My Street car thread, 38 years of ownership, the old black car Options

[brant]

I felt like starting this thread to document some of the "fixer upper" work I'm getting done.

This car has a lot of sentimental history for me as dad and I bought it back around 1985 as a father son project.

Like most 914's it was an endless project, but we color changed it and restored it... It didn't really hit the road until 1988

It was about that time that I started doing Drivers Education and got pretty much hooked on that. Dad started doing it with me and the car morphed more and more into a track car. Eventually it turned into a trailered only -4 race car with PCA club racing.

modifications evolved over and over. For example the chassis has seen 5 different rear spring rates, 2 different 4 bolt suspensions and 2 different 5 bolt suspensions, 4 different brake systems, not to mention 5 different black paint jobs......

When we decided to build the vintage chassis this 1974 chassis was too new to be legal for colorado vintage rules so it was decommissioned at that point from its life as a race car in 9/2002 (the weekend after setting my personal record, on my favorite track)

Street suspension went back on, interior went back on, race motor out - street motor in, roll cage went out... On and on...

basically it was on jackstands for over a year while race parts (motor/tranny) were unbolted and put onto the orange car... And stock parts were dug up from the stash or other club members to be put onto the shell.

It briefly debued on the street back in the summer of 2004 with a 1.7/4 that was a spare parts motor.

Fuel injection issues hounded the project all summer and finally the motor let go billowing a HUGE cloud of smoke down interstate 25. At that point the tranny was bad and the motor was blown, so it was parked again to cease being a distraction from finishing the vintage car.

During its hibernation, a roof brace fell on the front fender and smashed it pretty well. Also, for a while it was on a driveway and got backed into.... leaving the headlight crooked and the front hood a tiny bit twisted...

This brings us about up to the current time.
I started the body work on the car a month ago and hope to shoot primer or even some paint on it this weekend. The driveline currently is a unknown mileage 2.0/4 out of washington with a trannsmission from the ever helpful Ron Meier. The paint is going to remain black, and in order to meet the time frame of the upcoming Colorado 914 track event, I will only paint the front half now and shoot the back half in June-ish or after the track event has passed.

More pictures will follow, but for now here is the car on the road in the summer of 2004:

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Since I'm storing old pictures on this thread....
here is the oil cooler on the black car.

The car has had 3 different oil coolers systems installed on it since I've owned it.

(and before that it used to use water spray or the "rubber maid" solution on the track)

I've said this repeatedly... but cooler exit makes a HUGE difference. As mentioned this was the 3rd style of exit used and made a significant improvement over the 2nd style (which was an improvement over the 1st)

Cooler exit:

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Cooler duct work...
fabricated out of aluminum by dad of course:

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last one for now:

[Joseph Mills]

Good story. Keep it up.

I'd like to see some close up shots of that hood.


(IMG:http://www.914world.com/bbs2/html/emoticons/rolleyes.gif)

..

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QUOTE (Joseph Mills @ Apr 5 2006, 08:42 PM)

Good story. Keep it up. I'd like to see some close up shots of that hood. (IMG:http://www.914world.com/bbs2/html/emoticons/rolleyes.gif) ..

If I get any primer or paint work done this weekend, I'll update

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[brant]

Update.
lots of progress last weekend on repair and repaint.
lots of boring pics too:

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Front half of car (that is getting painted for now) was sanded down in prep.
boy lots of rock chips from the old track use.
had to go pretty deep to remove all of the pitting:

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more of the hood:

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You can see the body work repair on the drivers front fender.
a large steel beam fell on it. I pounded it out and body worked it as best I could and then skimmed it

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fancy mask job.

this is all so deja vu... from the last time we painted it about 7 years before:

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let the priming begin:

[Ferg]

Great Pics Brant.

Tell Bob he sure dresses nice to shoot primer (IMG:style_emoticons/default/rolleyes.gif)

Ferg

[iamchappy]

Are all Black 914's previously signal orange, it sure seem that way to me.

[Aaron Cox]

Are all Black 914's previously signal orange, it sure seem that way to me.

rofl...

minewas zambezi green (IMG:style_emoticons/default/blink.gif)

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bob dressed up for the ocassion since he saw that I grabbed the camera....

hmmm... wish I had been smarter when I was 15 and stuck with the signal orange.
too much effort to change it back now...

LOTS... of pictures still.
I know they are repetetive and a bit boring but I get a kick out of documenting it
here are some of the small parts after we body worked them...
the bumper is far from perfect, but we use a dull ruberized top coat on it so it will still look good without being perfect:

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I just like this one because the garage is nearly full of teeners:

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dad in action:

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primer step done...
more hood angles:

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The last of the primer pictures: