Small car, big problems. Sound familiar? Options

[amfab]

I am sure many share parts of my story

The car I bought was not as described.

It its my fault, because in my eagerness and excitement I didn’t inspect well enough.

It looked great. It was repainted with a decent job a few years ago. It drove just as I remember my ‘73 2.0 did that I had when I was 18. It was more solid feeling than the others I had driven in my search. The interior was in great shape, door gaps were good. There was no rust in either trunk. The hellhole had been repaired and it looked pretty good.

I bought it and drove it home 2600 miles. It was a great trip.

My mechanic tuned it up, looked it over said he thought it looked in good shape. This was encouraging, especially from a guy building a 914 racecar for himself.

I trusted—and still do—trust the guy from whom I bought it. He was very nice and I still think very honest. He had it for 5 years and drove it once or twice a month on nice days. He put about 5k miles on it in that time. It was sold to him as “restored.” He is just not mechanically inclined and bought it as a fun little weekend car.

Unfortunately, a lot was hidden behind welded-in panels, and undercoat, and sound insulation material.

I drove it for a few months, the car felt solid and ran great. I spent the last few months fixing up little things: the trunk pivots, radio, e-brake handle, etc. and started collecting parts for a 5-lug conversion, then I noticed a couple bubbles in the rocker panel, so I tried to jack it up…

You know the rest. Longs severely rotted, patched floor pans with rot etc. etc.

Now I am completely overwhelmed.

I have grinders, a bunch of air tools, a couple of welders, a sandblaster, some beefy jack stands, and a couple of floor jacks. So, I am gonna save it, or at least try.

I need a lot of help, especially moral support at this point.

Is there a best way I should go about posting questions for a project like this? Should I just make separate topics for each question or should I do one ongoing post? What is the etiquette for this?

Many pictures will be forthcoming. (I am letting the car air out right now from all the solvents I was using to get the tar and sound insulation out).

I know many of you have been through this before— I have been using all my spare time reading your threads. Thank you for the information so far, and in advance for the help

-Andrew