Putting a 75 back on the road, finished my removable battery tray....and upgraded my blast cabinet Options

[JStroud]

I finally got around to organizing my pictures to document my progress. I bought my car, a 75 914 2.0 in November 2010. It was originaly purchased in Sacramento Ca, the original owner sold it to his son in 1994, the son drove it until "it started running rough", and he parked it. It sat until 2008 when he sold it to his friend who was going to get it running, two years later it was still sitting, but with the engine out and pieces in boxes. So being the smart guy I am, I bought it. Here's some pics of the car when I got it home.









The PO had pulled the engine with the intent of fixing it, then somewhere along the way he purchased a "running" 73 2.0. So I have a spare motor.



I spent a few months buying books and reading what I could find, (never worked on a 914 before) found this website!
I decided to rebuild the original motor... here I go.



Got the engine stripped down, and the case split.





Found out why they parked it, looks like a dropped valve seat.



Damaged the top of the piston as well.



I took the case, heads, crank, and cylinders to the machine shop, Time to start some rust repair.



The battery tray was toast, the rest seems to be just surface rust, except the trunk it has a few rusted through pin holes.



After I finished removing the battery tray I pressure washed the engine compartment, trunk, and under the trunk.



I finished all this by february, but the next step was to sand blast the rust, and EVERY weekend it would be raining, so the car sat in the garage.
Then I had a major set back, My Dad was diagnosed with cancer in april, had surgery in May. So April - june are kind of a blurr, He has recovered very well, but progress on the car was slow for a while, had to get caught up on work.

I went to Doc's tranny clinic in Discovery Bay in June and rebuilt my transmission.
My tranny all apart.





Good thing Doc talked me into going, bearing was in pieces when I took it apart.



A few familiar faces.







All done ready to install, wish the car was ready...



Of course in all the down time I did find time to do a little parts shopping.







And I decided to build a blast cabinet



Almost done



Ready for action.



And I did a lot of reorganizing in the garage, this is the first car I've done in 20 years, oh ya, did I mention i'm old.



Well the weather finally got nicer, work slowed up a bit and I finally got the car out and sandblasted.



After I finished sandblasting I washed the area down with metal prep, and then back in the garage for painting.







Almost ready to primer



Everything got two coats primer.









I decided to paint the engine compartment gloss black, and under the trunk and fender wells flat black.



I bought cans of color match paint online to paint the trunk.







A final coat of clear and the painting is done.. for now.

[JStroud]

I didn't get a chance to get these pictures resized to include with my original post,
but before I took my motor to Original Customs for McMark to build it, I drilled and tapped my galley plugs. I had already bought the drill bits and taps, so why not.

I decided to take alot of pictures and try to be thorough for anyone yet to attempt this.

First, there are twelve press in galley plugs, here are their locations.








In the last picture the circled plug looks like its ready to pop.
The small one in the picture below also. This is why I decided to do all twelve.




I drilled a small hole in the center of the plugs and screwed in a screw with a large head on it.




Then attached a slide hammer to the screw to pull the plugs out. Most of the plugs came out very easy, one to two TAPS with the slide hammer. Only one was a little difficult. Kinda scary how easy they popped out. But kudos to my machine shop, not one speck of dirt behind any plugs.




Below you can see the plug out of the hole, this plug, (can you see the second plug in the hole), is really the only hole you need to be really careful not to drill too deep, and you need the second tap ground down to get full threads.




From my research( I'm somewhat search challanged) I thought you need this for all the holes, since I had already bought two of each tap, and ground one, I double tapped all of mine anyway.




All the plugs out, anyone want to buy a NLA press in plug set, slightly used, only one small hole in the middle. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/lol-2.gif)




I had bought a "plug kit" from a vender I won't mention. But unfortunately they don't have a clue what plugs our engines need. So I had to order new ones from Jegs.




Also in my research I found mentioned having to modify the tap handle or problems with clearance issues tapping some of the holes. I solved this by using a socket and extention with a rachet wrench to tap those holes, worked great.




Thats basically it, be careful to drill straight, and not damage the second plug in the one hole. Clean up is very important, and don't close off any passage ways with a plug too deep. ( I just put mine in a couple of threads), I'll let McMark have the fun of actually installing them. Here are the new plugs, black anodized aluminum.








Hope that helps someone.
This weekend I hope to get the other trailing arm apart, and start getting the parts cleaned up and repainted, then the calipers.

Jeff