Starting a 1973 restoration, Restoring a left for dead $500 914... Options

[FourBlades]

Hello 914 World Members!

I am starting on restoring a $500 914 that was left in a field for several years with no windshield. The car belonged to the POs older brother and thus has sentimental value. The sold it to me on the condition that I not part it out. I was looking for a project so this was fine with me. This is my first restoration project so I figured I would learn a lot (IMG:style_emoticons/default/biggrin.gif) (IMG:style_emoticons/default/biggrin.gif) (IMG:style_emoticons/default/biggrin.gif)

The car is a mixture of really good sections, appears to have suffered no major accidents, is straight, never been repainted--but it has totally rusted out floors and hell hole. All the suspension mounting points are not rusted. The door gaps are all even and good. If I can replace the floors, I think it will be a good straight car. Many small parts were stolen while it was "stored" and the wiring loom is a complete loss.

Thanks for any comments...John

[FourBlades]

Thanks for all the responses. Its nice to know I am not the only crazy person
out here. I believe the 914 will go the way of the 356 and early 911, i.e. people will realize what a cool car they are and stop cutting up any but badly wrecked ones. With some modern upgrades not available when they were new these cars can whale on nearly anything through the turns...see my Roebling post about 914 versus Carrera GT.

I have heard a lot of mixed reviews about POR 15 as well. I most wire wheel away all the rust, then wash with paint prep solution, then spray on metal ready, then wipe with a moist shop towel, and then finally spray on Eastwood etching primer. I will cover this with a few coats of some compatible sealer before painting. I intend to talk to Eastwood folks about what I should use. If I can't get all the rust off with the wire wheel, I usually use a rust desolving product, clean with water and then metal ready, etc. If I am going to weld a patch or part, I paint the inside with high zinc weldable primer. I sprayed that liberally inside my longs after the metal ready rather than POR 15. I did not open up the longs enough to paint them all so I just blasted the zinc primer (which you are not supposed to paint over) down from each side. It took my car 35 years to get
as rusty as it did, including many years with no windshield sitting a few miles from the ocean.

I think the inside of the longs were originally galvanized, and where there was no water standing, they looked pretty much new. I have seam welded the top edge of any patches I put on and will liberally seam seal them to keep water from getting back inside (which caused the rust problems in the first place). I plan to weld up all the holes in the roll bar, use painted sail panels instead of vinyl and generally get rid of any potential holes in the metal were water can get in and cause further problems. I left the drain holes in the bottom of the longs. I may even weld up the cowl solid to the fenders. Its not like you can unscrew the fenders and remove them like you can on some other cars. That seam appears to be little more than a place for water to get in an rust the front part of your doors and longs.

As an experiment, I painted a piece of new steel with the high zinc primer and left it outside for a month or so. I live about 1000 feet from the ocean so its pretty damn salty here. A brand new (cheap) gas grill is transformed into a pile of rusty metal in about 2 years (no kidding).

So far there is a little surface rust on the metal where I scratched it by accident but other pieces I did not treat have 1 mm of crusty rust on them. If I get ambitious I may do a test with some of the common rust treatments to see what happens.

Sorry for the long winded speach but rust is on my mind every time I work on my car. If I don't go through the rust fighting ritual on any bare metal at the end of each session, the metal has a good coat of surface rust in 2 or 3 days...

John