with your machine skills I have that but no gear to do it on ,up until recently I had use of a mill and lathe ,when I was a chief engineer on ships I had all this to work with in my spare time and sometimes when I was on "watch" on easy days,miss that part of the job.
Lots of stuff for folks to learn from your thread ,keep it up .

Posted by: Superhawk996 Nov 24 2019, 07:09 PM

@http://www.914world.com/bbs2/index.php?showuser=18995

Chief engineer on ships sounds like an ultra cool job. Ton's of cool machinery on a ship!

Posted by: Superhawk996 Nov 24 2019, 07:15 PM

One minor project completed today between Honey-Do projects of planting fall bulbs & yard chores.

Cleaned up one of the 2.4L cam tower housings. I don't have a lot of confidence in handing these off to my local machine shop for hot tanking. The surface finish between the heads and the cam tower housing is a very fine, almost lapped surface finish that doesn't rely on a gasket between the heads and the cam tower.

I'm a bit afraid that someone will end up banging parts on wire racks and/or metal benches. Plus, evertime I get parts back from the tank I still end up having to do a good hand scrub to get to my standard for cleanliness.

Used one of my favorite cleaners for motorcycles. S100 is the product name. It does a good job of breaking down grease deposits and then rinsing away clean. Still a lot of work involved with various brushes to get into the nooks but it turned out pretty well for about an hour and a half worth of work. Good enough for now. Will do final cleanup when engine is closer to assembly.


Attached image(s)

Posted by: eatpez Nov 25 2019, 11:27 AM

I love this thread and love the fact that you are also local to me. Inspires me to update my thread and continue the body work on my chassis, although the recent spell of really cold weather makes that more difficult without a properly heated garage.

If you ever need a second pair of hands, don't hesitate to send me a PM.

Posted by: Superhawk996 Nov 25 2019, 06:59 PM

@http://www.914world.com/bbs2/index.php?showuser=22543

Reddy Heater 55000 BTU kerosene heater has been my only heat for 20+ years.

Over the years I’ve added insulation. I just insulated my 1960’s vintage metal garage doors last year. Should have done that a decade ago. Don’t need fancy heat. Sure would be nice though!

I dream of building my dream pole barn with a lift and radiant floor heat .. . Maybe someday!

Start basic. Don't let perfect be the enemy of good enough!


Brent Brock Has done amazing work out of a Harbor Freight temporary carport. I think Jeff Hail had a saying in his post to the effect of be the Spirit Of Can! Channel it. Don’t let obstacles stop you! Not even the crap we call winter.

Posted by: bbrock Nov 25 2019, 11:06 PM

Full disclosure though. The tent was in addition to a radiant floor heated (albeit cramped) garage. And I complain frequently. Kudos to you for soldiering on without central heat. I do envy your toys though.

Posted by: Superhawk996 Nov 29 2019, 03:23 PM

Well another win some lose some day.

Picked up engine tin from Powder Coat. Overall I'm very happy with how it turned out even if it did take extraordinarily long.



The red was done in gloss and the black in satin.

I'm pretty happy how the repairs turned out. I wasn't sure how much coverage I'd get with the powder coat. Overall, I'm happy but I can see a little of the weld seam in the engine tin I had to fabricate to reair the A/C butchery.



The Black Satin definately hides better than the gloss. Here is the tin that had the crack repair under the coil.



and the top side



And of course there is always one little oopsie the you don't see coming. Looks like I missed a rust spot. When the tin was sandblasted it looks like it blew out and of course the powder coater just chugged along.



Oh well. At least this isn't on a visible area. I may just epoxy it a bit . . . or I may try to find another piece and have it powder coated seperately. We'll see.

Posted by: mepstein Nov 29 2019, 03:32 PM

I've often found rust holes after the fact when doing engine tin. That's one of the reasons our shop won't do outside parts for a fee. Too many little gotchas that can triple the time you can charge for.

Posted by: Superhawk996 Nov 29 2019, 03:44 PM

@http://www.914world.com/bbs2/index.php?showuser=10825

It all went pretty well on the whole. Only once piece out of many, so, no worries.

I spent a lot of time welding cracks and straightening before I sent it out. Speaks more to my lack of quality control than the powder coater's. He probably didn't even see it when suited up in the blast booth and depending on the lighting, may not even have seen it when applying the powder.

Doing retail repair work is definately a risk. Sort of explains why so many shops (not just yours) don't do outside work anymore. I worked retail in college. You get some dicey characters!

Posted by: Superhawk996 Dec 7 2019, 08:10 PM

Due to holiday's and work it seems like I haven't been making much progress. Last weekend was largely sent with the remnants of the 2.4L CIS & intake system tying to first get it taken apart so it fits in smaller boxes and then to determine what is salvageable.

Today, I spent a little time today messing with Ben's DIY oil tank kit.

Fit up and laser cutting are top notch. Unfortunately my welding technique doesn't quite lend itself to the nice, neat, uniform stack of dimes look. Functional -- yes. Pretty -- No.

Maybe someday.

Anyway, here are a couple quick pictures of the work so far.

Posted by: mb911 Dec 7 2019, 09:06 PM

@http://www.914world.com/bbs2/index.php?showuser=22428

The top baffle needs 2 holes in it.. 1 for the filtered return oil to remove air from the oil and the. One for the oil filler neck/dipstick area..

Posted by: Superhawk996 Dec 8 2019, 09:03 AM

@http://www.914world.com/bbs2/index.php?showuser=9892

Yup. Waiting on that sweet Black Friday group buy of GT filler necks to arrive. Easy to burn in the holes by blowing out the Aluminum screen with the TIG Electrode.

Certainly appreciate the reminder though. I'm still playing with the best way to do the internal oil lines.

I think I also need to get an oil filter console in my hands before I do that. I'm tempted to do a light surface cut on the big console disk to make it perfectly flat. However, that needs to be done after all backside welding is complete otherwise the welding will warp the flatness of the disk when I weld on the back side return lines.

I'd rather do that machine work before I have a fully assembled tank.

Probably overthinking this since I'm betting your intent was that this could be assembled without the need for any machine work under the assumption that the console 0-ring will accomodate any minor unflatness.

Posted by: mb911 Dec 8 2019, 09:56 AM

Correct.. The o ring does a pretty good job of sealing..

Posted by: Superhawk996 Dec 8 2019, 10:06 AM

@http://www.914world.com/bbs2/index.php?showuser=9892

Thanks Ben, appreciate the oversight. You have some awesome products! I'm absolutely amazed at how little tweaking it took to get the console disk, and the fitting bungs to fit. The laser cutting is nearly spot on.

Part of my rationale for doing this as DIY in the first place is to get more seat time with the welder, it's the only way to improve my Aluminum welding consistency.

Posted by: mb911 Dec 8 2019, 11:37 AM

Practice makes perfect

Posted by: Superhawk996 Dec 8 2019, 09:48 PM

Shifted gears a little bit as I work to clean up the garage and get rid of parts that I've been tripping over for months.

Goal is to get ready to get back to doing chassis work.

I've had a chunk of donor sheetmetal sitting on the floor that will be needed to fix the driver side fender inner to floor pan area that is rusted out.

Here is the starting point.



This piece of sheetmetal that holds the pedal boad is basically completely gone at the bottom on my car. This donor part is a good start but will still need some TLC to get it ready but it's better than trying to fabricate from scratch.



And here are all the parts discected. Much easier to store under a bench and out of my way for now.

Posted by: tygaboy Dec 9 2019, 09:33 AM

Spot weld hell... I feel for you, brother.

Posted by: Superhawk996 Dec 13 2019, 06:49 PM

@http://www.914world.com/bbs2/index.php?showuser=9892

Ben, would you be able to post a picture of how you do your tank internals?

Did some more work today on the oil tank internals the plumbing to feed the filter was straight foraward.



But since I don't have a GT filler neck in hand yet, I'm not sure which side the dip stick tube runs toward. Right, left, or maybe right down the center. The only picture i have of it is ambigious.



I'd prefer to route the filterd oil outlet to the right side to get more time with the screens to deairate the oil.



But I'm not sure if this routing will interfere with the dipstick tube.

The other option is to creat a U-turn back to the other side like the OEM tank but I'd rather not have to do this.



Any photos of your internals and/or a confirmation on which side the GT filler dipstick runs to would the awesome.

Posted by: mb911 Dec 13 2019, 07:14 PM

This is a super quick sketch..

Ps your filler came today..

Posted by: Superhawk996 Dec 13 2019, 07:23 PM

Perfect. Thank you Ben. Roughly aligns to what I wanted to do. I'll keep filtered oil exit closer to the vertical screen / baffle.

Posted by: sixnotfour Dec 14 2019, 01:12 AM

I dont know your 911 2.4 plan, but the 2.4 cis intake ports are tiny..Ollies gonna bore em out ??
Also as you did on the type 4sale case is what I do to the 2.4 cis inj. ports press in a shaft and weld the the top..when porting , smooth transition...lots of irons in the fire..

Posted by: mb911 Dec 14 2019, 09:20 AM

@http://www.914world.com/bbs2/index.php?showuser=22428

Make sure the mesh is at the exit of the bypass and extends 4-6 inches from there.. The idea is to remove the air bubbles from the oil.. Thats also the plan with the vertical baffle..

Ps I decided to make more tanks.. I just ordered more laser cuts..

Oh and pss.. I just hit my 4 year anniversary on my build..

Posted by: Tdskip Dec 14 2019, 09:38 AM

Thanks for the updates, great thread.

Posted by: Superhawk996 Dec 14 2019, 10:12 AM

I don't see port size (or HP) as a measure of my manhood.

I'm still deciding since 2.4L's are a bit of an odd bird. The valves are all 46mm/40mm for T, E, and S. The 2.4T heads have a 33mm exhaust port which is right between the E (32mm) and the S (36mm) so I'm not too worried about exhaust port size.

The intake is a 30mm port which is 2mm smaller than most of the earlier heads at 32mm and about 36mm for the S variants.

Where it gets interesting is that a 2.4LT variant is 140 HP & 148.5 ft*lb of torque @ 4000. the 2.4L 911E is 165 HP@6200 & 151 lb*ft@4500 rpm.

So what is the take away? Remember the formula (RPM * T) / 5252=HP. So the only way the E has an advantage is that it makes about the same torque but up to higher RPM's.

The small 30mm intake port keeps flow velocity high which is a good thing at lower RPM's (i.e. good in town driveability). What it doesn't do is breath as well at the high RPM's but let's be honest, how often are you driving at 6200 RPM in a daily driver? When I had my Miata my daily goal was to hit redline (7200) at least once a day with it but it was only a short temporary burst here and there when accelerating. Never was able to drive there for extended periods of time.

I'm tempted to stay at 30mm in the short term and see how I like it. Since want to go to ITB's and modern FI I think some breathing capability will open up just by losing the long 2.4L CIS runners. But that will also degrade some of the low end torque as the runner length diminishes with ITB's. Or, it may lean in favor of more RPM but at lower torque which could end up being a wash. They can easily opened up at any time if I don't like them.

The bigger problem is PMO ITB's only have 34mm as their smallest port. I see no need for 34mm ports with a 2.4L. From what I see online, I'm a bit worried that I'll have to do my own ITB's, modify PMO's, or maybe fabricate some sort of Plenum and runner system from the 2.4L CIS runners

At this point Ollies hasn't even called to discuss so I'm still deciding.

Posted by: Superhawk996 Dec 14 2019, 10:33 AM

For anyone cosidering Ben's tanks, his welded and assembled tank is a great value. Lot's of time fitting, welding, etc. go into putting this together from scratch and that is by no means a reflection on the materials. The laser cut parts are great. The fit is very close. But fitup and tweaking is just part of the metal fabrication game!

For me I'm a automotive mascochist (why else would anyone have a 914?) and love doing fab work and wanted to spend more time with my welder practicing aluminum welding so it is awsome. But, I assure you, the price delta between DIY and finished product is well spent . . . just install and go your merry way!

Posted by: TravisNeff Dec 14 2019, 11:04 AM

I am loving this thread. Especially your copper topped welding table - that rocks!

Posted by: Superhawk996 Dec 14 2019, 11:23 AM

Thank you. It makes life so much easier for welding.

Last weekend I finally got fed up and tired of reconnecting my welding ground from the table top to the my vise. Sometimes it's just easier to use the vise to hold somthing when welding.

Side project was to cut another piece of coppper and extend my copper top under the vise, TIG'd the copper sheets together and then put the vise back on top. Ta da! No more need to keep moving the ground cable back and forth.

The copper bench top is also nice because it is soft and friendly to machined surfaces that sometimes get placed on it!

Posted by: 914forme Dec 14 2019, 03:41 PM

Just priced out copper plate what thickness are you using? And what are you backing it with, wood I am guessing as you had a grounding issue with the vice.

Posted by: Superhawk996 Dec 14 2019, 04:52 PM

@http://www.914world.com/bbs2/index.php?showuser=2388

Its over wood but copper is such an awesome conductor of heat it pulls heat away from hot spots I've never had any issues with scortching the wood below even with an Oxy-Acetylene torch. Doing TIG or MIG is a complete non issue since the heat is so focused.

Just measured it - about 0.060". It will be spendy but I've had this piece for over 15 years now. It is sort of a one time in a lifetime purchase. It doesn't wear out. The piece on my bench is structural copper (like for roofing) which is cheaper. I don't remember the material specification. Be sure they aren't quoting you oxygen free copper (OFC). There is a HUGE difference in price difference.

Ask me how I know. Norton Copper Cafe tank and rear cowl/oil tank has to C10100 (99.99% pure) OFC to avoid having weld contamination and porosity. One of these days I need to get this project restarted.

Posted by: Superhawk996 Dec 14 2019, 05:04 PM

Did some supsension work today! Oops. Wrong car.







The curent state of RC cars amazes me. Pretty much everything built like a real car but scaled down. Dampers with basic valving and damping adjusted by oil viscosity and/or valve orifice size. Functional & adjustable ball joints etc. Motors are now 3 phase DC brushless and have amazing power and speed for thier size when run on Li-ion!

No real work on the 914 today but this was a fun distraction as I got generators and the snow blower ready for winter. Ran fuel out of all the small lawn equipment, and had to get a few Christmas lights up & operational on timers to keep the wife happy!

Posted by: Superhawk996 Dec 20 2019, 06:24 PM

All right. Time to get serious. On vacation for Christmas and it's time to get back to fixing this rusty chassis.

I've completely forgotten where I was, what I was doing, and wasn't sure whether or not the car has been bumped on it's build cart since I last left it.

Started with a complete remeasurement of the suspension mounting points and comparison back to the orignal measurements. I also established a better centerline than I had been previously using by adding a 3rd point to the centerline and making sure it lies on the other two. Lot of time spent. Seems like this should be quick but it really isn't.





So in total this is the 5th round of measurements I've taken off the vehicle since before any metal cutting was started. Things are still pretty much in the right place.

I had a about a 2-3 mm shift in the right front, rear most steering rack mount when I swapped in the new sheetmetal last spring. This came about since the rank mount hole isn't perfectly on size and will accomodate minor movement of the pickup point within the hole. Overall no big deal but it was a slight shift that I now have to keep track of.

Posted by: Superhawk996 Dec 20 2019, 06:39 PM

On a fun note, the new GT style oil fill neck arrived from the Black Friday group buy that @http://www.914world.com/bbs2/index.php?showuser=9892 put on.

Now I can think about getting holes in the right spot for the dipstick tube and then I can think about closing this up.

Posted by: mb911 Dec 20 2019, 08:28 PM

Don't forget before you drill holes in the chassis to make a template of the tank

Posted by: tygaboy Dec 21 2019, 09:06 AM

I feel for you Re: your chassis checking.
Don't you just love all the measuring and documenting your measurements then rechecking them to be sure you're not reading the tape upside down or backwards, then worrying you typo'd a number when you wrote it down then wondering if you really had the measuring device in the right location in the first place so you start all over then...
Wait, or is that just me?

Seriously, all your work is looking great. I'm enjoying your build of Ben's @http://www.914world.com/bbs2/index.php?showuser=9892 oil tank. That looks like a fun project. And thanks for documenting all of what you're up to.

Posted by: Superhawk996 Dec 21 2019, 10:05 AM

@http://www.914world.com/bbs2/index.php?showuser=19241

Nope not just you . . . my back and ribs are killing me from all the stand up, sit down on creeper, scoot under car. Look for tape measure . . . .damn! Left it on the other side of the car or worse yet, still on bench. Scoot out from under car, sit up, stand up. Go get tape measuure. Repeat the whole sequence again . . . Sh^t wheres my Sharpie?

Yeah the measuring gets old real quick. I've totally done re-measure wondering if I had the tape measure on the right point.

I've been watching your project. That is meaurement drama x 10 but your project is looking awesome!

FYI for anyone else doing this, using the laser has been a real winner for me. I've transerred all my points down onto the floor which makes measuring a whole lot easier. It has been way more repeatable than the trammel bar was.

But . . . crap . . . what's the coefficient of thermal expansion for concrete?

The main problem with the trammel is that in order to get accuracy and repeatability the measurement points need to be the same height from the bar and perpendicular to the bar. That is easier said than done, especially when working 18" off the ground and having to deal with the build cart that gets in the way and/or prevents the measurement points from being equal height.

My solution was to use the lathe to put a dimple right on the centerline of the bolt head with a spotting drill. Then shoot the laser plumb up to that point, and then mark the corresponding location on the concrete. Then measure the points on the floor. Ta da, no more errors from unequal length or non-perpendicular trammel points. The laser plumb was cheaper than the trammel bar to boot!

Posted by: Superhawk996 Dec 22 2019, 04:04 PM

Every job that you think you can do quickly will always take longer than you think. Especially if you sort of forgot where you left off.

After measurements were verified, I intended to get down to business and get the wheel house inner welded into position.

Just a couple quick trims to existing sheet metal and off we go . . . . well maybe not.

In order to make a proper butt weld I had to trim back a portion of the inner where it over laps to the sail panel structure. More spot welds to be drilled

For anyone that doesn't believe these cars rust from the inside out maybe this will change your perspective.




This gives some view into the inside of the sail panel. Not very much rust but it is there none the less. Tin worms never sleep. I used this excavation as an opportunity to break out the Eastwood frame paint/rust neutralizer.

Similarly when I removed the door latch adjustment pocket to get ready for the inner wheelhouse install the tin worms had been at work here too!



Also found some rust between the door jamb and the adjustment pocket that will get taken care of. This area is heavily sealed with factory seam sealer in this wet area but somehow moisure still get's below the seam sealer and takes root.



Nothing major but more side work to fix these issues.

Why not just do it right? Sandblasted and then fixed. Just put a simple backing plate was put on the adjuster/striker pocket with a little silicon bronze brazing rod to avoid any risk of potentially burning though thinned metal. This will keep additional water from getting in on the back side of the striker later on. I could probably just have sprayed it over with Wurth seam sealer but there was some risk of the sealer jambing up the adjustment plate.



Now we're ready to weld right? Well not so fast. Since I had the blast cabinet fired up, it made sense to do a few other small parts that have been sitting on the bench and will need some paint at the same time I do the inner fender. And of course one of the oil cooler brackets was cracked and needed a quick weld.

Posted by: Superhawk996 Dec 22 2019, 04:09 PM

Since I had already sprayed the sail panel inner with the rust neutralizer and the garage smelled of fumes I decided to do the inner wheelhouse while access is easier.

Flooded the supension console and drilled a couple drain holes into the jack post and then flooded that too for good measure as suggested by @http://www.914world.com/bbs2/index.php?showuser=7300 .



Don't worry, didn't leave all the paint trails all over the place. They were cleaned up later. And gave a light spray coat to the inner frame rail



And while I was working inside the hell hole, it was prime time to get rid of the terrible worn trunk hinges that are worn and mangled, and poorly repaired previously. More spot welds.



I still need to get a coat of epoxy primer on the fender inner while access to that area is wide open. . . . maybe tomorrow.

Posted by: Superhawk996 Dec 25 2019, 12:11 PM

Yesterday I was able to get in some work on the oil tank between family events.

Not exactly my finest hour. I had some trouble finding the right hole location for the dip stick tube. Due to the curvature of the tube and the variability of the hole as the oil fill neck installs laterally, it wan't a simple one cut operation.

In fact, I ended up cutting and slotting multiple holes until I found the right spot.



When it was all said and done, I ended up having to paste a small portion of the screen back over the healthy oversized hole.



All in all I'm happy with the final position of the dipstick, just wish I had come up with a better way to locate the hole besides trial and error.



Still need to add on the mounting bungs and a baffled breather tube before I button up all of the sides.

Posted by: Cairo94507 Dec 25 2019, 12:53 PM

That is very nice work. I know we are our own worst critics, but that looks nice to me.

Posted by: tygaboy Dec 25 2019, 01:10 PM

Nice!

Posted by: mb911 Dec 25 2019, 04:59 PM

I think its just fine.. I do my different by putting the bypass closer to the front and then leave the spot the dipstick tube goes into much larger.. The vertical baffle gets everything else. I do also leave about 1/2" of the vertical baffle off of the floor of the tank.. Just in case of blockage.

Posted by: Tdskip Dec 26 2019, 08:14 AM

Thanks for all of the updates, including the RC car.

Posted by: Superhawk996 Dec 26 2019, 09:01 AM

The tank project has been great filler work for the few hours that I could get in amongst the holiday events.

The problem is when doing hit or miss work, it is easy to miss the obvious in the rush to get something done. In my case, this was the failure to put the tank mounts on while I still had access to the internal side of the tank.

It would have been simple to just weld the mounting bungs on from the backside with a nice fillet weld and then I would have been done. Strong, no risk of leakage.

But nope, I forgot in the rush to paste the front and back side of the tank together.

So this meant welding them primarily from the front and trying to make sure that I had good penetration and also fully sealed them from leakage. Of course this required welding close the the aluminum threads and that a shaky hand and/or wandering arc would melt a few. And to top it off the weld bead ended up partially obsuring the threads so it wasn't even possible to get a tap started.

The solution was to counter bore the threads with a 5/16" end mill to clear away the weld bead and to take out the 1st couple of threads deformed by welding.



At this point I decided that I should probably build up the weld bead and make a nice flat mounting surface.



Then milled that surface flat and closer to the tank.



In the end, it turned out fine, I'm sure I have plenty of weld penetration to fuse the tank to the mounting bung and that there will be no leaks. It just involved a couple of hours of work that could have been avoided had I done the assembly in the proper order.

Posted by: FourBlades Dec 26 2019, 09:43 AM

Looking good! I never knew those oil tanks had so much going on inside them.

No wonder the aftermarket ones cost what they do.

Great work on your restoration, keep it coming!

John

Posted by: eatpez Dec 26 2019, 04:05 PM

@http://www.914world.com/bbs2/index.php?showuser=22428

Out of curiosity, what media do you prefer to use in your blast cabinet?

Posted by: Superhawk996 Dec 26 2019, 04:22 PM

@http://www.914world.com/bbs2/index.php?showuser=22543
Usually use HF Aluminum Oxide in my very small benchtop cabinet. It lasts a lot longer and cuts better than sand or glass bead.

Sometimes I'll switch over to glass bead if necessary but it is a royal PITA to make the switch and too much time is lost cleaning out the Aluminum Oxide with no real guarantee that some won't come out of some nook and cranny. Only do this with non critical parts.

Glass bead wears out very quickly (like after 2x being shot) so I usually just shoot glass bead from a pressure pot outdoors and let it scatter and don't try to reuse it.

Tried Silicon Carbide once, like it, was pretty long lasting, but it is very pricey (2x-3x) the cost compared to Aluminum oxide.

Posted by: Superhawk996 Dec 31 2019, 10:11 AM

Almost finished up with the oil tank.

Put the sides on but ran into a slight glitch, I've had a little bit of twist enter the tank as I welded up the inner baffles. The net effect is that I had to split one of the tank side pieces in order to accomodate the slight twist.



Hopefully this doesn't come back to haunt me later.

I've also wanted to fabricate a labryinth baffle for the tank breather. My first attempt with a couple of drilled discs was a failure and was far too restrictive. Currently working on a 2nd version. This style with just two staggered plates should allow for better breathing.





Hope to put the finishing touches on this tank today.

Posted by: Superhawk996 Dec 31 2019, 10:20 AM

I've also been spending some quality time in the hell hole.

Managed to get the wheelhouse inner welded in without moving the outer suspension console pick up points. Pretty happy so far.



Good weld pentration on the butt weld that will allow the inside engine area to be ground flat but I will leave the bead on the exterior side for strength and it will eventually get covered either with undercoat or possibly reinforced later with the GT stiffening plate kit.



Still need to get the door latch striker welded in today.

Things will get trickier as I install the inner C-section of the longitudinal to this wheelhouse. If things dont fit perfectly the C section is much more rigid and will easily pull the flat wheel house sheet metal out of position.

Posted by: bkrantz Dec 31 2019, 09:19 PM

Nice work! Where did you source the inner wheelhouse panel? I need to replace mine, but only above the frame member.

Posted by: Superhawk996 Jan 1 2020, 11:43 AM

@http://www.914world.com/bbs2/index.php?showuser=23343

AutoAtlanta has them. The upper secion is a bit tricky due to the formations in the metal this piece would be time consuming to fabricate from scratch. Could definately be done with but for the price, you can't beat the time saved vs. fabricating the whole thing from scratch. If you just need the upper, I'd buy this whole piece and just cut off the lower rail you don't need. Probably could resell the balance of the lower to someone in need on Classified Forum as a partial cost offset. If you just need a small section, then you'd be better off to fabricate from scratch.

The only thing I can gripe about is the panel has some wrinkling in it that I wish wasn't there. a light skim of filler will hide them.

In AA's defense, the panel has quite a bit of die draw and has a complicated form to it and isn't a simple stamping to recreate. I'm sure that the tooling to crate this wasn't cheap and probably either has some wear, and/or the stamping shop doesn't quite have all the details worked out beteen the tension on the binder, the lubrication or any number of other variables involved in stamping a part this complex.

I'm grateful it is available.

It did fit quite well and only required minimal hammer and dolly work to blend it to my vehicles existing structure.

Tthe other caveat was that in my case, it appears that there may be about 0.060" less draw to this panel vs. my original. I had to put .064" of spacer on the back side of my door latch to get the proper alignment of the latch stricker hole and to have it simultaneously touch off the wheel house inner for spot welding.

Posted by: bbrock Jan 1 2020, 11:48 AM

I got mine from Restoration Design (right side only) and was happy with the part: http://www.restoration-design.com/store/product/PP331

Posted by: Superhawk996 Jan 1 2020, 11:57 AM

@http://www.914world.com/bbs2/index.php?showuser=20845 .

Did it extend up higher to full height or was it just this lower portion only? I originally looked at RD but thought this was only the lower. From @http://www.914world.com/bbs2/index.php?showuser=23343 post, I think he is looking for the upper portion only.

Posted by: bbrock Jan 1 2020, 12:58 PM

It is the lower only as seen in the pic. I did do a bit of patchwork in the upper section but the areas I had to do were easy to fabricate.

Posted by: bkrantz Jan 1 2020, 10:31 PM

Yes, I need only the upper section, with all the compound curve shapes.

Posted by: Daryl32 Jan 25 2020, 01:35 PM

OK Oscar, you have put my work to shame....

What you are doing is so far out there for a DIY in the garage venture!

Hats off to you -

Posted by: Superhawk996 Jan 27 2020, 07:19 PM

Lots of work the last 3 weekends in the aptly named Hell Hole.

1st week was prepping the part of the rear longitudinal that attaches to the wheelhouse inner.

I nearly forgot to put on the two weld studs that secure the trunk torsion springs.



Then there was the obligatory hole drilling for the puddle welds and then painted the inside of the C-section with Eastwood frame coating but masked the weld flanges to keep them clean.



This Eastwood coating really seems to take the heat well and doesn't flake off after the heat of welding in the vicinity but at the same time I'm going really slow and making sure the overall sheet metal outside the immediate weld area doesn't heat up beyond what I can touch with a bare hand. This makes for really slow welding.

Of course there was a lot of time spent tweaking fits and getting the frame angle to match the driver side.




The attachement to the rear of the engine compartment and the front of the rear shock tower is a special kind of hell. 1st the area had to be cut open which of course was done long ago. But even so I ended up not quite gettting the top frame tab where I would have liked. I couldn't close up the air gap between the tab and the shock tower. Trying to do the puddle welds would have just resulted in buring out the flange and/or a giant booger weld. Ultimately I decided to live with this and do a couple little stitches where I had solid metal to metal contact since that little top tab really isn't carrying much load. The side flange and the bottom flange will take most of the load.



To top all that off, there is very little room inside this box section to manipulate the torch.

When it was all done, I dusted the tuna can flap with some Eastwood in anticipation of being able to put that flap back in postion either this week after work or early in the weekend.



Lots of out of position welding on this section and the need to weld slowly, and constantly monitor the outer rear trailing arm pick up points for movment made this a slow painful ordeal. When it was all said and done, the suspension points hadn't moved so I'm going to call this past couple of weeks a success.

Posted by: bbrock Jan 27 2020, 10:25 PM

Nice work. Don't take this the wrong way, but it's nice to see someone of your skill complaining about all those awkward places where there is no room to manipulate the torch. Gawd those were frustrating.

Posted by: Superhawk996 Jan 28 2020, 08:14 PM

@http://www.914world.com/bbs2/index.php?showuser=2744

Finally decided. Ollies actively working on the heads. 34mm intake and leave exhaust stock. 1973 2.4l spec 911E was 32mm. 911S 36mm.

Smallest PMO ITB EFI manifolds are 34mm which is what I plan to use for induction. I don’t want to build a S spec motor so I feel 34mm splits the difference, will breathe a bit better than E spec and will allow me to get to modern FI.

Hopefully it all works as planned

Posted by: Superhawk996 Jan 28 2020, 08:18 PM

@http://www.914world.com/bbs2/index.php?showuser=20845 . Thanks just trying to keep up with your precedent Looking forward to some Idaho time and a few days of skiing in the near future! Missing the mountains!

Posted by: sixnotfour Jan 28 2020, 08:30 PM

Good choice.... Ive done em all...Right down the middle.....solex cams ...

Posted by: Superhawk996 Jan 29 2020, 05:50 AM

@http://www.914world.com/bbs2/index.php?showuser=2744

Are you running carbs or FI?

Posted by: sixnotfour Jan 29 2020, 10:44 AM

webers,,,

Posted by: Superhawk996 Feb 2 2020, 09:31 AM

Had great aspirations for a weekend of welding but got busy at work and forgot to check how much Argon I had left. Turns out, not enough. Talk about a failure to plan biting me in the butt!

Started to put the flap of the rear engine bulkhead back into place but ran out of argon.



No shortage of other things to do.

Heard from Ollie's that my 2.4L mag case is going on vacation to CA for some welding along with some of it's other mag case friends. In talking with them it sounds like they are seeing more and more mag cases that have corrosion, sunken deck registers, and other isssues as they age that require more extensive rework than was the norm say 20 years ago. Was happy to hear that is well underway though!

Posted by: bkrantz Feb 2 2020, 09:18 PM

Could be dumber. I went out the other morning, got all set up, and started welding without opening the gas valve. Took me a few minutes to figure out why my weld puddle was splattering.

Posted by: bbrock Feb 3 2020, 08:14 AM

Can't count the number of times I've done that. And while sputtering crappy welds thinking, "what the heck is wrong with this welder now." The answer was always the dumbass holding the nozzle.

Posted by: tygaboy Feb 3 2020, 09:36 AM

I think I have you beat. I do that so often that as soon as the first weld "fails", I know EXACTLY why!

Posted by: Superhawk996 Mar 8 2020, 06:01 PM

Well February basically slipped away with very little 914 work.

Was traveling for work, a bit of vacation and then manged to get sick on vacation with a really nasty case of Bronchitis.

So it's March and time to make some progress.

Now that I have the wheelhouse inner and the inner frame rail in place I was able to weld my lower longitudinal bracce back in place in anticipation of putting the inner longitudinal back in place.



Spent some time evaluating the door gaps 1st with a simple gauge set to 1039mm "h" dimension from the door swith to the door striker plate.



Then finally visual and just measuring to see how consistent I could get them visually. Not too bad.



The slow part of this is that after tweaking things, I constantly have to go back and measure the rear suspension console to front suspension dimensions to make sure nothing has moved too far out of whack. Luckily, what I found is that by adding the brace, I was able to pull the lower door opening back to where it was before I welded in the wheelhouse inner and the inner frame inside the hell hole.

Started prepping the longitudinal inner by putting the heater tube pipe back in place and painting the inner with Eastwood frame paint.



Unfortunately that sort of burned out the day.

Posted by: Superhawk996 Mar 14 2020, 04:42 PM

Completed the build out of the longitudinal today. With a little luck, I'll get the long welded in tomorrow or at least tacked in for yet another round of suspension measurements.

Started by mocking it up using Cleco's




Decided to use solid rivits to secure the spring steel heater tube holders to the long. Same as the OEM attachment method.



Unfortunately the reproduction longitudinal doesn't have the same offset recess as the original. This leaves the bucked rivets overflush to the longitudinal inner surface.




Hopefully these don't show though the carpet later on. I guesss in the worst case, I could put a thin layer of open cell foam over them to help smooth things out. Least of my worries at this point.

Posted by: bbrock Mar 14 2020, 06:37 PM

Those longs don't appear to have the recesses stamped into the bottom either. Glad to see someone else OCD enough to use solid rivets on the hose brackets. I don't know why I did it, but it had to be done. I can't imagine those rivets will show through the carpet.

Posted by: tygaboy Mar 14 2020, 07:11 PM

You had me at "Clecos"...

Posted by: Superhawk996 Mar 14 2020, 07:57 PM

Yeah. Not to thrilled about that. I looked around at AA and RD and it didn't seem to me that anyone really had a longitudinal that was a true reproduction.

I get it. It would be a more complex tool and ultimatley no one really sees it directly once installed.

Would have been nice to have the option for 100% reproduction though! I guess I'm just happy to have the part at all.

Posted by: Superhawk996 Mar 17 2020, 09:05 AM

After a year apart, the front of the vehicle has been reunited with the rear.



In the process of getting ready to weld the long to the front fender area I had to clear off some primer and I got carried away. I decided to strip the undercoating out of the fender well. Love the flail wheel for this. Makes quick and easy work of it and can do so without completely stripping the OEM paint underneath.



In the process, I'm now noticing that the passenger side front fender has been replaced at some point - potentially in conjunction with prior accident (on left side) that probably led to the addition of flares? Odd. Color of the panel looks like it might have been NOS sheetmetal. The underside of the panel certainly wasn't primered with the same primer as the panel exterior. Ah, the mysteries of a vintage car. If only they could speak and tell the tale.



Will update my VIN registry to reflect non-OEM front passenger side fender.

Posted by: Superhawk996 Mar 21 2020, 01:35 PM

Fitting up the longitudinal outers. Finally starting to feel like some progress is being made.

Posted by: bbrock Mar 21 2020, 01:49 PM

Such a great feeling when those outer longs go on.

Posted by: Superhawk996 Apr 4 2020, 02:18 PM

@http://www.914world.com/bbs2/index.php?showuser=20845
@http://www.914world.com/bbs2/index.php?showuser=9892
@http://www.914world.com/bbs2/index.php?showuser=19241
@http://www.914world.com/bbs2/index.php?showuser=1570

Need some tribal wisdom. Maybe talk me off the ledge if it's warranted.

Before I welded in the passenger side outer long I had the passenger side door gaps just about perfect with what I thought was a hint of preload on the wide side.

I welded so slowly it took about 3 days of on/off welding to get this bugger buttoned up. I knew that when I removed the door braces I'd have some shrink.

I think I got a little more than I expected and definately more than I wanted.


It seems to me that my passenger side door gap is a hint too tight (3mm but consistent). Being an OCD engineer, I'm on the verge of starting to cut welds and trying to push it back out and then reweld. I don't like this idea either since that opens up all sorts of possibilites for further screw ups and more shrinkage.

For what it's worth this car has been hit in the left front and was clipped so it's not like I have a virgin driver side to measure from. Although it was clipped, I've spent tons of hours measureing my suspension pick up points, door post gaps, header to roll bar gaps, etc., none of these has moved since welding in the longitudinal.

3mm gap just looks too tight to me. But at the same time it seems crazy to try to cut & re-weld for 1 - 1.5mm of improvment.

Well, here's what I have. Although you can see the door braces in the photo, they are just leaning on the firewall, not connected to anything.

Passenger side overall



Passenger rear



Passenger front



Driver rear



Driver front

Posted by: Superhawk996 Apr 4 2020, 02:22 PM

I'm contemplating other solutions.

One might be to mill 1mm of the front of the door hinges to pull them forward about 1mm. I'm just worried this may have other implications for things like striker fits and/or fit of the triangular quarter window to the A-pillar.

1mm = 0.040" and doesn't sure seem like much but to me it looks like a country mile.

Other ideas?

Time to go work on another unrelated project before I do something unwarranted.

Posted by: tygaboy Apr 4 2020, 03:00 PM

OK, this may sound totally hack but...
I swapped my late doors for a set of early ones. The early ones are a little "longer" and I had what I felt looked like too tight a fit at the rear, particularly on the driver side.

WARNING: GRAPHIC CAR-NAGE follows! CWs and other purist-types may want to avoid this post!

So I took a 2x4 and small sledge hammer (I know, I know!), opened the door and bonked on the hinges, essentially driving the A pillar's hinge mounting surface forward until the front/rear door gaps sorta split the difference.
I also found that I could open the door just a bit and use it as a lever to set the door's up/down alignment to the body.

Stating the obvious: go slowly if you try this approach. I was surprised how easy it was to move the hinge area forward (and backward, if you go too far!)

I figured "Hey, these things are +/- 3mm so what's the big deal?"

What can I say, it worked for me. The doors open/close/latch and lock just fine.
YMMV.
Here's the best shot I currently have of how it turned out. Let me know if you'd rather I remove the pic.


Attached thumbnail(s)

Posted by: Superhawk996 Apr 4 2020, 04:06 PM

@http://www.914world.com/bbs2/index.php?showuser=19241 .

Hmm. I sort of like the idea. I've definately reefed them up at the rear using the door as leverage to get the gap consistency I wanted.

When you did the "tweaking" did you just leave the door in place and hammer on the door hinge; bolts and all? Seems like that would be the way to go to do easy visual checks of the progress.

As another interesting tid bit, the passenger door on this car is an early doors - no impact bar and are clearly from another car (yellow on passenger side under the door trim).

I thought early and late doors had the same dimensions but differed only in impact bar and window regulator style. If that is true, that the early doors are a smidge longer that might help explain why the driver side door is a bit tighter at the rear too.

This car is an early build 73 - April and I know some early 73's had the earlier doors too so I never thought much of it other than that someone had swapped this door for sure and I haven't dug into the driver door to see what it is yet.

Posted by: mb911 Apr 4 2020, 04:14 PM

I agree with Chris .. You could also use a porta power to stretch it a bit.. My passenger front gap is not ideal.. I still have to work it through..

Posted by: mepstein Apr 4 2020, 04:22 PM

I've never heard of early doors being longer.

Posted by: bbrock Apr 4 2020, 04:44 PM

The HORROR!!!! I can't believe you did that... but... that is exactly what I did. I had a door that was sagging plus an unacceptable wide gap that could not adjust out. After puzzling it over for a long time, I discover that the upper hinge post had indeed stretch from years of door weight and possibly a teenager or two leaning on an open door. So... Bang, bang, Maxwell's silver hammer came down upon its head... There is easily a mm of adjustment to be had there.

Posted by: tygaboy Apr 4 2020, 04:51 PM

@http://www.914world.com/bbs2/index.php?showuser=10825 - I didn't mean to imply they were, by design, longer than late doors, only that the set I have ended up being longer than the lates that were on the car. All within the usual tolerances for these cars. I suspect I just happen to end up with a set of each that may be on the inner/outer ranges.
Also, and this may have zero to do with any of this, but my suspension pickup mounting points measured way outside (longer) of the specs available on this site - see my build for details, if interested.

Posted by: mepstein Apr 4 2020, 04:55 PM

Yea, the way these cars were made, I could see one line worker fitting it tight while another fit it loose and getting 1-5 mm difference in the final fit.

Posted by: tygaboy Apr 4 2020, 04:58 PM

Yep, doors in place for the exact reason you mentioned. BAM, BAM, check. Repeat as needed.

Just watch the end of the piece of wood you use as the hinge bolts may chew it up and you just want to know what your pounding against.

Posted by: Superhawk996 Apr 6 2020, 08:03 AM

I haven't had a chance to bonk the doors yet though strangely I'm exited about the prospect of it. I would be such a simple & elegant solution.

I spent a little bit of time cleaning up the garage and working on couple other projects.

1st, as I was cleaning I passed by this gleaming gem. I had completely forgotten to thank @http://www.914world.com/bbs2/index.php?showuser=10825 for his generorsity in passing along this shining addtion to 2.4L six fan. I think this will be a spectacular accent piece when the fan gets painted or powdercoated.

Posted by: Superhawk996 Apr 6 2020, 08:20 AM

I also spent some time working on engine tin.

Want to plead with those of you that have hacked up 2.0L passenger side tin from A/C installs, please don't toss it. It can be fixed and made to be perfectly serviceable.

If you have 2.0L passenger side hacked cylinder tin that you're contemplating scrapping feel free to send it my way!

Starting point:





Finished serviceable tin:

Posted by: bbrock Apr 6 2020, 08:56 AM

Nice work on that tin What is it about those six fans that make them so sexy?

Posted by: Superhawk996 Apr 6 2020, 09:22 AM

@http://www.914world.com/bbs2/index.php?showuser=20845

Just like that special Marshal amp that Nigel Tufnel had. Insert best Spinal Tap imitation here . . .

It's that these go to 11 . . . See.



Not just 10 fan blades which anybody could do. . . but you see a Porsche fan has 11 blades.

Posted by: Superhawk996 Apr 7 2020, 07:56 AM

@http://www.914world.com/bbs2/index.php?showuser=19241
@http://www.914world.com/bbs2/index.php?showuser=20845

OK - So although I'm not a fan of bonking stuff with the BFH, I did make some progress but I hated every minute of it. It reminds me far too much or working on race cars under duress where expediency often trumps doing it right.

My bigggest hammer is about 5 lbs and I was seriously worried about missing the 2x4 and really Fuching up something else. Plus I'm old and frail and swinging a 5 lb hammer gets tiring really fast!

I gained about 0.020" or 0.5mm of movement and by that point I could see the hinge pillar sheetmetal starting to take on some deformation that I didn't like so I decided to call it quit's.

Overall, it looks much better to my eye than the overall picture does in the photo. If I'm still not happy later, I can always mill the door hinges another 0.020" and /or use some shim stock to tweak the fit's. In reality that won't likely happen until I get around to completely stripping this car back to return to original color of Alaska Blue Metallic. I personally despise red. Red cars have me cost thousands more in speeding tickets than other less eye catching color cars.

So here's the finished product.

Posted by: bbrock Apr 7 2020, 08:02 AM

I would be happy with those gaps

Posted by: Superhawk996 Apr 7 2020, 08:08 AM

One of the other key projects for the day was to go out and hoard some Argon. My local gas supplier is one of the last in the area still open for business.

Now that I'm on forced vacation, I'm going though lots of gas and getting tired of having to stop to go exhange a tank. Now I have a spare on standby!



Having accomplished and after having tweaked the door fit, it was time to get the lower door post extension added that ties into the outer longitudinal. Fabrication of this little piece was way too time consuming.



Most importantly, this piece had a couple of semi circular features that were used to fill in the remnants of previous AC damage left by a dealer turned loose with a hole saw

Posted by: tygaboy Apr 7 2020, 09:00 AM

, big time. Nice work.

Don't let perfect get in the way of really good.
(ask me how I know!)

Posted by: Superhawk996 Apr 7 2020, 11:54 AM

@http://www.914world.com/bbs2/index.php?showuser=20845
@http://www.914world.com/bbs2/index.php?showuser=19241

Thanks. That means a lot to me coming from you guys. Good enough to you = good enough to me and encourages me to keep moving forward rather than getting lost in 0.015" of door gap!

Posted by: euro911 Apr 7 2020, 12:50 PM

For some reason, some of us older guys have enough extra gas without having to run out and get more

Posted by: Superhawk996 Apr 8 2020, 09:49 AM

Started to prepare the rear bulkhead for new sheetmetal. Started by getting new panel holes for the snorkel and the speedo cable aligned to OEM sheetmetal.



As usual, one thing leads to another. Needed to know how that outer bulkhead would fit to the inner bulkhead. And then of course since the inner bulkhead seemed too low, I needed to know how the new floorpan would fit.

After exhausting my supply of vice grips and welding clamps I had a temporary loose mockup. Turns out it all looks to be pretty straight forward and fits pretty darn well for repop sheetmetal.



By then it was getting late, I was delerious, and after spending so much time in the hell hole, the sprayed on truck bed liner + the contact cement adhesive was grating on me.

Based on some pin holes that are on the interior passenger side that I had found when I had to cut out to access all of this work, I had a feeling that the driver side bulkhead was probably hiding some rust. Turns out I was right. That damn OEM engine pad that holds moisture had done its work. The driver side had some pretty heavy pitting and a few pin holes too. More metal work!

I was told this car was previously Florida car and owned by a body shop guy. I have found plenty of sand in the car so I suspect it may truly be a Florida car. Good body shop guy, well maybe not so much. Cheap body shop guy, maybe. I had an inclination that the spray on bedliner wasn't just there for noise deadning. I hate when people just try to cover over rust and pretend it isn't there.

After many hours of listening to the flail wheel and after going though a fresh $40 belt, I got most of the bulkhead stripped. That crap is tough and doesn't come off easily. If anyone has better suggestion to stripping bed liner I'm all ears!

Posted by: kroelofsen Apr 8 2020, 12:02 PM

Hi I use citrus spray to remove that kind of gunk...
https://www.amazon.co.uk/Citrus-Based-Adhesive-Remover-MMM6041-3M/dp/B0006VPLKM

Posted by: Superhawk996 Apr 8 2020, 12:53 PM

@http://www.914world.com/bbs2/index.php?showuser=23255

Although that would work on the residual contact cement adhesive, I don't think it would even touch the spray on bed liner underneath a layer of paint.

If I'm mistaken, ping me back if you've sucessfully used it to remove spray on bed liner and how much of this stuff is needed.

Posted by: kroelofsen Apr 9 2020, 01:52 AM

Hi @http://www.914world.com/bbs2/index.php?showuser=22428 I used it to remove glue on the fire wall and to remove the undercoat in the wheel wells. It softens the under coat so it comes of more easy. It does not really touch paint although but it becomes dull...!

Posted by: djway Apr 9 2020, 03:01 AM

If the door if functioning correctly and it is just the gap, which were bad from the factory on many cars, one trick is to weld on some welding rod to the leading edge then file to shape.

Posted by: Superhawk996 Apr 19 2020, 08:03 AM

Been a few weeks since I've posted. So many other things compete for garage time.

My wife has been insisting that I trim the "new" dog's hair since the dog groomers are no longer open. The important thing to understand is that I love dogs and that this is the Mother-In-Law dog that we are looking after while she is in assisted living.

I've grown up with Labradors. Very low maintenance dogs. The idea that I'd have to spend more to get a dog a haircut than I spend to cut my own haircuts just doesn't seem right.

Well, it just so happens that Amazon sells a set of dog clippers. How hard could it be?

Turns out not terribly hard. Mission accomplished.

Posted by: Superhawk996 Apr 19 2020, 08:14 AM

On the garage front, lots of time spent on things that will never be seen, or appreciated later on.

Added a doubler to the inner longitudinal transition. Not so much becuase I think it was absolutely necessary Porsche did a good job of staggering the joints but more so for my own piece of mind.



As it turns out, this might not have been a great move. Up until now I've been constantly checking my X & Y suspension pickup point locations and things were peachy. So yesterday just as a sanity check before moving on, I put the Z gauge back in place to check.





I now have a 6mm height change in Z! FUCH!

Now I'm trying to figure out the next step.

1) Leave as is. Add another 6mm of caster shim as needed later on.

2) Try to create a fixture to "pull" this back down and then I could heat the "frame" sections with a rosebud torch to stress relieve it and hopefully get it to settle back to where it should be.

Option 2 comes with the concern that my body dolly really isn't intended to be a Cellete that can stand up to body pulls. I'm very concerned that I'd have to double up my body dolly longitudinal member to prevent it from deforming as I pull down on the suspension console. Time to think about this carefully.

I will be doing yet another complete round of measurement on all suspension pick up points just to make absolutely sure that Z height is the only thing that moved.

Posted by: Superhawk996 Apr 19 2020, 08:22 AM

Fuming from having discoverd the suspension console FUBAR I took out some agression by stripping the rest of the hell hole shelf.



I then tried to distract myself for the remainder of the evening by prepping the lower bulkhead.

This car is crazy. Much of the lower 1" of the floorpan to anything is terribly rusted. But above that 1" line, things are pretty solid.

Case in point, here is the Speedometer cable tube after being removed from the original sheetmetal and blasted. Rock Solid.



Brazed it to the replacement sheetmetal with some silicon bronze TIG filler.

Posted by: bbrock Apr 19 2020, 09:06 AM

Oh man. That sucks. What about just cutting off the suspension console and repositioning to the correct geometry location?

Nice job on the hair cut!

Posted by: Superhawk996 Apr 19 2020, 11:33 AM

@http://www.914world.com/bbs2/index.php?showuser=20845

Entertained that for about 0.5 seconds. That thing was already swiss cheese when I took it off the 1st time. After all the puddle welds the swiss cheese holes will be even larger.

The other thing is that I've tried to execute this whole excercise without cutting my rear quater panel or the door jamb. I have esentially built the "frame" and suspension structure from the outside inward.

Access to the front to the supension console for cutting puddle welds and/or to re-weld is non existant.

I've got to admit at this point that tribal wisdom about cutting the quarter and/or door jamb appears to be the better path than the one I've taken by trying to preserve the paint.

The new option crossing my mind is leave as-is. Mill a 6mm offset plate. Use as temporary solution. In future years I intend to strip all to bare metal, fix front quarter prior accident damage with lap welds and the shady trunk floorpan. At that time, I could put it on a Celette and have it pulled properly. Not ideal, but, I'm trying to prevent myself from getting too hung up on this as I contemplate solutions.

Still cleaning up the floor and getting ready to lay down new measurement points to insure X & Y dimensions haven't changed.

Need more think time. Open to alternatives like you've mentioned though if anyone else has experience recovering from a fiasco like this.

Posted by: mbseto Apr 19 2020, 01:37 PM

Your rear fender looks like it has bullet holes. Something you're not telling us?

Posted by: Superhawk996 Apr 19 2020, 01:43 PM

I live in Detroit Metro area. Should be self explantory.

That is the other part of why I should have just cut the rear quarter panel. In the process of trying to preserve the quarter panel paint, I decided to do this repair from the inside.

As I was the frame initially, the sawzall blade hit the rear quarter several times from the inside, chipping the paint and raising a dent. So for all my best efforts, that quarter still needs some touch up. Not so bright on my part. It was mentioned early on in my thread but there are a bunch of pages there so I'm sure others are wondering the same thing.

With the wisdom of hindsight this probably wasn't the best way to approach the work.

Posted by: euro911 Apr 19 2020, 02:07 PM

Posted by: Superhawk996 Apr 19 2020, 05:26 PM

Well after two rounds of measurement this afternoon, no change in the X or Y dimensions and the suspension points are still square to each other. Whew!



Adding an extra 6mm spacer is a lot easier to deal with than if the XY coordinates had shifted. At least it shifted up. That would give more negative camber which can be dialed out with shims. If it had shifed down in Z that would way worse and could result in postive camber with no way to dial it back toward negative camber! For the moment I'll be happy for this little gift.

For now I'm going to leave Z height alone. Need more time to think about how this could have shifted purely in Z direction.

Posted by: Superhawk996 Apr 25 2020, 03:36 PM

As usual, tools need fixin' before you can do actual work.

Air compressor has been running a really high duty cycle over the last couple years. Time to change the oil and the air filter.

Air filter is a little bit less than a manly size. Hard to belive this is all there is for filtration. Oh, well as long as it keeps working.



With that task buttoned up it's time to

Posted by: Superhawk996 Apr 28 2020, 07:03 AM

Finally, not only is the front attached to the rear, the passenger long is now tied cross car too!



So here's the disaster of the week. This portion of the rear bulkhead welds over a U shaped channel that acts as the structure for the bulkhead and support for the 6 cylinder engine mount.

Wouldn't you know it, but even though I had the vertical rib lined up perfectly when it was tacked, when I laid in the final weld bead, it shrunk inward. This caused the panel to tip in at the top. The nature of the vertical stiffening bead makes it stand out even more and it looks like

Honestly, I'm not sure how to prevent this when having to weld thin sheet metal to what was effectely a much thinker structural element. I've done this in the past with a better degree of success but in this case, it tipped in way more than I anticipated and the more I tried to "fix" it, the worse it got. At this point I think the only "fix" is to cut the weld across the bead, and then use a slide hammer to pull it out. I don't think the fix is worth it given that this area really isn't seen. Have some time to think about that one.



Certainly not the end of the world, but not really craftsmanship that I can be proud of.

Posted by: Superhawk996 Apr 28 2020, 07:08 AM

With the bulkhead attached to the long, I turned my attention toward wanting to mock up the tunnel.

I have a donor tunnel but it needs quite a bit of work before I can even get to the point of a mock up.

Stripped the tar.



Spent a couple of solid hours drilling about 100 spot welds. I'll post some pictures of the tunnel internals once I get the last of the MIG welds cut and the tunnel split wide open.



This tunnel had a broken clutch cable tube that was repaired with some bolted in hooks. It will be worth seeing the fix from the inside for those that may be struggling with broken clutch tubes. After that I'll have to source the metric size tubes from RD and then rebuild the tunnel internals.

Posted by: bbrock Apr 28 2020, 07:42 AM

If you can figure out a way to pull that out enough to make it an outie rather than innie, a shrinking disc could work miracles to straighten that out after grinding down the welds. That's how I dealt with similar troughs left after welding my rear quarter panels back on. Too bad that spot is double-walled.

Posted by: Superhawk996 Apr 28 2020, 08:11 AM

Hmm. Maybe, but I think the main issue with attempting the shrinking disc is two fold.

1) the vertical bead. Shrinking usually works for large less crowned surfaces.
2) The thing that sucked the bead in is the U shaped structure behind it. As that puddle weld cools, it pull the non structural sheet metal toward the stiffer cooler U channel behind it.

might not hurt.

What I tried to do was to shink the panel back toward the sheetmetal with a little TIG torch heat. What it did was exactly the opposite. It actually sucked it toward the U channel.

If only I hadn't welded the interior side panel completely first. Then I could have had easy access to the back side of that panel and I could probably have bumped out the lip of the U channel.

Posted by: bbrock Apr 28 2020, 08:35 AM

Ah! I forgot about it being "glued" to the U-channel. And yes, the bead wouldn't allow it to go perfect like you might get on a flat panel, but I had a patch on the inner firewall where the disc pulled a beaded area flat enough that a thin skim of reinforced filler could smooth it over. That U-channel is the killer though. Bummer.

Posted by: Superhawk996 Apr 28 2020, 02:30 PM

Parts for the 2.4L six finally came back home from thier winter vacation in AZ at Ollies.

Just did a quick initial unpacking is encouraging. Case has cleaned up nicely after a media tumble. Has that nice grey magnesium look!




The engine mounting boss that cracked has been repaired very nicely.



More unpacking still to be done. Will post some more pictures later of macining done to main bearings and addition of shuffle pins, etc.

Now the problem is these parts go on the back burner until I figure out whether or not I have a job due to the ongoing panicdemic.

Posted by: Superhawk996 Apr 28 2020, 05:36 PM

Here's a comparison of the bearing web that was a little bit compromised by porosity.

Before:



After:

Posted by: Superhawk996 Apr 28 2020, 05:41 PM

Main Bearing Saddle with porosity

Before:



After line bore to standard bearing size:



I'm very happy with the clean up on this main bearing saddle. Perfection was out of the question. In the end the bearing is well supported and the really crunch looking porosity is gone.

Posted by: Superhawk996 Apr 28 2020, 05:49 PM

Overall the case was updated with shuffle pins, the oil bypass modification, addition of case savers to all cylinder studs, cylinder decks were machined, and of course new case studs all around.



I'm pretty sure the shuffle pins are overkill for a street engine that will get built to E spec, but once this is put together, I wanted the case to outlive me.

Posted by: Superhawk996 Apr 28 2020, 05:59 PM

Heads turned out great. Amazing what a good hot tank and media tumble can do for making parts look new again.



Heads were ported to 34mm to work with PMO ITB's.

Since I found a bent valve and a cracked valve retainer at teardown, these are completely new valves, guides, springs, guide seals, and then the heads were surfaced.



And of course, the rods were also had the small end bushings replaced and the big ends were resized.

Posted by: Superhawk996 Apr 28 2020, 06:21 PM

The big waste of time and money in this whole excercise was $140 spent trying to clean the oil cooler. Ollies spent a bunch of time getting it cleaned out but then it failed pressure testing. Unfortunatly they didn't mark where it was leaking. Trying to fix it is a non-starter since I don't feel like building up a fixture to pressure test it.



could be worse.

I started having second thoughts about cleaning it anyway. I hate reusing an oil cooler from an engine that I don't know the history of. It's always a little be hard to be sure that there isn't some schrapnel sitting in there just waiting to come out and destroy a new engine.

The main drawback was that 911 engine coolers are so pricey it seemed like it might be worth the gamble if this one were to come back cleaned and pressure tested.

Probably a sign that I was being foolish to use an old cooler on a fresh rebuild.

Posted by: mepstein Apr 28 2020, 07:17 PM

We would reuse a cooler out of a running engine but not one that was from a broken engine. I used the Stompski gauge to pressure check. If it failed, the cooler got tossed. Past experience was if a cooler had one leak and was fixed, it would shortly develop another. Are you doing a front cooler? If so, ditch the engine cooler and just use the front one.

Posted by: Superhawk996 Apr 29 2020, 05:49 AM

@http://www.914world.com/bbs2/index.php?showuser=10825

Thanks for sharing that learning from your shop. Makes sense. If something like an oil cooler weld has fatigued, even though you fix the one spot, there are likely to be more sports right in the vicinity that are on the verge of going bad.

Sort of the same thing I do with headlamps and tail lamps. When I replace them, I do it in pairs. Personal experience is roughly similar. By the time one reaches end of life, the other certainly isn't much further behind.

No front cooler for me so I'll eventually spring for a new engine cooler once I get this engine project back on track.

Posted by: porschetub Apr 29 2020, 08:51 PM

Strange practice doing it that way?,pressure test always comes first,have been through all the 911 cooler BS,had one fail with a steady drip,had to buy a replacement in my country that was $$$$,tested ok and washed it in solvent for several days ,SO much crap came out then got it ultrasonically cleaned (more crap)and then got a local alloy guru to weld on the angled oil fitting...really a hassle as the PO said the 914-6 cooler he supplied was fine .

Pic shows old cooler with 20 psi on it,IMO in the 911 motor with a good oil pump they can reach high pressure on first startup with cold oil,a used cooler can be a gamble but my replacement has been fine.

Posted by: Superhawk996 Apr 30 2020, 06:07 AM

@http://www.914world.com/bbs2/index.php?showuser=18995

Sorry you had so much trouble too. Coolers are a PITA that is why I've always just replaced them as standard practice on Type 1 and Type 4 rebuilds I've done. I know Ollies went though several versions of clean and test. I'm not sure I ever got the full story. All I know for sure is that it wasn't clean like this when it went away, so they definately spent some time trying to save it.

They said initially there was some sort of blockage that kept coming out of the ultrasonic tank as black stuff. I'd be willing to bet they tested 1st but with some sort of blockage it could have passed pressure test 1st and then failed later once they got the blockage cleared?

Glad you got your cooler issued under control. Those leaks don't look fun at all.

I've seen a number of 914/6 coolers pass though FS/WTB but I can't bring myself to pay that kind of money for a cooler that I have no idea where its been. . . . though that philosophy wasn't in practice back in my younger dating years. At this point I'd prefer a virgin cooler. However, that expense of a new cooler will be put off until the panicdemic subsides and my job situation is a known entitiy.

Posted by: mb911 Apr 30 2020, 06:36 AM

I can tell you from personal experience the new coolers are not as near nice as the original.. From a quality stand point.

Just did a mod the other day for someone.. This was used and clean but very nice.

Posted by: FourBlades Apr 30 2020, 10:41 AM

Engine is looking great!

That should last a long time.

Getting a new cooler will be worth it just for not worrying about debris from the old one.

Can't wait to see this car on the road!

John

Posted by: Superhawk996 Apr 30 2020, 11:02 AM

@http://www.914world.com/bbs2/index.php?showuser=8414

Thanks John! It's such a long slog starting with a car that should have been scrapped. The encouragement from the forum certainly helps keep me motivated.

Work in the short term will consist of the "free" work to fix the rust and replace the sheetmetal which was paid for over a year ago. No worries there.

Likewise I have enough already paid for parts to put together one of the 2.0L four cyclinders in my posession at the moment. So the engine work is "free" at this point.

Luckily I'm still working for now which is great. However, I don't know for how much longer as the L word is being rumored. The only upside to a layoff would be having time to work on the car with the parts that were previously paid for and sitting on hand.

At this point, based on slow progress to date, I'm shooting to be on road next summer. More time on my hands would pull that forward substantially.

Posted by: mb911 Apr 30 2020, 11:29 AM

@http://www.914world.com/bbs2/index.php?showuser=22428 I hear you.. I have made amazing progress on my car as I have not been working much and not many people buying parts so lots of free time.

Posted by: Superhawk996 May 3 2020, 12:20 PM

As promised, tunnel internals exposed.



This donor tunnel has a previous clutch tube repair made with a coule of threaded J-hooks. Overall, one of the cleaner repairs i've seen when this breaks loose.



However the mid-tunnel support braket also has been fatigued and cracked. It's hard to say which end broke 1st and which failure led to the other.



When I rebuild the tubes inside this tunnel, I'll do a little bit more reinfocement to make sure this doesn't happen again.

Posted by: Superhawk996 May 3 2020, 12:26 PM

@http://www.914world.com/bbs2/index.php?showuser=9892
It is a catch 22 isn't it? Age old truth. You can have time or you can have money. It is rare to have both at the same time.

Hopefully this crisis of fear will pass soon. Lot's of innocent folks that just want to make a living out there being harmed by all of this nonsense and thier inability to simply earn a living for themselves and thier family. That way we can all get back to buying those awesome parts from you .

Posted by: mb911 May 3 2020, 04:39 PM

Thanks for your support.. As you know not getting rich here but it fuels my habit.. Did make progress though again.. Almost have a runnner..

Posted by: Superhawk996 May 3 2020, 04:52 PM

@http://www.914world.com/bbs2/index.php?showuser=9892

I watched the YouTube from the walkaround a Saturday or two ago -- Car looks great. You're almost there. It will be so excitiing to see another car saved and on the road! Cant wait to meet you in person one of these days at a midwest meetup when I get mine running!

Posted by: mb911 May 3 2020, 07:02 PM

Sounds good..

Posted by: Superhawk996 May 25 2020, 04:55 PM

Haven't been posting much progess lately but I continue to chip away at stuff.

Spent some quality time with the sandblaster - what a miserable job. Everytime I do this work, I wonder why I didn't just shop it out.

Managed to get some donor sheetmetal stripped down. I was primarily focused on getting the tunnel done. Once you're suited up and ready to deal with the PITA of sand blasting, I try to get as much done in one shot as I can.



Luckily I got it done just before the hot humid weather rolled in - unlike last year!

Prepped the donor tunnel with Eastwood frame paint on the inside and Epoxy 2K on the outside.



Metric tubing to rebuild the internals has arrived from Restoration Design but I've been putting that job off for a bit.

Posted by: Superhawk996 May 25 2020, 05:03 PM

Since parts came back from Ollie's I've been needing to check the line bore and make sure there aren't any issues that need to be addressed.



Unfortunately I ran into too much variability from my dial bore gauge. Despite setting it up with gauge blocks I'm having trouble getting the accuracy I need. More accurate bore gauge supposed to be here tomorrow.

Generally seems to be nice and circular but according to my dial gauge I'm running a little bit more toward the high side than I had hoped but need to keep in mind that we're working with a 47 year old mag case here. Bore's are nice and round though!

Posted by: Superhawk996 May 25 2020, 05:06 PM

Next order of business was to meausre the crank while I wait for the new bore gauge.



Measurements generally look good.



Generally same story here. Measuring above wear limit but a little bit on the lower end. I've got to balance that against the fact that I was using a relatively heavy touch on the Micrometer to get the smaller numbers rather than being light and getting a more appealing number.

Posted by: Superhawk996 May 25 2020, 05:12 PM

While waiting on the bore gauge, I decided to mount up a set of Glyco bearings and try some plastigauge.



Coming up with 0.003" clearance which is a bit too loose for my liking. Would rather see 0.002" - 0.0025".

One option is to try ordering Porsche bearings but I hate to do that since my understanding is that Glyco was OEM supplier but there seem to be a lot of posts over on the bird forum that bearings from Porsche tend to run tigher. Wouldn't be unheard of for supplier to provide better spec parts to the OEM though.

Second option is to send the bearings out for specialized coating but that won't be cheap.

Third option is to cut the crank undersize but would rather not do that unless absolutely necessary.

Forth option - new crank assuming one can be located in better shape than what I already have.

We'll see what they measure with the more accurate bore gague but I really don't expect much change beyond a couple of tenths (0.0001"). Getting 0.0005" out via bearing tolerances is feasible but I don't think I'll get 0.001" out that way.

Since Porsche bearings are sold individually, I'll likely order 2 half shells and see if there is any promise there without having to go whole hog on a hunch.

Posted by: Superhawk996 May 27 2020, 05:35 PM

Not feeling any love from the new bore gauge. Accurate - yes. Repeatible - yes. Producing the desired anwer I'd like -- NO!

Well, I've now had the opportunity to measure the line bore and the bearing clearances.

The line bore is basically at the top end of the tolerance for the line bore size. I was hoping that it would have been bored at the bottom end. There is only a total tolerance of 0.0017" to work with. I didn't get an inspection sheet from Ollie's so I'll see what they think they bored it to but the bottom line is that I'm generally measuring 0.0005" or so over the upper limit of the line bore spec but I wouldn't put my hand tool accuracy up against a CMM measurement. We'll have to see what Ollies uses and where they think they lined bored it at.

My crank on the other hand is clearly toward the bottom end of the tolerance. Actually I'm only 0.0005" - 0.0007" off the Wear Limit.

My hope was for a tight line bore and being able to find a workable set of bearings based on some selective fitting. That doesn't appear to be in the cards.

Looks like there will be a 0.010" crank grind and the more expensive undersize bearings in my future. Win some, loose some. Bottome line: I'm coming up at 0.004" of measured main bearing clearance using micrometers and a digital bore gauge that are being set, checked, and repeatable with gauge blocks. Too much clearnace to assemble it as-is.

Any rework of the crank goes on the back burner for now. Potential COVID induced layoffs are a real possibility for me so expensive work will be put off until I know more.

Posted by: Superhawk996 Jul 5 2020, 09:44 AM

Well after an extended period of time away from the garage, it's back to the grind . . . literally.

Spent a lot of time on my back yesterday grinding spot welds to remove the floorpan from the driver side longitudinal.

It's nice to finally have wide open space. I had been putting off this job for quite a while. Dreaded job, dirty, noisy, and tough working upside down.



During the removal I discovered that the cross brace in front of the seats was completely eaten away about 3/8" from the driver side long. Luckily the long is completely unaffected. However, it's amazing that someone just fiberglassed over the rust perforation in the cross member as if it had no structural purpose. Simply amazing to me the that people did to these cars

I have some localized pinholes in the driver side outer bulkhead near the shift rod. I decided that since the inner bulkhead is trashed at the floor pan, I'd remove the inner in order to gain better access to the outer.

Damn rodents had been storing nuts in the area between the panels.



Damn previous owner somewhere along the line though they were making molds. Entire floor pan covered in fiberglass resin made this a dreadful job. My arms are still itching today. The good new is that except for a little resin clean up from the longitudinals and off the wheelhouse, all remnants of fiberglass are gone from the floorpan.



So with the driver side inner bulkhead removed, I can now get clear access to the outer in order to cut out the localized pin holes and replace with new metal from Restoration Design.

Posted by: Superhawk996 Jul 22 2020, 04:41 PM

OK so #1 main bearing half shells came in and I thought I'd post the results.

This single OEM Porsche main bearing #1 is $75 per ½ shell. $150 for the bearing pair. Not a set – just Porsche OEM bearing #1. I paid $165 for a whole SET of #1 - #7 bearings from Glyco – the OEM manufacturer.

I’ve been reading stories on interwebz and the bird forum that Porsche 911 bearings are better and have tighter tolerances. In the nature of a skeptic I wasn’t sure I could believe Web info so I ordered just this one bearing for comparison

Yup – it’s true.



Glyco aftermarket bearing set


Porsche bearing ordered from Pelican - delivered in Porsche bag, Porsche p/n on bag and on bearing.




Although the OEM Porsche bearing bears the Glyco makers mark, it has a Porsche part number and different markings. Even the maker mark is slightly different. I'm not suspecting counterfit parts but see it as evidence that these Glyco aftermarket bearings are indeed different.



Clearly made in a different plant and/or via different sorting / handling / marking process.

More importantly these bearings would give me a tighter fit by around 0.0009” or nearly 0.001”. That is huge. I’d like to target 0.0025”-.003” max but was measuring 0.004”+ on the Glyco bearings with both plastigauge (well really .003” gauge that didn’t appear to crush fully) and the math between bore gauge of the bearing and the crank as mastered off the micrometer used on the crank.

Yes - I only measured 1 point on this comparison but it aligns with the postings on the bird forums about differences as posted by those that invested more time measuring two or three points per bearing.

Very frustrating.


Looks like I may end up having to pony up $850 dollars for the OEM Porsche Bearings. The other option is upgrade pump to 76' 4 rib pump or maybe a 930 pump but that is just counting on pump volume to mask larger clearances that would be present by using the aftermarket bearings. Other option is grind crank undersize and be sure they grind to the high spec and then polish down as needed. Not ideal either.

Time to think about this a bit more.

Posted by: Dion Jul 23 2020, 09:10 AM

Glad to see progress on the chassis.
Sorry about the bearing situation. You’ve done a tremendous amount of research into that. Amazing the price tag on the Porsche OEM bearings. Tough call. I’d have to go with the Porsche ones. Sounds like less of a headache in the long run. Have you looked to see if any deals to be had with EBS Racing? Only a suggestion. When i was working on my 2056 their prices at the time were cheaper than the bird or the dealer. Not sure of today but worth a look maybe. Save some coin. Good luck.

Posted by: barefoot Jul 24 2020, 06:16 AM

Prepped the donor tunnel with Eastwood frame paint on the inside and Epoxy 2K on the outside.



Metric tubing to rebuild the internals has arrived from Restoration Design but I've been putting that job off for a bit.
[/quote]

A general question on clutch tube failures. If the tab washer is correctly fitted at the tranny bracket that holds the rotating wheel, all the thrust force on the clutch cable should be absorbed by this attachment and not on the clutch tube ???
There are so many failures of the clutch tube that my guess may not be quite accurate, any insight from experienced builders ?

Posted by: Superhawk996 Jul 24 2020, 06:51 AM

@http://www.914world.com/bbs2/index.php?showuser=15673

The clutch tube has a bent radius as it travels through the tunnel.

Your point would be correct IF the cable traveled in a straight line. Given that the clutch cable tunnel tube does have a radius to it, there are side forces imposed on the cluth tube.

As you apply tension to the clutch cable, it wants to revert to a straight path, but, of course it can't being constrained by the tube. As it attempts to go straight, it imposes side load on the tunnel tube.

In normal use the side load on the tunnel tube is managable. The problem of side force get exaggerated by dragging / unlubed cables, the clutch cable wheel getting bound up and not rotating freely, high force pressure plates, and just plain old fatigue of the brazing over 50 years of use. Remember typical life cycle for a car from this era wasn't even 10 years, 100,000 miles.

Picture below should help visualize the radius of the clutch cable guide tube. In the picture you can see two things.

1) The clutch tube has been repaired with the "hook" fix at the front end of the tube.
2) The stamped braket that supports the tube behind the shifter his broken / torn.

Hard to say which occurred 1st but it give you a sense that things do fatigue and break either the support braket and/or the tube attachements.

Posted by: barefoot Jul 24 2020, 05:20 PM

In my case the clutch tube had seperated form the front of the tunnel and gotten itself onto the WRONG side of the shifter mechanism, Wore a groove into the tube as I got the car. I was able to fashion a clamp from a conduit bracket & bolt it ti the tunnel side. Worked OK after that.

Barefoot

Posted by: Superhawk996 Jul 26 2020, 08:16 AM

@http://www.914world.com/bbs2/index.php?showuser=15673 .

That is amazing that it was clunking around in the tunnel and hitting the shifter that long to wear a hole in the clutch tube like that.

Good job getting it clamped back down!

Posted by: Superhawk996 Jul 26 2020, 08:23 AM

Been a little distracted by side jobs.

Did a repair for my neighbor's tractor for some sort of cover to the hydraulics. Since I occasionally get use of the tractor for winter it was only a fair trade.



OEM part is diecast zinc pot metal. It had broken the ears off the cylindrical portion.

Pot metal is a PITA. Can't really weld it per se. However, I do have some Aladdin 3 in 1 rod that comes in handy for pot metal repairs. It is sort of a cross between soldering with an OxyAcetylene torch and brazing.

The problem is that the difference between being hot enough to flow the rod and the material just turning into mush is only a few degrees apart.

I was able to get it "glued" back together with the Aladdin rod and then remachined it but don't have much confidenece in the long term durability since I don't know what sort of loads are on it.

I decided to make a replacment out of 7075 Aluminum. That one should last.

Posted by: Superhawk996 Jul 26 2020, 08:30 AM

The other distraction was trying to fix an AAR valve that had the heater wire intermittently shorting out to the housing. Not Good

I tried to set it up in a 4 jaw chuck to peel off some of the metal housing tube that supports the wire where it exits the housing.



Bottom line: Complete failure and waste of several hours of work but at least it fun trying to save it.

In the end just as the bit was cutting though the last of the metal tube, it grabbed a few strands of the copper and shredded the little bit of the wire insulation that I had just gotten cleaned off.

Having failed, I completely disassembled the AAR down to the internals. Looks like this could be ripe for some sort of conversion to have a stepper motor drive the physical AAR valve. Obviously that would require an Arduino or something in there to drive the stepper motor but it could have opportunity to "tune" the AAR as the vehicle warms up.

Anyway -- failure for now and something to think about for the future.

Posted by: Superhawk996 Jul 26 2020, 08:39 AM

So back to some real work.

I had to pull the shifter bushing support off the old sheetmeal and get the pass-thru hole positioned properly.



Welded it to the new sheetmetal and got it painted with some Eastwood frame coating to prevent surface rusting until I can get 2K epoxy on the exterior.



An then spent a couple more quality hours in the engine compartment fitting it up and trimming for welding today.



I don't know what it is about working in the "hell hole" but it seems like everytime I get scooted under the car I realize I've forgotten some tool, my sribe, sharpie or whatever.

Posted by: Superhawk996 Jul 26 2020, 05:17 PM

Outer bulkhead panel is done. I have the leftover piece of the panel outboard of the shifter left and won't be using it. If anyone is needs it, it's yours for the cost of shipping.

Seems to take forever to get even these little panels installed.



Really pleased with the weld penetration.



Nice and strong and will clean up with minimal weld clean up from the front side when it's time to do the finish work.



Looks like I can spend some time after work this week getting the inner panel ready for install.

Posted by: BeatNavy Jul 26 2020, 05:48 PM

That looks really clean and well done. Nice job. That lower firewall is NOT easy!

Posted by: Superhawk996 Aug 2 2020, 10:45 AM

Thought I'd be welding in the last portion of the driver side inner bukhead panel but it turns out that I've got two headaches.

One is real and I don't feel like welding right now. Probably dehydrated and need to drink more water and a couple Ibuprofen will help. Hopefully I'll be fixed shortly and welding in an hour or so.

The other headache was the repair panel I purchased from RD is missing a form feature to clear the floorpan stiffening dart. I'm mildly disappointed in RD. I really like these guys! But, the 325L panel that I purchased from them needed way more fabrication work than the similar part on the passenger side that I purased from AA for only about $10 more.

As I was finishing up panel prep yesterday, I noticed the lack of the floorpan form feature. Initially I was thinking maybe that floor pan stiffening dart isn't on the driver side.

Quick mockup of the floorpan has a dart there.



More work to prep the panel needed before I can weld it in.

In addition to this form feature, I also had to completely do the weld flange inside the tunnel. Yeah, Yeah . . . I know all panels are going to need some tweaking. But the AA panel on the passenger side had the tunnel flange formed by the stamping dies and fit the tunnel near perfectly as received. All in all, this was a couple additional hours of panel prep that I didn't have to do on the AA panel used for the passenger side.



Don't get me wrong. I'd still go to RD for panels but was just surprised and/or disappointed that I had to do this work on the RD driver side part and not on the AA passenger side part. Likewise, I can't say with certaintly that the AA driver side part is any better. Just posting as information but not trying to run down RD.

Anyway, it as a good chance to get the floor pan halves and the donor tunnel in for a quick mockup. Nowhere near ready to weld in floorpan yet but sometimes just seeing a mockup give me a sense of hope & progress.



11/10/2020 update: have heard from @http://www.914world.com/bbs2/index.php?showuser=8858 at RD that the 325L panel stamping has been revised to add the floor pan formation to more easily fit up. Great company, great customer service on all that I’ve ordered and most importantly incorporating continuous improvement to make their products even better!

Posted by: Superhawk996 Aug 3 2020, 02:39 AM

Got up at 4:30am meeting with Asia only to find out they cancelled the meeting about an hour ago after I had already gone to bed

Driver side lower bulkhead sucessfully installed last night.



Time to move on to another section of bad sheetmetal and the last before I can install floorpan.

Next up: The driver pedal box area and driver side wheelhouse.

Posted by: Superhawk996 Aug 3 2020, 08:03 AM

This jalopy supposedly was a Florida car. I did find some sand in the passenger side longitudinal when I cut that apart which was completely replaced. Video below is of the driver side.


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PXeAENauvsY



Looks like I'll be at least doing a small trap door in the driver side longitudinal to get the rest of the sand out. There were small rust holes in the rear portion of the front wheel wheel to longitudinal area - I'm pretty sure this is how the sand got in there.

Will also need to run a borescope into driver side long just to make sure. Everything is solid with a pick and no signs of pinholes but better safe than sorry.

Posted by: tygaboy Aug 3 2020, 08:07 AM

It's fascinating to me how we each approach the repair process. I've done two cars worth of that lower firewall/rear floor repair and it wouldn't have occurred to me to install the firewall before the floor.

Not challenging your approach at all, just fun to see the other ways folks do things.

Regardless, you're moving right along and it's looking great!

Posted by: Superhawk996 Aug 3 2020, 08:14 AM

@http://www.914world.com/bbs2/index.php?showuser=19241

Considering my aproach was to build the passenger side innner wheel well and long from the inside out to avoid cutting the rear fender it's no wonder I'm doing it backwards. Plus, I need the floorpan out to better access the driver footbox and wheelhouse area. Had I been able to save the tunnel and/or more of the lower 1" perimeter, I would have done it differently.

My thought was that the floorpan doesn't offer any vertical stiffness or vertical structure which would move around my suspension points in Z height.

The floor pan does prevent matchboxing fore/aft movement though and I've tried to brace this movement with the diagonal brace.

The potential for movement keeps me measuring my suspension pickup points like an OCD maniac though.

Posted by: Superhawk996 Aug 9 2020, 08:33 AM

Well in an effort to get all the sand out of the driver longitudinal, I had to cut some holes.

The front driver side longitudinal had some minor rust at the transition to the floorpan. This was an obvious place to put an access hole. It won't be seen once reapaird and the floopan is reinstalled.



The rear was obvious too. There was a poor repair of the driver side jack point and I wanted to see what was under there. Usually it is rusted out in this area from the pyramid holding water and debris leading to localized rot. Sure enough.



Having removed the sand over the course of several hours of swearing and cutting up my hands manipulating a small section of 3/8" vinyl hose (attached to shop vac) back and forth in the long though these access holes, I moved on.

Demolition of the pedal box area was entertaining. The floor pan that normally covers the rear mounting point for the front cross member was basically gone. Simply covered with a skim of fiberglass, rotted sheetmetal, and of course undercoating to hide the whole show.



Well at least I'm moving forward and no longer working in the engine compartment for a while. We'll see about that because I might be cutting a surgical flap via the driver side wheel house inner in order to properly repair that driver side jack point. We'll see.

Posted by: Superhawk996 Aug 9 2020, 08:50 AM

The aftermarket bearing vs. Porsche OEM bearing saga continues.

I ordered two half shells at about $45 each that serve as main bearings for bearings #2 through #7.

I was hoping that they would measure a little tighter than aftermarket Glyco as bearing #1 half shells did.



Nope. Well, maybe by 0.0001" - 0.0002" but I was hoping for something significant.

Posted by: 914forme Aug 9 2020, 10:22 AM

What is the goal?

From what I see you have had .0004 and .0003 wear on the bearing surfaces. What are your crank journals.

General rule of thumb is your looking for crank bearing clearance of 0.0020 - 0.0025.

I know you most likely know this, and or have access to the people who do know being part of th automotive industry. But with out the magical numbers and what these are once in the saddle and cap. We are just guessing with the clues given. Unless it was detailed a while ago and I did not read it.

Posted by: bkrantz Aug 9 2020, 08:43 PM

With all the crimes committed with undercoating, maybe it should be locked up and sold only to those with good intentions (and skills).

Posted by: Superhawk996 Aug 10 2020, 03:52 AM

@http://www.914world.com/bbs2/index.php?showuser=2388

Agree with Goal of 0.0025 - 0.0003". The issue I had was that Line bore is at the high end of spec and the crank is about 0.0005" above wear limit and main bearing clearance was coming in at about 0.004" +/- a few tenhs, measued with bore gage and seemed to have a lack of complete crush on 0.003" Platigauge.

I'll probably do another trial assembly with crank nose bearing in place to double check all this. But it's looking more like crank is going to have to go undersize to get to 0.0025". Of course that also means undersize main bearings. This is why I was trying to figure out if there was something to be gained with the super expensive OEM bearings from Porsche.

Will likely do a triple check with the next size up of Plastigauge too that cover 0.004" and larger.

Posted by: 914forme Aug 10 2020, 05:05 AM

Got it, best of luck

Posted by: Superhawk996 Aug 15 2020, 12:36 PM

Well the time has come to do the part I've been dreading for a while. Time to fix the pedal box area.

Part of the dread was over stripping of the seam sealer from the area under the gas tank. My Wurth flail wheel won't fit in there. Turns out it wasn't so hard to do with a drill and really stiff wire wheel. Access sucks but it was doable.



Next up was the need to create a tuna can flap to gain access to the area. The weld seam will go right below the area where the flap is normally spot welded down. This will give me a nice area to weld to with double metal thickness.



And as viewed inside the cabin.



Currently prepping the new sheet metal with POR15 Metal Prep as I add this build entry.

I've tried both Ospho and POR15 Metal Prep and I'm leaning toward the Metal Prep as my preferred product. Just seems to work better for me and leaves a thin layer of zinc that holds off the surface rust until I can get primer on it.

Posted by: Superhawk996 Aug 16 2020, 04:08 PM

Well I knew this was going to be a PITA and it's turning out to be that way.

Initially I was hoping to use the donor sheet metal as-is without having to remove the suspension point that anchors the steering crossmember at the front firewall area.

There was simply too much car to car variation to make it work. I had initially marked the cross car postion of the pedal sled & master cylinder mount as reference.

There was no way to get that dimension to where it started and to simultaneously have the downward turned flange of the wheelhouse in the right place.

So off with the old pick up point. I have a new one from RD anyway just in case. I guess that was a good call.



The positive side is that I can now sandblast the corrosion that was trapped internally.

Next problem was to make sure the floorpan character lines lined up between left side and the right side AND to have the pedal sled fit.

More mockup.



Well, when all is said and done, with everything where it belongs, I have about a 6-7mm gap between the panels.

Not insurmountable but it goes to show how much variability there can be beween donor sheetmetal and the vehicle it's going into. I would have expected a 3mm gap simply from the kerf when I split the panel over a year ago. The other 3mm is basically car to car variation.

It will all work out after I trim a thin gap filler and I'll be sure to use a copper backer to prevent welding problems. . . . I hope.

Posted by: Superhawk996 Aug 19 2020, 05:25 AM

Weeknight project was to get three tachometers bench tested to verify functionality.

Quick overview of setup details in the video. Currently working to setup as a little Arduino program that can do this without all the test equipment. This was done manually with a frequency generator controlling the frequency of the pulses to make sure the setup with a MOSFET driver was going to work to drive the coil.


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EO3XCJQ9tW4

Posted by: bbrock Aug 19 2020, 08:07 AM

That's awesome! If you get the Arduino setup working, I may have to copy it. Nice work on that pedal box too.

Posted by: Root_Werks Aug 19 2020, 08:53 AM

I haven't been keeping up on this thread enough, wow! It's come a long way, keep at it!

Posted by: bkrantz Aug 19 2020, 09:13 PM

Nice work on the pedal box area. That's one I did not have to repair on mine, and glad to skip it.

Posted by: Superhawk996 Aug 23 2020, 03:18 PM

PM sent.

Arduino now functional to run the tach up and down by about 1000 RPM increments to avoid sudden changes that tend to bounce the needle off the pins.

If anyone wants a copy of the Arduino code, PM me, it's yours for the asking. Not elegant (I'm not a software guy) but functional.


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=phWebSTri-w



Equipment needed:
12v power supply or battery
Sparkfun.com MOSFET shield
Arduino Uno
12v coil (can also use a inductor of about 2-9mH and a ballast resistor)
Associated jumper/test wires with alligator clips

Posted by: brcacti Aug 23 2020, 05:12 PM

"Where the heck did the year go?"

The older you are it seems the faster the years go by.
So drive that 914 when you can

Posted by: Superhawk996 Aug 23 2020, 07:12 PM

@http://www.914world.com/bbs2/index.php?showuser=23302

There, I updated the header for you. It has gotten out of date Purchased in April of 2018 or something close to that. I did lose the better part of spring & summer 2019 to a skin graft surgery but that's just a lame excuse for not having gotten more done.

I can't wait to drive it but I'm not even close yet. I hope to have all structural sheet metal and floorpans resolved by Jan/Feb.

Then the real fun begins. Need to put engine together, check out a transmission, and refresh a bunch of suspension stuff.

I'll be lucky to have it off the build cart by the 3 year anniversary. What was I thinking trying to save such a dog

Posted by: 914_7T3 Aug 23 2020, 07:27 PM

It was the right thing to do!

Posted by: Superhawk996 Aug 24 2020, 05:54 AM

@http://www.914world.com/bbs2/index.php?showuser=20991



Appreciate the words of encouragement.

My grandfather once told me that doing the right thing was rarely simple or the easiest path. Wisdom.

Still buying a CA car as the starting point next time.

Posted by: brcacti Aug 24 2020, 12:32 PM

Hello, you seem very handy with working on cars. I am NOT a mechanic but just do lots of very small things to keep it up, My last 914 was also in the 80 for two years had it I think 1982 to 84, was a fun car signal orange in great shape but then it was only about 9 years old when I bought it and 11 years old when I sold it. Should gave kept it but we all make so many mistake especially ME, hehehe. I seem to have bought a survivor in mid 2019 and just go lucky I guess, seems to be in great shape but have not looked at th longs that you mention. I have looked at the hell hole, under both trunks carpet and almost no signs of rust. I am guessing it was always garage kept, I think if they are not they are doomed. I also have a medical problem just doagnosed within a couple of weeks insulin resistant. Not quite pre diabetes or diabetes. Now I have to avoid ALL carbs just eat protein (meats) and fats/protein (nuts) and vegetables in mass. I understand completely when you get any king of medical problem you slow or stop everything

Posted by: Superhawk996 Sep 5 2020, 08:06 AM

Well, Labor Day weekend is here. I had big plans to get a big chunk of sheetmetal work done. Unfortunately life doesn't work that way.

My beloved Lincoln Precision TIG 225 has taken a dump.



Worse yet, depite my previous love for Lincoln Electric, I fear I'm on the verge of a bad break up.

Lincoln Customer Service / Tech Support has proven themselves to be absolutely useless over the course of this past week.

My welder is now ramping up to about 80A-100A immediately after starting the arc. Of course this blows major holes in sheetmetal. It does the same thing regarless of what Amptrol is attached to it. It appears that it is a control board issue. The replacement board is about $900. Keep in mind that is 1/3 the cost of a new machine. Several calls to local welder repair shops seem to indicate that they belive it is a board issue but of course they can't confirm that without me schlepping a ~ 400lb machine to and from thier shop. I no longer have a utility trailer so any schelpping would involve a U-haul rental and even more wasted time.

For it's part, Lincoln Electric hides the detailed board schematics and any technical block diagrams of the board theory of operation behind their website which is only accessible if your a Lincoln Dealer or Authorized Repair Shop.

To make matters worse, the board is heavily potted on once side with the usual rubbery potting coupound. The other side has what appears to be an epoxy dip coating. This basically renders the board unserviceable according to a couple of the shops that I found that repair other boards for Miller, Hobart, ESAB, etc. I sort of get this from a reliability standpoint, these coatings shield the board from metallic dust and debris that could otherwise wreak havok. But come on. No once will touch the damn thing! One repair shop said they would try for $100/hr diagnostics & repair time and materials but no gurantee.



So I've ordered a replacement board but ouf course it isn't here yet. In fact they haven't even charged my card yet which makes me wonder if the company I ordered it from is having trouble getting it from Lincoln Electric.

Moral of the story, my next welder will be blue instead of red.

I guess I'll switch gears and do some work on engine cases, bearing fits, etc.

Posted by: mb911 Sep 5 2020, 08:12 AM

Oh man don't go blue.. The same issues.. Lincoln does pretty good job on their machines.. We had 12 millers at school recently come in new in the box and all 12 boards were shot before even able to use the machines once.. Let me know if you need any help with Lincoln.. I am a national trainer for them and NC3 so I have some really great contacts there

Posted by: Superhawk996 Sep 5 2020, 08:27 AM

@http://www.914world.com/bbs2/index.php?showuser=9892

Thanks for the offer for help Ben. I may take you up on that. I'm going to check some of the big wirewound resistors this weekend that contribute to the the Micro Start circuit and/or Stabilizer Bypass and then just wait for a board hoping that does the trick. Unfortunately at Lincoln I can't even seem to get in touch with a person that actually knows the TIG 225 with any level of detail other than what I can read for myself out of the owners manual. One customer service rep said he would have a Precision TIG 225 expert call me. No call. Of course for my own stupidity, I din't ask for a name and a direct phone # to said expert. Next week.!

I can't see the point in pitching the rest of the hardware over a bad board. In my mind the transformer based machines may be heavier than crap but the transformers rarely fail. A modern inverter sure looks appaling from a weight / transport standpoint.

I appreciate the insight on Miller before I do something rash!

So many of our Industrial Giants have simply gone to a throw away mentality, it really makes me sad. To say the least, am I really supposed to scrap the whole rest of the chassis and transformers just beause a Printed Circuit board failed.

Posted by: mb911 Sep 5 2020, 08:43 AM

Send me an email and I will send you Dan's info

Posted by: bbrock Sep 5 2020, 10:58 AM

Oh no! That truly sucks. I'm feeling better about my ancient little Hobart. I don't think there is a single PCB to be found in it - not even a little switch circuit. Of course, they are owned by Miller now but not when it was built. I sometimes drool over the thought advancing to a nice modern Miller or Lincoln but maybe I'm better off.

The power woodworking tool industry is even worse for racing to the bottom. Most of the old major brands have been bought out at least once by conglomerates and chopped up into pieces. Even Delta bit the dust. Finding parts for tools more than a few years old is nearly impossible. One reason I gravitate to Makita is because I can still easily find parts for 30 year old tools. It's weird because in some ways power tools have never been better and more affordable, but there is no commitment to the customer any more. Like you said, throw away culture.

Good luck getting the welder repaired. Sorry it happened at the beginning of a long weekend.

Posted by: mb911 Sep 5 2020, 10:59 AM

Funny thing is miller is owned by ITW and Lincoln is still family run which is amazing to me

Posted by: Superhawk996 Sep 7 2020, 07:55 AM

OK - Time to put the Porsche OEM bearing vs Glyco aftermarket thing to bed.

The OEM Porsche bearings did reduce clearance by 0.001" vs. the aftermarket Glyco.

Recall I had a OEM bearing #1 and a pair of shells for bearing #2 -7. I put the OEM 1/2 shell bearings in postions #1 & #7 and then rechecked with Red Plastigauge for 0.002" - 0.006" this time given that I had some Green (.001" - 0.003") that didn't seem to compress fully when I did this the last time around.



Results - Bearing #1 and #7 running at 0.003".

Number 7 Porsche OEM



Number 1 Thrust Bearing Porsche OEM



Number 2 thru 6



The good news is that all the rod clearances are looking good. Tightest was 0.001" and the other five were 0.0015" - 0.002" trending the tighter end at 0.0017" - 0.0018" or something like that (would need to measure with the bore gauge to know exactly).



I now feel really confident that both the digital bore indicator method and the Plastigauge are in agreement that the Glyco bearings were giving me right around 0.004" of clearance (too much).

Bottom line, crank is going to have to go to Ollies to have the mains ground 0.010" under and to see if they can just put a light (0.0001" - 0.0002") polish put on the rod journals.

Posted by: 914_7T3 Sep 7 2020, 01:46 PM

Progress is good!

Posted by: Superhawk996 Sep 12 2020, 04:16 PM

Praise the Lord! Welder is fixed.

Many thanks to Ben for his advice and also for hooking me up with a knowledgable contact within Lincoln.

I wish I could say it was something simple but that didn't happen.

After having thouroughly checked out the basics like wiring and checking a couple of the big wire wound resistors, capacitors, adjusting the high frequency start point gap, and bunch of other stuff the only thing really left was the board.

Conversation with Ben's Lincoln contact convinced me that it was time to open the box with the high dollar circuit board that becomes unreturnable once opened.

Turns out that was the fix.

Laid down several good beads on .039" sheetmetal without blowing the HUGE holes that had previously occurred when the welder would surge the current uncontrollably at the start or end of a bead.

The unfortunate thing is no one can explain why the board went bad. As a former electronics tech, I've seen it happen before. Failure without explanation. Sometimes it just happens to circuits with fancy silicon in them. It sure aggravates me when I can't find a root cause though! New board is a revised Revision level so Lincoln certainly changed something on the board but no way to know what it was. Could be a transistor they can no longer get . . . or it could be that they changed a transistor that was operating too close to it's limits and had a penchant for failing. No way to know.

I'll keep my fingers crossed this board lasts at least 10 years like the 1st.

Back to on the car tomorrow.

Posted by: mb911 Sep 12 2020, 04:21 PM

I am glad that Dan could help.. He bleeds lincoln so he is the guy to ask.

Posted by: Superhawk996 Sep 17 2020, 10:56 AM

Quick post. Been super busy and not much time to spend welding. Hoping for better this weekend.

Spent some time filling the holes that got blown when welder 1st stareted acting up. Still have a couple more that need attention.

Cut a 4mm thick strip to fill the gap between the two panels and then got it pasted in position using a 0.040" tungsten and .035" MIG wire as filler rod. All done at very low current to hold it together temporarily with temporary tack welds largely just sitting on top.

Will use a copper backer this weekend and get the whole thing sewn together without blowing out the 4mm filler.



The whole area that sits below the brake reservoir then needs to be Ospho treated to address that surface rust before I put the flap back in place.

Posted by: Superhawk996 Sep 19 2020, 05:15 PM

Closing in on the worst of the pedal box area. It is just such a pain in the butt to work on this area without a rotiserrie. The wiring harness is tie wrapped up to the steering column mount and it is constantly touching or snagging my welding helmet.

Got the area with the 4 mm filler burned in.



Used a copper backer that was held into place to help ensure good penetraiton and complete fusion of the 4 mm filler without burn through.



Totally happy with the penetration. Strong as the base metal.



Then finished things off by filling the holes blown by the bad welder and making sure I had good weld penetration across the top.



Dabbed some Ospho onto all surfaces. We had a bunch of humidity here that put a light surface rust on the panel. That will get the surface rust up under the tank area under control too.

Did a quick check of the suspension point vs. my reference point on the floor and movement of was only about 1 mm which is awesome.

Next up. Put the tuna can flap back and then attack the section of the wheel house that had to be removed.

Posted by: Superhawk996 Sep 21 2020, 06:12 AM

Well rather than put the tuna can flap back, I decided to get started on the work.

There were still remnants of fiberglass and epoxy resin that needed removing. Let me say that there is a special place in hell for those that use fiberglass to "repair" sheetmetal rather than man up and do it properly.

In the process of getting the last of the resin off the driver longitudinal, I found this nice stress crack. Not unheard of to have stress cracking here, but, I'll contend that someone drove this car around for quite a while with the passenger long completely roached and not able to bear it's fair share of the structural burden.



Since weekends have a way of disappearing too fast, I didn't get far with the wheel house but I was able to begin to trim away the donor sheetmetal.



Rough mockup





Maybe with a little luck this week I can get the final fitup done and get this tacked in before the weekend.

Posted by: Superhawk996 Oct 12 2020, 10:59 AM

Finished up the peal box area. What a PITA.

Front firewall / bulkhead sheetmetal is only about 0.030" which would be hard enough to weld but add a little surface rust on the backside and difficult access and it's a recipie for just blowing holes.



Copper backers cleco'd in place made it doable but I'm just glad to be done with this area. Final step is to use a shrinking wheel to suck out a little bit of the oil cannning that got created when the tuna can flap was bent up and out of the way. Bending the sheetmetal stretches it ever so slightly and shrinking it is the only way to get it back.


Attached image(s)

Posted by: Gint Oct 12 2020, 03:59 PM

2 years seems more like twenty minutes any more.

Ambitious project, but you're getting right to it.

This is another thread I'm going to have to take the time to read all the way through.

Posted by: Superhawk996 Nov 29 2020, 08:06 PM

November wasn't terribly productive since I was traveling for a couple weeks.

Manged to get the area under the gas tank cleaned up, seam sealed and laid down a light coat of primer to keet it all from surface rusting.







and did same for interior side.



Then turned my attention toward the fun work of overhead welding in the driver side longitudinal patch to fill in the area that I cut out because it was rusted and it also allowed access to get the sand out of the driver side long.



Brazed the parking brake cable tubes to the rear bulkhead.



A good chunk of time has been spent playing with other miscellaneous parts. Lots of ultrasonic cleaning of fasteners and engine parts in anticipation of a rebuild this spring.

And of course a simple job like just wanting to swap the rear caliper adjusting screws over from my old calipers to the new PMB calipers was 50/50. One was super easy. the other of course was stuck and pre-stripped. Not a hard project but easily a hour detour trying to get the 4mm hex cap off. Finally resorted to the old welding tricks.



Bugger

Here's to hoping for a more productive December.

Posted by: Jett Nov 29 2020, 10:50 PM

Phil, just read this entire thread and was amazed by the passion and skill!

Can’t wait to see this one on the road!

Posted by: bbrock Nov 30 2020, 08:58 AM

Nice work! That peddle area is not a fun place to work so I'm sure that feels good to have it done, and done well. I can sure relate to the hours spent trying to get a stubborn nut or bolt loose Looking forward to the December progress.

Posted by: Superhawk996 Dec 12 2020, 07:26 PM

Driver side long is finally all prepped.



Rust repaired at the front edge with a patch, pinhole performations that got started under the fiber glass matt are filled. Who would think rust would start from inside the car!

Stress crack at the hand brake divot was welded up. The entire long was treated with Ospho twice - wire wheeling out any neutralized rust twice. Finally prepped for a coat of epoxy primer to keep it from flash rusting in the future.

Left an unpainted track where the new floor pan welds in.



At this point, I'll start prepping the floor pan for welding tomorrow. Excited to be getting close to the milestone of having floor pans installed.

Posted by: Superhawk996 Dec 12 2020, 07:30 PM

The other exciting project for the day was inspecting and trial fitting a freshly ground crank from Ollies to see if the bearing clearance issues is fixed.

Remember from the last installment of the crank saga that I had bearing clearances that were at 0.004"+ and the OEM bearings didn't quite get it there.

Crank went to Ollies to take the mains and rods to 0.010" under and for the rest of the complete spa treatment (Magnaflux, heat treat, balancing, micropolish, etc.).

Initially checked it for straightness as a double check post heat treat.



Then checked all journals on a go/no-go basis using gauge blocks to set up my micrometer. Then measured mains to get an idea of where they are at. Mostly running at 2.2334" vs spec of 2.2331" - 2.2338". Sweet.

Then used plastigauge to check clearances. OEM 0.010" undersize bearings are used across all bearings.



Bearing #7 is now at 0.002" and Bearing #1 is between 0.0015"-0.002". Huge improvment.





With good uniformity across all the rest of the bearings with absolutely no more than 0.003" clearance anywhere. Spec is 0.0011" - 0.0028". Success



Unfortunately Ollies was unable to directly source the OEM rod bearings to me. Still waiting on those before I can plastigauge the rods.

Posted by: bbrock Dec 13 2020, 10:38 AM

Nice work straightening out those crank clearances. Good to have that behind you.

Excited to see that floor pan go in. I think that was the most momentous milestone for me in my entire build. It was the moment when a rusted out heap of scrap became a solid chassis in my mind.

Posted by: Superhawk996 Dec 21 2020, 07:49 AM

Rod bearings arrived just in time for the weekend.

Ollies Recommended Clevite 77 bearings which I purchased directly from thier supplier. Clevite is a subdivision of Mahle. These bearings have a Calico CT-1 dry film coating that is about 0.0003" thick. They are promoted as a race bearing which usually I wouldn't be game for but my thought was that they are still a Clevite 77 tri-metal bearing underneath. Worst thing should be that the dry film wears away, opens up clearance by 0.0003" and I'm no worse off. Asuming that I have good clearances to start with. As an added bonus they are substantially cheaper than Porsche OEM Rod bearings. Quick check of the bird forum shows quite a few successful users of Clevite bearings in 911 engines as a double check to Ollies recommendation.



Spent pretty much a decent 8 hour day just trial fitting rod bearings and doing a mock assembly on the mains bearings. Last time I did the mains, I was only checking clearances and forgot to reassemble the crank and just give it a spin. At this point I'm getting sort of tired of removing, installing, and torquing the 11 case though bolts 13 acorn fasteners and the worst one that is hidden inside the cam chain area!

So the rod bearings worked out great.

All rods came up at 0.002" clearance with spec being 0.0011" - 0.0034". Perfect!






Then I moved on to mock up the whole crank into the case to make sure there are no assembly issues that would lead to binding or tight spots.

Thankfully no issues but watching Ian's video a few weeks back of the Bumblebee motor binding after a line bore sure had me a bit apreshensive. Thankfully - no issues. Crank rotated perfectly with only light hand force.


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x1rovlniCLo


At this point I'm so relieved to have the bottom end fully sorted.

Posted by: mb911 Dec 21 2020, 08:25 AM

1 tip I will give you is to buy the RSR rocker shaft seals.. I am now doing that in my engine over the winter.. Remember zero miles on my engine.

Posted by: Superhawk996 Dec 21 2020, 08:48 AM

@http://www.914world.com/bbs2/index.php?showuser=9892

Only 1 tip for free? Will definately do the RSR seals as belt and supenders approach!

Rocker shafts. So much yet to be done. I haven't even cleaned & inspected my rocker shafts yet. I rember thinking that I probably was going to have to replace a few of the fasteners and/or the conical jambs. I guess we will see how they clean up and/or how pitted they are from corrosion.

Still on purchse list:
P&C's -- contemplating Nickies for weight save and way to push up C.R. a bit.
Cams -- engine was CIS so I need E spec cams.
New Oil Cooler -- Ollies was unable to clean the OEM part that came off this engine.
Contemplating a new 4 rib pump -- just in case I need to go external cooler later (remember that C.R. bump?) but I'm really not wanting to mount an external cooler.
Induction & EFI.

Let's face it, this engine won't be installed & running for a long time! Plan is to put 2.0L four in 1st while I sort out the nuances of the 2.4L six build and conversion.

Posted by: mb911 Dec 21 2020, 08:54 AM

I would not do nickies unless you are set on track.. I have cast iron with nikisal lining done by melenium and that sure saves a bunch of money. As far as rockers and shafts contact Craig Garrett he is in MI and has done, heads, rockers etc for me for the last 15 years. Then for oil pump just have your pump modified for improved flow. I believe that is about $250 from Supertec to have that done..

Posted by: Superhawk996 Dec 21 2020, 09:23 AM

Not intended for track but I'm all about keeping the weight of the /6 conversion down for for improved handling and the weight/HP ratio low so I can at least keep up with a 2020 Toyota Camry (0-60 ~5.8 sec) .

Plus, how can you resist jewelry like this?



These are 100mm and slated to go toward GA004310. GA000099 stays 2.0L stock.

Posted by: Superhawk996 Dec 21 2020, 09:47 AM

In addition to the 2.4L engine work I was also able to get the driver side floor pan trimmed and tacked into position.

Prior to welding in the floor pan, I wanted to get another round of body measurements to make sure things hadn't moved around too much with the pedal box area repair.

Things are pretty much the same as the last two measurements. Minor improvement in the cross car diagonal that came about from relocating the rear most driver side attachement point as part of the pedal box repair.




Here is the driver side floor, not yet fully installed. Since I chose not to go the rotisserie route, I'm having to do all welding overhead. Although not overly difficult, it does lead to a sore neck and shoulders after a while.

I think I counted something like 65-70 hole punches when I was prepping the panel. I probably only got about 15 of them puddle welded this weekend.



Next order of business is to rebuild the tunnel tubes. I belive the tunnel will need to be installed prior to the other 1/2 of the floorpan in order to be able to manipulate the tubes through the rear bulkhead exit holes.

I'm on vacation for the holiday starting this week so I hope to make some decent progress among time spent with friends and family. Plus I need to tear down a old tail shift trans for another member to have the case. Lots to do!

Posted by: 914werke Dec 21 2020, 11:00 AM

would you be interested in a complete scabbed tunnel, all lines intact?