75 914 Laguna Blue Project Options

[Graydingo]

Hello everyone, my name is Duane and I love me a Porsche project. So much so that I've had five air cooled cars (mostly projects mind you) in the last few years. I've pared that down to a mere 2 911s (one massive RSR project and a pretty good little driver 75.) By fate, every single one of them was a 75, or a 77 model year.
I guess I love an underdog and a project! Any-who, here's me latest acquisition...



A 1975 Porsche 914 2.0 in Laguna Blue L50C. What a color!



It all started when I found a 76 2.7 911 motor on craigslist. I inquired and got a snappy text back from a known number. Turns out, it was a friend and the owner of the local Porsche specialty shop. I went over to check out the motor and ended up buying it. A pretty clean 2.7 core, missing a few parts, but had a set of Italian 40 IDTP carbs on it.

While there, I was shown the 914 which the 2.7 was actually destined to go into at one point but then the owner decided to go nuts and planned to put a 3.6 in it.



He had acquired thousands in parts but lost motivation in the project. He had flares, elephant suspension and all kinds of stuff. Sadly (or perhaps fortuitously,) he had sold a lot of the new parts to another 914 enthusiast, so what was left was just the original car.

Already having a big project in my 74 RSR tribute, I passed on the 914 and headed home with my new 2.7. My 75 911 has a similar motor and It's ready to rebuild. I thought I would take the best parts off both motors and make a 2.8 twin plug beast for my 75. Ya never know what condition the crank or heads are in, so I figured it was a good plan to have more parts at the ready for cheap, and then sell everything left over later.

One thing that struck me about the 914 on that first visit, was that the car was extremely dry. Here's the ....ahem... heck hole.



Though the car was taken apart, the previous owner seemed to have all the original parts (though many of them were in his storage facility and not with the car.) Another cool factoid was that the car was actually purchased in a nearby Audi/VW dealership right here in Las Vegas. Vegas in '74 was very, very small, so to have a survivor 914 in the same town that it was 46 years ago is pretty cool in my opinion.



The car was more or less stripped in preparation for a GT conversion. I remarked in my mind about how solid the car was and went home that day thinking it was a good deal but that I'm a snobby 911 guy who doesn't buy anything but 911s :-P The car was definitely marinating in the back of my mind...

Fast forward a few months later and a younger friend was talking to me about project cars, and it got me excited about the 914. On a whim I reached out to see if it was still there and bought it the next day. I think I just really liked it and I fell in love with the color. It feels like a mix between Gulf Blue and Miami Blue. I'm actually painting my RSR Gulf, so I absolutely love all the cool blue colors.

The shop had a bunch of waterpumper parts stored in the back:



PO had the original Fuchs 4 lug wheels, but no tires. the 914 was also on a pretty sweet dolly, but unfortunately that wasn't part of the sale.



I took the wheels to a discount tire and got the cheapest tires I could buy, just so I could make it a roller for the impending flatbed trailer pickup appointment.



I had to scrounge around and find some lugs to mount them. Luckily I had some open 911 lugs as well as some 996 studs to complete the temporary fix.

After getting it back to the shop I thought: "I've got a complete project build going already, wouldn't it be fun to try to build a total survivor driver with original paint, dings, dents, damage and all, but have a bit of a sleeper engine and nice interior. So mostly original, but everything works and is nice in terms of get in, turn the key, take it to the grocery and not worry about parking it. "



Stay tuned for the paint correction...

[Graydingo]

A few highlights.

- Bought harbor freight "pinch weld" dollies. Seemed like a good alternative to building a dolly. Metal is expensive right now and the time and effort to build it would have been a week for me. For $400 I got 4 of these tripod dollies to move the car around the shop instead of it living on the quick jack. I want to build the RS 2.7 motor so I can stick it in my 911 until the 914 is ready. The 911 motor is tired with the original 170k miles on it.

- removed front part of trunk entirely. About 100 spot welds. Also had a nice 6 hours in the ER. I was feeling a spot weld and the new bit went through quicker than I thought...



Passed through my finger tip all the way out the other side. 3/16" bit! ouch. Fragmented some bone which will stay there forever.



- Test fit the Restoration Design 72-74 front panel that I bought. Found out the hard way that the headlight bucket design changed in 75. So now I either have to modify the remaining bucket and graft the 74 donor bucket in or modify the removed drivers side.

Did I mention I bought two more 914s? not sure if I did or not.



Great deal as they came with a bunch of parts including another set of trailing arms since PMS said my pair off my 75 were bent. I sent them pics of the extra set that was laying in the trunk of the 72 and they said they looked bent too.

So then I went on a crazy odyssey of trying to figure out what constitutes a bent 914 trailing arm. I spoke with a bunch of notable 914 peeps and they seemed to think that a visibly bent trailing arm was pretty hard to identify. I also met a gentleman on FB that built a jig to test trailing arm dimensions. His findings are that they vary about 1 degree in terms of the pivot shaft in relation to the hub (which is approximately 12.5 degrees +- 1 degree.

All that and I decided I want my trailing arms back from PMS as they don't really want to do the job it seems.

I also decided against boxing them. It's not a track car. I don't need the extra unsprung weight and after speaking with a lot of folks who have been doing this way longer than me, they all seemed to agree that if they bend, it's usually the mounting ears or the pivot shaft is bent. Not the arm itself.

Anyway the light ivory 72 is for sale in the classifieds. Good project base imho.

I also found that the support pieces in the trunk are different on all three examples! The 72, the 74, and the 75 all have different reinforcement bits on the lower wheel well. So my choices are fix the 75 pieces, pull the 74 pieces and weld them in, or sack the 72 and part it out for the best support pieces. hardly seems worth that last option.







Not sure what I'm going to do there. The 74 has no title, so maybe I'll cut out those bits and move them over. The 72 is listed on the for sale classifieds if anyone is looking for a very dry project car.




lastly, does anyone know what size tubing this is? Not that it has to be exact but what have you used if you done the GT cooler reinforcements?