BUILD-OFF CHALLENGE: 914-d, How I finally bought a 914 Options

[914-d]

So here is my story...and I'm stickin' to it.
Like many of you, I have always wanted a 914, in my case since high school, when they came out. Didn't happen then, but I had plenty of aircooled vw's to play with.
I have always been in to vw's, but now it is water cooled and diesel. I buy/sell vw TDI's and decided several years ago this is what I'd swap into a 914. The search was on.
I looked at several teens and all had more rust than I wanted to deal with. You know when you don't even have to get out of your truck, it ain't worth messin with.
Finally went to look at one, looked pretty good from the top side, but due to rattle snakes on the property I was real nervous about crawling around underneath. I drug it on the trailer and towed it home. This thing looked ugly underneath, and had some questionable repairs. Now I'm looking for a new victim.
One of my customers had a teen I decided to buy, less than a thousand feet from my house...running and registered....sweet.
I get home that night and my wife asks me if I was buying another car (she gets pissed every time I do) It turns out while I was making the deal, my phone butt dialed her, she heard the whole conversation. I can't let this happen again. I had to go with my hat in hand and ask to be let out of the deal. He was understanding.
So her actions made it clear. If I buy another she can't know.
Hunting around, I found a viable candidate from a member here on the world. Only problem was he was 600+ miles away. I am in northern California, He in northern Oregon. I already had a planned a trip to work on my brother in laws body shop in southern Washington....perfect.
My son planned to go on the trip, we decided to take his new to him Superduty....6.0
Ok, we need to take the car trailer. Put a big extension ladder on it to justify the trailer to our wives. (no rack on the truck).
Went to Washington, worked for several days, went to pick up the teen...60 miles away. Back to Washington to finish up for a day or so, and back to California.
The plan was to drop the car and trailer at our friends body shop before going to his house...and they will never know. Nice if it would have worked like that.
On the way home, his truck started loosing power and check engine light came on. He felt it was best to just to make it to his house. Great...now his wife will rat me out.
We pulled up to his house and it was worse than I thought. My wife was there and I was busted. She didn't talk to me for a week, and then only to inform me NO MORE CARS. I broke her, she has given up, I've bought 6 or 7 since then.


so a few days later the car and trailer make it to the body shop. The 914 had been bumped in the right rear, and I was going to have my buddy put it on the frame
machine and do a pull. I would take care of the rest after that,
When I bought the car, he had an extra rear quarter and rear panel. Damage wasn't bad enough to need it, but it was included in the deal so it came along for the ride.
My 914 sat at the shop for a solid year...waiting to see it on the rack. Finally one day I walk in and he tells me he has the car on the rack and did the pull. I walk into the shop and to my shock, he cut the quarter and back panel off the car. Guess you get what you pay for.....

After getting other projects out of the way, I planned on picking up the teen to take to my shop on Sunday September 13. On the 12th we were evacuated out due to the valley fire in northern California. We went a week not knowing if the body shop,
or my house survived, living in my shop for two weeks. Luckily both the shop and my house made it through. My rear panels for the teen did suffer some heat damage. it will just be that much easier to get the paint off.

So there is the back story, now on to the build

She is a 73, phoenix red, and I guess this is an appearance group car.

Rust repairs. Back half of the floor pan, bottom of the firewall, seal channels under the front hood, and the sections under the trim on the sail panels.

Engine. I am doing something unconventional here....I'm going diesel.....VW TDI.
The motor I am using (from one of my horse trades) was dynode at the wheels at 168 hp and 325 tq.

No flares, nutin' fancy, going for completely stock looking 914