Fix a six, Like Neil Young says...rust is an insomniac Options

[brant]

Nice progress

car is good
when do you need help lifting it onto the rotiseree

[wachospeedo]

The "unwashed"...the worst first





I have recently picked up a donor 71 parts car that I will be using for some small stuff...corners specifically. I hauled a 3 wheeled car off of a mountain outside Evergreen Colorado with a buddy who also is needing parts for his GT914 conversion. Price was right $100, but it had become overgrown with plants and trees from being dumped there 30 years ago. What an enormous PITA. Took several hours, and the seller claimed he could help us load it on my trailer with his backhoe...what a disaster. Never again at any price! We ultimately got it back to Tad's house and it has since been disassembled...so lots of good straight parts, but if you ever find a car that looks to be priced too cheaply...there is a reason it is priced that way. Run far far away.

[wachospeedo]

Instead of "the corner workers", these are the corners needing work...


Some are worse than others, but the donor shell will come in handy



Better buy a couple hundred dremel cut-off discs (IMG:style_emoticons/default/blink.gif)

[wachospeedo]

I ordered a big batch of repro steel from RD with Peter's help. Somewhere along the line, the shipper laid the box flat, something got stacked on the box, and the outer rocker for the right side got damaged so we had to ship it back. Claim seems to be going smoothly...we'll see.
The repro steel...

I ordered some 2 inch square steel tube to make the front and rear attach points for the rotisserie. In the beginning...



After getting it cut and trimmed and mocked up, the welding was a piece of cake.

[wachospeedo]

Braces going together...trial fit

I had to use a cutoff wheel in a chop box to fine tune the steel tubing angles. This meant that the steel got hot...very hot. I finished the vertical for the left rear, removed it (carefully) and was setting the right side in the box. Leaning forward ready to pull the saw down...I braced my left (bare) arm on something for no more than a second. I have a nice brand of that left side vertical on the back side of my forearm. Didn't take long to go through several layers of skin quickly. Seared it right up. Glad I'm not a cow.
Finished mounts


And with plugs for yokes

[wachospeedo]

I needed to massage a few front trunk areas while the car was still supported by it's suspension. This area is solid, but beat up. Like it was seriously offroaded. The PO did a lot of autox in his day...but the cones he hit must have been made out of wood. Take a look

I talked with Peter again at RD and he sent me a link to his stamping link for the new front pan. I wanted to know how far down I need to work the pan. I believe there is a very slight "arch" at the front of the pan after it comes up off the floor of the pan. I am amazed that this thing has dents (upward) on top of dents. Like looking at pictures of mars with craters inside craters inside craters. You get the picture.


I metal worked with a hammer and dolly all of the small dings and some of the large ones. The pan is still "proud", but not much I can to from here...I will likely run my cutoff saw exactly down the middle of the pan north to south and release the tension. That will allow me to work both sides down so that I can stitch the center back together once flat.
Won't go into the detail, but I needed to fabricate side braces that telescope. Put these together and gave just a tidge of "pre-load". I used the typical top hinge and the seat belt support

[wachospeedo]

Crap! I rolled my car!

So not claiming to be the best driver...I have had my share of unfortunate circumstances in cars. Most of the time, it was a result of rapidly changing conditions (weather) or deer...hey I live in the mountains at 8100 ft. I remember as a kid hearing some teenagers bragging about having "rolled their car" and walking away unscathed. Well as I usually drive a 911 year round and don't have much seat time in a 914...I guess I got a bit cocky yesterday. I should have been more careful, it was nobodies fault but my own...and as I can fix it...I will.

Not for the faint of heart, but here are the pictures.
Before...kind of a nice artsy shot

During ...

And after...

Pretty scary stuff.
Oh I get it, if I keep rotating the car...more of this stuff (sandblasters media) will come out. I could just hook a small motor up to the rotisserie and leave it over night. I might also polish the internals on the chassis

Removing the suspension is going to be an easy job while upside down

[wachospeedo]

Front suspension first. Nice to have easy access to the crossmember and A-arm mount points. No problem till I found this...

Wait, not the other side too? Really?

These are hardened bolts. These are not scuffed, or gouged...these are ground down to the point that there is little seperating them from the lock washers. Amazing. Probably a result of hitting those dog-gone autox cones so many times. This is going to either turn out badly or double badly.
I will try to grind the remaining heads down to the washers

And pry the crossmember off the remaining headless bolts

Bingo...fortunately the bolts were not rusted to the inside of the crossmember. On 911s, this can happen on the early cars with steel crossmembers. With the later aluminum crossmembers, not a problem

Whew...feel like I dodged that bullet.

[wachospeedo]

My next concern was whether or not the remaining bolts were rusted to the inserts in the chassis. I was lucky so far. Fortunately with some penetrating fluid, they backed right out

This is all that was left

On to the rear suspension. As the 914 front suspension is identical to the 911 suspension...I was in my comfort zone. The rear is new territory for me.

BTW how do you get to this fitting to grease it? Is this factory?

Everything came apart as one might expect. This beast just lost about 700 pounds

Now I need to disassemble and clean up all the suspension components...maybe sandblast and repaint or powdercoat. Am I correct in thinking that the A-arms and crossmember and rear control arms were all semi gloss black? The struts will be their basic colors (Koni orange, Bilstein green, and Boge black)...right? Looks like I have Boge with some sort of aftermarket inserts.

[sixnotfour]

Boge are Grey on sixes,

[wachospeedo]

Long days work...but it feels good to get the car up in the air and get the suspension out of the way.

I got my plating (latches etc) back from the plater


Still wondering about this engine...me thinks this is not a 2.7 at all...but a 2.4 instead.

I emailed the seller and he says that he built up the engine himself. I suppose a head dated in 72 could be an early 90 mm 2.7 head, but my guess is that it is an 85 mm head which would make it a 2.4 and I am fine with that. I measured the ports and they are 36 I and 35 E. With 2.4 S pistons and a Crane cam (S profile), that would mean likely the engine was built to 2.4 S specs...ok with me.

I sent the fan-shroud-strap and valve covers off with the engine tin to get powder coated. I will tear the engine down to short block and decide if I split the case at that point...TBD by what all I find. I am inclined to go to zero and have the case line bored and build it back up...but if the short block seems stout, and bearing are devoid of slop, maybe I clean it up and just do a top end.

To be continued...hopefully sooner than later (IMG:style_emoticons/default/rolleyes.gif)

[sixnotfour]

2.4 heads only need a chmfer to work for 2.7 PC's,
Mahle 2.7 cylinders have 11 fins
Mahle 2.4 Biral Cylinders have 16 fins

[wachospeedo]

2.4 heads only need a chmfer to work for 2.7 PC's,
Mahle 2.7 cylinders have 11 fins
Mahle 2.4 Biral Cylinders have 16 fins

So as they are 11 fins...I guess we are back to a 2.7 (IMG:style_emoticons/default/w00t.gif)
Spent the day diassembling suspension that had been removed. Fronts are Boge struts with Koni sport inserts, rears are Koni coil-overs. Is Ford orange still the orange repaint of choice? No dust/brake shields on either end...were those cad yellow from the factory? My slotted rotors up front were 20.5mm and the solid rears were 9.5mm...look like those are still in spec? I need to replace the wheel studs back to stock (so if someone has extras for sale, let me know. The car had 3x8mm spacers on 52mm front studs and 59mm rear studs...these are going to be for sale.

Speedo

[Ferg]

(IMG:style_emoticons/default/biggrin.gif) Nice work Lars (IMG:style_emoticons/default/welder.gif)

[brant]

I think the stock 914/6 wheel stud lengths are the same as the 911 ones..

those grease zerks in the back are not stock
the stock bushings were bonded into the swingarm and also bonded onto the shaft

so the stock bushing really was an elastic effect

all replacement bushings rotate on the shaft
those are 99.99% likely delrin or replacement hard plastic bushings sold in the 70's - 80's
they squeeked and when properly installed grease chanels were cut inside and zerks added to make them serviceable.

(I've got the same on my black car)

[wachospeedo]

So I need to get a concensus as to whether where the front latch panel meets the floor panel is completely horizontal. From my pics, there is a minor arch. I can't believe that autox cones have symmetrically created this arch. I know that the front trunck pans are bowed upwards...but this looks factory. Responses encouraged...but be nice.

(IMG:style_emoticons/default/agree.gif)




This guy served his purpose protecting the front of the A-arm...but needs to be welded back together again...

[seanery]

That looks bent to me.

[brant]

sorry but I agree... bent

can people please add pics of their front ends to use as a comparison.

[DEC]

sorry but I agree... bent

can people please add pics of their front ends to use as a comparison.

72er 6er front end

[Cairo94507]

Yup; should be flat.