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.