Which comes first: Straightening the tub or structural rust repair? |
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Which comes first: Straightening the tub or structural rust repair? |
doug_b_928 |
Aug 28 2014, 06:16 AM
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#1
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Senior Member Group: Members Posts: 692 Joined: 17-January 13 From: Winnipeg Member No.: 15,382 Region Association: Canada |
I've been disassembling my car and getting a better sense of what happened to it before my ownership. I think the car was hit on the left rear corner. It doesn't appear that it crumpled much at all. In fact, the left taillight assembly was re-used (the black plastic on the end is missing a 1 cm piece and there's a crack in the middle of the black plastic on the back). There's also a really bad bondo repair about the diameter of an average hand by the tailight. So I don't think much crumple-type of damage was done. But, that hit must have somehow twisted the chassis by either pushing the left rear down and/or pushing the right rear up. There is a big difference in height left to right when looking at the rear end (like 1 -1.5"). The suspension ear on the right is 4mm higher than the one on the left. The latter might even be within factory spec, no? Also, the distance between the trunk channels on the rear fenders is within spec for the front half, but the back half progressively narrows to being 1.5cm too narrow.
The longs, rockers, firewall and hell hole are shot and the door gaps by the door handles are too big (8-9mm). So, I'm wondering, (aside from the option of scrapping it), do I get the chassis straightened before metal surgery, or after surgery on the main structural parts? I could see the former tearing the car apart, and the latter creating imperfections in the newly repaired work. |
doug_b_928 |
Sep 22 2014, 07:43 PM
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#2
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Senior Member Group: Members Posts: 692 Joined: 17-January 13 From: Winnipeg Member No.: 15,382 Region Association: Canada |
Rick, very wise words as always. If nothing else, I've very much enjoyed learning from your thoughtful and, yes, "expert" replies to my questions. To restore or not to restore is the struggle I'm having. I can't bring myself to part the car out, and there's not much worth parting anyway. I could see spending $20K on it, but that basically gets me a finished shell (probably $12,000 for metal work and panels, $7,500 for body work and painting; plus exchange into CDN and fuel costs to transport it for the work, and I'm not sure if the government would want some tax as well). The car needs everything else too. I was hoping to do almost all of the work myself and believe that, with the excellent information in this forum and the braintrust here, if I had a straight chassis I could do the rust repair and mechanical work myself. But the bent chassis has really buggered me. At this point I'm going to put it into storage and wait for more clarity on what to do with it. I had a lot of fun taking the car apart this summer, but I'm one who feels compelled to put things back together after taking them apart. Now that I know a lot more about these cars, at least I'll be able to make a good assessment of a future 914 purchase, if I ever get another one.
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