Phase II of my Restoration of my '76 914, 2nd part of my restoration work first started in late 2017 Options

[Gatornapper]

The first part of my purchase and rebuild/restoration of my '76 914 is in Virginia Teener but I thought I should put Phase II in a 2nd thread.

In review, maybe I should recap the basics of Phase I started in Sept. of 2017. I'll try to do a condensed version:

Car was abandoned in good friend's barn in 2005 an hour from where I live west of Richmond, VA. Friend asked me to buy it from the owner - another friend - who refused to move it. ME: "Sorry don't want a 914. They are VW's that are rust-buckets." FRIEND: "It's in really good condition and was running perfectly when parked in 2005. You should at least come look at it."

I did, body was in very good condition with little rust. Found out after purchase it was an LA car (sold in Placenta). Owner raced 911's & 914's, wanted $7k. No way, offered $3k. He took it, albeit with much grumbling & griping. Driving home with 914 on my car trailer I wondered, 'What in the world have I gotten myself into?" I had never driven a 914 and knew so little about them.

This forum was my 914 'salvation'. Everyone here has been incredibly helpful from day 1 and I have no words for my appreciation for all of you.

Car's condition:

The good: 911 Master cylinder, BMW 320i front brakes, little rust, car super-tight. Paint a 1st class job, but oxidized on lids. New rack & pinion. Scotty Burnett inspects car - says one of most rust-free 914's he's ever seen.

The bad: Tank ouf of car, badly corrupted. Carbs horrible from years of gas left in them - almost beyond recovery. Dead battery. Tires shot. Rear brakes seized.

It was about a year's work to get car on road.

Long list of work:

Rebuilt carbs 3x. New jets, new idle jets. Studied book on Weber's. I'm pretty good carb guy, but never seen Weber's. Had dual IDF-44's which everyone said were too big for everyday driving. (Local Porsche dealer installed the carbs at PO's request, telling him they were too big.) New fuel lines.

All new ignition including EI. Dizzy was 009.

New rear brakes from PMB/Eric. New racing front brake pads made huge difference.
Other help from Eric too - thank you. Complete flush of all brake lines.

New tires.

Got car running and just driving up my 1/2 mile drive at 15mph - I knew I had a phenomenal car and was ecstatic.

Handling blew me away.

Took me a year to dial in the carbs. Finally got 44's running great for every day driving, but a bit louder than I like. Oh, well.

Drove car for 4 years/6k miles, loving it. Worked on tons of details:

Found/installed 050 dizzy - thank you Brant - and car's running and performance improved noticeably.

Replace many pieces of trim/visors, etc. Thank you 914rubber.com/Mike.

Dr. Phil gave me his like new 75 front bumper - mine was trash. Also sold me OEM Fog Lights - dramatically improving ugliness of big black front bumper.

Rick Berkowitz - local 914 friend/Porsche encyclopedia helped me with a million things, lots of pieces and parts including a nice front spoiler.

Found & had powder-coated nice set of original Mahle's that tranformed the car.

All new shift bushings.

Welded/closed lots of rusted thru areas on muffer, repaired issues with heat exchangers.

New Relay Board & relays, starter, alternator.

New ThunderSpark plug wires.

New fuel tank, new stainless fuel lines installed.

Installed fuel pressure regulator & gauge in engine bay to keep pressure precisely at 3 psi for Weber's.

New thermostat from Tangerine Racing.

New tail light bezels - European from Sierra Madre. Sorry - my preference.

Installed LED headlights, all LED's in all other lights.

Powder-coated engine tins.

Tons of other minor items fixed/repaired/renewed.

This was Phase I.

Started Phase II on August 5th, 2022.

GN

PS: I must say thank you to George as well. He's always been available for my incessant questions - while always screaming about how the 44's will ruin my engine by running too rich. At the same time I've sure sent a lot of money to Auto Atlanta over the last 6 years...... ;-)

[Gatornapper]

DROPPING TRANNY WITHOUT DROPPING ENGINE

As I said before, I was ecstatic when Mike Lesniak told me 9 out of 10 times he does not drop the engine to drop the tranny. I am blessed to also have a nice lift to make the work easy.

Knowing it could be done, I then set about to plan a safe way to support the rear of the engine, then support the tranny in a way that it could be unbolted and simply slid backwards a few inches to get it off the engine studs and the rear brackets.

I mentally devised a number of ways to support the front of the engine safely, and then was hit to try something imaginative.

I wondered if one of my 20' tow straps would go over the front edge of the trunk and be long enough to support a 2x4 beneath the engine? Instead of supporting the engine from below, I would try to support it from above.

First I was going to use a piece of 1 1/2" rigid conduit, then a piece of steel. But the weight on the front of engine is less than half the 276 lbs. of the engine weight as most is on the front support. I realized that a simple 2/4 would be strong enough.

I was shocked when I tried it. It truly looked like the strap had been specifically designed for this purpose! I padded the top of the trunk generously to make sure I didn't damage my new paint. That would be a disaster!

I tested the setup and it seemed perfect. Strongly believing in redundancy, I hung a heavy chain between the swingarms to catch the engine if my 2x4 rigging failed.

Here is what it all looked like - Note how the length of the strap was perfect for the job:

(IMG:http://www.914world.com/bbs2/uploads_offsite/hosting.photobucket.com-21449-1705015089.1.JPG)

(IMG:http://www.914world.com/bbs2/uploads_offsite/hosting.photobucket.com-21449-1705015090.2.JPG)

(IMG:http://www.914world.com/bbs2/uploads_offsite/hosting.photobucket.com-21449-1705015090.3.JPG)

(IMG:http://www.914world.com/bbs2/uploads_offsite/hosting.photobucket.com-21449-1705015090.4.JPG)

(IMG:http://www.914world.com/bbs2/uploads_offsite/hosting.photobucket.com-21449-1705015090.5.JPG)

(IMG:http://www.914world.com/bbs2/uploads_offsite/hosting.photobucket.com-21449-1705015090.6.JPG)

In the last pic, you'll see the blocking that I had on top of a box on top of my Harbor Freight motorcycle lift table.

I lowered the car to the correct height to where if I jacked up the lift table, it would support the tranny perfectly.

We then jacked up the table & blocks putting the tranny weight on them, then unbolted the tranny. With its weight on the blocks, and the lift table having wheels, we simply rolled the table backwards to pull the tranny away from the engine.

When all was clear, we raised the car out of the way, then lowered the tranny to where it was the perfect height to lift off the blocks and set on the floor vertically to begin disassembly.

Hope some others can use this approach in the future.

GN