Restoration panels Options

[peteyd]

Restoration Design needs your help to determine what 914 part to make next. I listed three here, but if you have any other ideas as to what part would be a good addition let us know.

[Katmanken]

Here's my 2 cents....

On my good car that had almost no rust anywhere, there was rust in three areas. First, the back of the floors and the bottom of the bulkhead was rusted due to the rear window being loose. Parts are available for that, Second, the hell hole area had some rust and parts are now avaialble for that. Third area was the ""U" channel area under the front trunk seal and no parts are available for that.

There is a real market for the front trunk "U" channnels. That's a market for ALL of the "U" channels. On many cars, the curved "U" channel in front of the windshield is mising chunks near the fenders, and the center is bent or damaged from careless owners. That metal is thin, and my workaround was to replace the entire section ( including the grille) between the trunk and the windshield and patch the corners.

The long "U" channels of the front fenders are crying for a replacement piece. Made both of them by cutting curved vertical sections and welding a floor to the verticals. Would replace them in a heartbeat with decent replacement pieces. I'm picturing a universal left and right curved "U" profile that can be used for both fenders.

Another part might be the vertical wall of the wheel area that the fender "U" sections are spot welded to. On many cars, the removal and replacement of a fender leaves a wavy piece full of drilled out spotweld holes running front to rear. Maybe a replacement piece that's nothig more than a long flat strip an inch high would be in order. Cut the top edge to match the curve of "U" of the fender. Make the bottom as a straight cut for butt weld or as a dogleg. Dogleg would let you spot weld it in place with an overlap hanging into in the wheel area. Might be a universal left/right piece depending on how you do the bottom.

And, on every car that I've ever seen, the "U" channels around the headlights and front of the car need some work. The welded angle and seam sealer around the headlight buckets are a rust magnet. Ditto along the front of the trunk.

A lot of junkers have decent front trunk floors. They seem to be in an area that doesn't accumulate salt or rust. AC holes do appear, but never seen one in the midwest or the east coast areas.

Your proposed front fender pieces would be good. In salt land, a lot of cars seem to rust out from the inside in that double wall area in front of the doors. One of my front fenders was trashed by the rust, and another one was dipped to get rid of the rust in the double wall area.

Agree on Andy's mention of the rearmost piece of the rear fender above the tail light. It's a complex metal form and may involve more than one piece.

My 2 cents, hope it helps.