Intro from Montana: '73 2.0L rustoration thread Options

[bbrock]

My name is Brent and I’m new to 914 World but certainly not to 914s. My 1973 2.0L has being lying dormant and neglected for over thirty years now and is long overdue for a resurrection. The path to where I am now has been a long one so forgive me for the long introduction, but some of you might be able to relate.

History

I wasn’t much of a car guy as a kid growing up in NE Kansas. I liked cars, but I didn’t LOVE them. But when I saw my first 914, it spoke to me in a way that no other car had before… or since. My first ride in a teener didn’t come until my senior year in high school when a co-worker took me for a spin in a 914 he had borrowed from his dad’s used import car dealership. The car did not disappoint and I was hooked! I knew I had to have one.

The year was 1981. I was 19 and beginning my second year of college at Kansas State when I took out a small loan to buy my first car. I found a barely road-worthy 1970 1.7L in Missouri for $2,300 and was beaming with pride when I rolled up to the college dorm with my new, but rather shoddy looking, prize. But being as I was 19, and that organ that would eventually become a brain was not yet developed, I managed to shove the nose of my new Porsche under the tail end of a pickup truck at an intersection the very next day. Devastated; I had the car towed to a little one-man body shop at the edge of town. The front left corner was toast. I had enough money left from my loan to buy a partial front clip from AA. I got a call from the body shop the day the clip arrived and was told there was a problem. I went to inspect and saw that AA had sent a wrecked clip. The fender was smashed and the cost to hammer out the panels was 3X the cost of the part. I got in a heated argument over the phone with AA when I was told that sort of condition should be expected with used parts. What a bunch of BS! Surface rust and a few dings is one thing, but this part has been smacked hard enough the turn signal opening was half the width it should have been. Pointing out that their own advertising promised used parts would be collision free got me nowhere. In the end, I had to pay return freight and a restocking fee to get rid of the shitty part. That was the first and ONLY time I’ve done business with AA and I’m still pissed 36 years later. Luckily, a 914 had arrived at a junk yard 60 miles away and I picked up the parts, minus the lid, for a fraction of what AA had charged and hauled it myself.

But my woes of fixing my 914 were far from over. The body shop guy told me he found a trunk lid and that if I prepaid for parts and labor, he could put my car back together, shot with primer, for $400. Like an idiot, I believed him. I took out another small loan and wrote him a check. Every time I stopped by to check out the progress, there was a different excuse. The lid was at another shop getting MIG welded to repair minor rust… things like that. Then the guy just disappeared. I spent a few weeks stopping by almost daily to find an empty shop. Finally, one day a crusty looking old guy was there. “Are you looking for Joe?”, he asked. “Join the club.” Joe had been bilking lots of people out of money and had skipped out of the country. The guy telling me this had recently entered partnership with Joe and had lost thousands of dollars. We would both shortly receive a bankruptcy letter listing us as creditors and leaving us with little recourse to recoup our losses. It was my first hard lesson in trust. The silver lining was that the new guy had another shop and took pity on me and completed the work that was promised at a very reasonable price. I know he lost money on the deal.

My now patchwork-colored teener was back on the road but I wasn’t any smarter at 20 than I was at 19 so my car would again suffer the consequences. It was a cold, snowy, Kansas winter when I was home at my parents for Christmas holiday. I had learned from experience that if I put the 914 to bed in that weather without adding a bottle of drying agent to the gas, she was not going to start. But I wasn’t alone and shop after shop was sold out of HEET. On the fifth stop, I finally found a few bottles and was heading home to my parents when I hit a patch of black ice at low speed on possibly illegal balding tires and wrapped the front neatly around a fire hydrant. Well shit! Here we go again. I was done with body shops and con-men so decided it was time to learn to weld. I found donor parts at the same junk yard as before and set about cutting out the damage and replacing using my brother’s oxy-acetylene torch. Amazingly, I managed to get the car back together in drivable condition. I won’t pretend it was a good repair job, but adequate. I learned a lot about working on 914s because just about every week, something new broke – clutch, torsion bar, struts, and the constant battle with bad wiring in the FI and ignition. I’m sure there is a part on a 914 I haven’t removed and replaced, but I can’t think of what that would be.


About a year later, my then girlfriend and now wife of 30+ years needed to replace her aging Honda and a nice looking 914 appeared for sale. It was a ’73 1.7L and looked much prettier than mine. We shouldn’t have bought it because it had been wrecked and not put back together right. It had a barely detectable sideways crab as it rolled down the road that a 4-wheel alignment couldn’t fix. But it made a good daily driver and was nice enough that when Elizabeth and I were married, her cousin hid the car for us so my original patchwork 70 got the traditional “Just Married” treatment.





Around that time in 1984, I spied an ad in the college paper for a 914 for $500. Always needing parts, I thought this was my chance to get a big pile of parts at a bargain price. After talking with the owner, I discovered this was a 1973 2.0L. (my dream model and year). It had suffered the dreaded hell hole and the RR suspension console was dangling free. The PO (the car's second owner) couldn’t get a shop to even quote her a price on fixing it, and I was welcome to go have a look. I found the car in a parking lot next to the local import car parts shop. I couldn’t believe what I saw. Not only was it my dream ’73 2.0, but it was metallic silver with 4-spoke Fuchs, center console but not appearance group (black bumpers and no targa vinyl). This is exactly the car I would have ordered at the dealership. I knew that the wheels alone were worth the asking price. From 30 ft., the car looked gorgeous. From 10 feet, it looked really good but you could see it had been repainted, and not well. The interior was complete and clean. The only thing wrong with this car was a rotten battery tray and suspension console. And even that rot was limited and hadn’t spread to other bits of the hell hole. I finagled another small loan and didn’t quibble on the price. THIS would be my car.

Back at the junkyard I found a console from the same donor I had taken the front for my 70 from. I spent a weekend in my parent’s garage welding it in and spent the next several years enjoying the hell out of that car. In the meantime, I rebuilt the engine on the old 70 to donate it to a VW bus and sold the chassis for parts. My wife’s ’73 became my project car and I earned my label as a DAPO botching an outer long replacement by overheating the weld and using poorly placed door bracing. The result was an increase in the sideways crab and a passenger door that didn’t close as cleanly as it should. I continued my assault on the car by stripping it down to respray in black lacquer – a purposeful choice to reveal all of the flaws. It was a lot of work and there were many goofs to be redone, but the end result was actually quite stunning. It didn’t last long though since I didn’t have a garage at the time and black lacquer is no match for the Kansas sun. But it did convince me that I could prep and spray a car with respectable results; better than the job on my 2.0L anyway.

I don’t remember the exact catalyst that caused me to tear it apart, but as much as I loved driving the 2.0L, it didn’t always love me and I was frequently stranded – and this was pre-cell phone days. The problem was almost always some damn thing with the FI. Plus, the car was leaking oil badly and there were rust issues that needed repair. I convinced myself it was time for a complete tear down and rebuild, and I commenced to do just that. I was in my mid-twenties and Reagan was President.

Restoration Begins… and Stops… and Stops Again

I made a rookie mistake and started with the engine. I did a complete teardown and had all the bottom end parts machined and balanced at the local machine shop. Although I am kind of regretting it now, I decided to ditch the D-Jet that caused 95% of my reliability woes and opted for dual 40IDF Webers. Carb conversions were all the rage back then and I had lost patience with the FI. If I were to start this today, I’d probably keep the FI which I still have in storage. But to complement the carbs, I installed a “street grind” cam from Automotion. I’ve tossed my old Automotion catalogs and there are no other specs on the invoice. I only remember that the folks there recommended this grind to get the most from my carbs while staying close to the performance of the FI. The other mod I chose for the engine was a new set of OEM euro spec (8.0:1) Mahle pistons and jugs. I’ve always had this crazy idea that the euro spec cars were how Porsche intended and American spec was a compromise. As part of that rebuild, I stripped and repainted all of the tin with high temp paint and replaced the little hardware. Heads had not yet been touched, and Reagan was still the President.

Then life intervened. Elizabeth had put her college on hold while I finished mine, and it was while she was finishing her degree that I tore the car apart. Then it was my turn to go back for a graduate degree so the project went on hold. Time was in short supply. Clinton was President by the time I got my grad degree. Now neither time or money were as much of an obstacle, but having adequate shop space for the restoration was. All I had was an open carport that was not up to the task although I was able to turn it briefly into a makeshift plastic spray booth for the last car which we had since given to our nephew (kicking myself now). So, Elizabeth and I set about building a two-story barn with plenty of space for a large woodshop, mechanics shop, and spray booth. When I say build, I mean we picked up hammer and nails and built the thing. I must say; the thing was a work of beauty. All that was left was to install windows and then my restoration project could resume in earnest. And then I got offered a job in Bozeman, Montana which had been a long-time dream for this wildlife biologist. So without so much as ever rolling a car into the new shop, we packed up and headed to the mountains. That was 13 years ago and I’ve gotten a lot of grief for hauling my little project 1,200 miles across the continent. And she has weathered through many Montana blizzards sitting neglected in my driveway; waiting for me to come to my senses.

And Now…

Maybe I am having my mid-life crisis but the itch to get this car back on the road had gotten too strong to ignore. Over the years, I would periodically cruise the Web for 914 news, but would quickly put it aside with the resignation that I’m back where I was with no good space to work on the car. But then I read Darren Collins’ amazing odyssey on this forum. Not only is it inspirational, but it also gave me an epiphany. The bulk of the work in a restoration is in cleaning and refurbishing small parts. I don’t need a big-ass shop for that. In fact, we do have a 2-car garage but half of it is filled to the gills with woodworking tools and the other half has to remain open for the daily driver so we don’t have to scoop and scrape several inches of snow off every morning, and to protect the car at least a little from the horde of deer mice that plague every vehicle parked outdoors in the mountains. But I have a plan. I purchased a set of 10” pneumatic castors at HF and will build a rotisserie on them. That will allow me to roll my chassis over my gravel driveway and in and out of the garage as needed. That will still leave the challenge when it comes time to paint (I don’t have the means to farm out a $10K paint job). But it will get me through strip, patch, and primer. We have planned on building a detached garage since we built our house. Maybe I’ll figure out how to fund it.

Determined to make progress, it was time to take stock of what I have ahead of me. The car had been mostly stripped prior to our move, but many of the parts that had been carefully stored in sheds wound up strewn haphazardly in the trunks and cockpit during and after the move. The old pitted windshield had been removed long ago and donated to the other car. The plexi I had installed to seal out the rain had cracked to shards and only the tarp over the car kept out rain and snow. The old tires turned to dust years ago, leaving the belly of the car only a few inches above the damp earth. Not the treatment I intended to give my car but it is what it is. I was prepared for the worst last week when I began excavating to survey the damage of years of neglect. The car wreaked of weasel piss and I actually found a weasel skull in the front trunk. But that weasel piss probably accounts for the surprisingly low amount of rodent nests found in the car. Considering the abuse, things could be worse.













Thirty years ago, I had all kinds of plans to modernize this car. But history gains importance as we age so now I want to keep it mostly stock. That’s also the easier and cheaper route given that the car is disassembled, but nearly complete. My rule for mods is to do nothing that can’t easily be reversed to original stock. The biggest sacrifice is that I won’t be blanking out the side markers as originally planned even though I really hate them.
Mods planned are:
Engine: These have already been done. Otherwise I might rethink them.

• Euro 8.0:1 compression pistons
• Weber 40IDF carbs
• “Street” cam grind for carbs.
• Dizzy – I have an unused 050 on it now, but will probably replace with an SVDA 034. My carbs already have vacuum ports.

Chassis

• Euro lenses
• Black windshield and targa trim. I already sanded and painted my dinged-up trim when I tore down the car. I like the look so will keep it for now.
• Relocate fuel pump to front and replace fuel lines.
• 2-stage paint on exterior. Still not completely married to this but think it will be easier to do and less maintenance than 1-stage. Open to comments though.
• Modern radio or retro radio with modern BT module.
• Hand throttle lever to operate carb chokes.
  

Workplan

1. Stabilize engine – It has been stored in an unheated shed. Checked on it last week and was horrified to find the pistons stuck. Luckily a half hour soak of the pistons with PB blaster and some light taps with a softwood drift freed them up. Cylinders had a little rust crust at the bottom where the rings were sitting. I pulled the worst looking cylinder. Rings look fine. A few seconds with a hone and the bore was shiny like new again. Will do the same with the remaining cylinders and will refresh the assembly lube on cam lobes and lifters. I have a 3-arm engine yoke from VW Alley arriving Wednesday and will move the engine into my heated garage where I can keep a better eye on it. Once inside, I’ll clean it off and brush the case with tectyl, spray Stabil engine fog on the piston tops and cylinder bores, and bag it. I’ll turn the crank once a month to make sure it doesn’t seize again. Open to suggestions on how to protect it until it is ready to go back in the car. I’ll probably go ahead and get the heads rebuilt sooner rather than later so I can get the engine completely assembled and not have a bunch of loose parts laying around.
2. Build a rotisserie and start on rustoration. Here’s what I know I need to do:
   1. Replace front trunk tub.
   2. Repair rear trunk lid.
   3. Repair both door sills.
   4. Repair lower sail panels.
   5. Repair or replace RH engine tray in hell hole.
   6. Replace RH outer long. Won’t know about inner until outer is cut off.
   7. Misc body sheet metal patches, mostly lower edges.
3. Inventory and clean parts. I’ll develop a plan of attack after I have a better idea what I’m dealing with. But this will keep me busy for a while.

Thanks for reading.

[burton73]

Pelican sells them. I had the one on my 86 Carrera go bad. 70,000 miles and it just breaks from the I guess the grease on the gear breaking down the plastic over the years. I sent mine out to fix but you can do this yourself. They can send you the small parts by mail.

Bob B

[bbrock]

Pelican sells them. I had the one on my 86 Carrera go bad. 70,000 miles and it just breaks from the I guess the grease on the gear breaking down the plastic over the years. I sent mine out to fix but you can do this yourself. They can send you the small parts by mail.

Bob B

Thanks. I'm putting together a Pelican order anyway. Is the 17 tooth drive gear what I'm after?

[bbrock]

duplicate deleted

[bbrock]

More Progress

Haven't updated in a couple weeks but have been busy on the project. Continued to work on some little stuff in the evenings like cleaning up the fresh air control box that had been painted (not just overspray) by the PO. Took several days of soaking in brake fluid to soften the paint to get it off without damaging the plastic. Once it was finally clean, I refurbed with a kit from 914rubber and added the screen from the same. I read that some people had to trim the screen to get the gasket to fit. The trick for me was to install the screen in the gasket with the flange angle point down. Then start installing the gasket onto the box at one of the narrow ends. Work along the long front and back until the box is seated in the gasket groove along all but the last short end. Then I used a 4" taping knife to wedge the last end of the gasket into place. Not too hard and fits perfectly. I hope installing this thing back into the car is as much fun as I have read. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/blink.gif)



I also took a day to drive to Billings to pick up this Craigslist find. Not the screaming deal I missed out on earlier, but still a good supply of air for half the price it would have cost to buy new.



Of course I had to interrupt my work on Saturday to get it up and running. I was able to dust off my old Sharpe air separator/regulator that has been in storage since I sold my old compressor to the new owner of our last house 13 years ago. The next time I am in town, I will pick up an oil fogger and parts to plumb this so I have a clean air line, and an oiled line. I plan to use different style quick connects to prevent accidentally hooking up clean hoses and tools to the oiled line.



I also used my 25% off HF coupon to pick up a 40 lb. sandblaster on Memorial Day.



FINALLY - REAL PROGRESS! (IMG:style_emoticons/default/rocking nana.gif)

Up until now, I have been swimming in the kiddie pool. Time to get serious and do something manly. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/sawzall-smiley.gif)

After much planning, I trimmed up the donor front trunk piece. The cancer on my trunk had crept onto the lower wheel wells. My donor piece had enough material to make nice patches. On the driver's side, I cut the spot welds on the wheel well seam to separate the wheel well remnant for later use. The passenger side had less rust so I decided to just include the patch in the trim. This turned out to be a mistake. Unfortunately, the pass side ear under the headlight bucket of the donor piece was damaged beyond repair, so I had to slice it to require a butt weld.



And here is the opening cut out, ready to receive the donor.



You can see the driver's wheel well patch laying on the floor. I decided to do this in stages to allow aligning the new trunk with the original pinch weld seam before cutting it out.



And here you can see the patch cuts for the pass side.



About the biggest PIA was getting the front suspension assembly bolted into place prior to welding to make sure all the mounting points stayed properly aligned. The problem was that the chassis is bolted to the rolling dolly via these same mounting points. So I jacked the front of the car up on a beam of doubled 2x4s to get the necessary clearance (and forgot to take a picture).

Despite trying to be very careful, the butt weld gap under the firewall wound up just a little wider than I was shooting for, so I rigged up a copper backing jig to hold things straight and help with blow through using a 1 inch copper pipe attached with washers and self-tapping screws. The copper wires were just to let me hook the jig on from underneath, and then pull it tight from the front to screw into place.




I didn't notice until seeing this picture that I forgot to strip the undercoating off the bottom before welding (IMG:style_emoticons/default/headbang.gif) It didn't seem to affect the welds and I had a fire extinguisher within arms reach at least.



And here it is about half way through tacking.



And here it is in place. It will need some metal finishing. The butt weld on the ear turned out great, but the little wheel well patch will need more work. The top of the patch butted against some slightly pitted, but seemingly solid metal which blew out like a mofo when welded. I was able to gap the divide but am not happy with the result and worried it will be too brittle. So I'll be cutting that out and redoing to make sure I get into good, clean metal.

When I get the car on a rotisserie, I'll also weld in a reinforcement strip behind that firewall seam. I hate to do it, but that seems like it could be a flex point and I worry about the brittleness of the weld. I did try to minimize heat in doing those tacks, and let things cool down slowly between tack runs. But still... better safe than sorry I think.



The pinch weld on the driver's side was clamped only, and not welded.



So as soon as I had things in place, I gut another big hole out.



And patched it up.



That's where I stopped for the night. My welding was definitely rusty but by the time I got to this last patch, I had my 30 year old Hobart dialed in pretty good and was back in the groove. I should be able to finish tacking this in today and get it ground. It looks like the backside of seam will only require minimal sanding. That's nice.

[bbrock]

I forgot to mention that the trunk bracing was removed carefully so it can be reinstalled after sandblasting and primer. Figured I'd take advantage of the extra access to that area as long as I can.

[bbrock]

Sorry, but I gotta ask...

Are you gonna be a dental floss tycoon?


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pSsCU1Dym-Y


--DD

OT, but I was at my local cedar outlet today to pick up some siding for a garden shed. I had to get a pic of the road sign.

[Dave_Darling]

Awesome! I wonder if that is a reference to the song at all?

--DD

[bbrock]

Awesome! I wonder if that is a reference to the song at all?

--DD

Probably a happy coincidence with the name of an early homesteader. But in my mind, this marks the exact spot Frank started his empire.

But we have some colorful place names in these parts. Here is my personal favorite:



And if you are brave enough, you can stay at the Bloody Dick Cabin.

[bbrock]

I'm overdue for an update here. There has been more work than progress but things are moving forward. First, I finished up the front trunk for now. There is still some metal finish work to do (I just received my new shrinking disc today), and I won't weld the braces back in until I can blast the areas under the headlamps out and get some epoxy primer on. Might as well take advantage of access to that area while I have it. Overall, I'm pleased with the result.



Then I lost almost a full weekend of work to finish up our little potting shed that is a hold over project from last fall.



Then it was back to the Porsche. But I knew my shop situation was going to be a challenge when I started this. I needed to make some improvements. So I devised a plan I think will get me through this project, and leave me with a garage bay to park the car when it is done. I did a massive cleaning and reconfiguration of my woodshop space to make room for rolling the Porsche into that side of the garage. Then I used an HF coupon to purchase a 10' x 17' portable garage and assembled it just outside my woodshop garage bay. I left the end at the garage door open so I can roll the Porsche in and out of the garage or tent as the need arises. I'd like to add a second door on that end, but so far I've gotten no response from HF about buying just the door end. I will also have to reinforce this structure before the snows come, or else it will collapse for sure.



The idea is that the tent will make a makeshift blasting and painting booth. To facilitate rolling the chassis, I had to bring in a yard of road mix to tamp in the driveway to level the transition between driveway and garage floor. Then I covered the gravel with cheap, 1/4" plywood to keep the dolly castors from digging into the fresh gravel. Thicker plywood would be better, but I'm cheap and this does the trick. I can easily pull the car in and push it out by myself. Finally, I covered the tent floor with thick tarp. The tarp catches blasting media for recovery and should help keep dust down when painting time comes. I tested the media recovering by blasting part of the rear trunk area with crushed glass. Then I rolled the chassis into the garage, lifted the edges of the tarp, and was able to shopvac up at least 80% of what I had blasted.

A bonus is that I can have the Porsche AND the wife's DD in the garage at the same time. That scored some bonus points. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/cheer.gif)



Of course part of the challenge is figuring out how to get the tubs of car parts off the garage floor. So on Saturday, I reclaimed some space from a high shelf in the garage and loaded it with tubs and boxes. I found another spot of unused wall high on another wall, and added another shelf. It was just enough to get everything off the floor. The garage/shop never looked so clean and spacious. Then Saturday evening, there was a rumble and crash and I got (IMG:style_emoticons/default/sheeplove.gif)



That is what it looks like when you just assume the shelf you installed 10 years ago had heavy duty hardware (IMG:style_emoticons/default/headbang.gif) Overall, I got off lucky. The only damage was two OEM Hella taillight lenses. One was a Euro lens I planned to use. The other was a perfect condition US original that I planned to sell. The euro lens broke cleanly at the glue line between the amber and red sections so is salvageable. Anyone have suggestions on the best glue to use? The US lens is trash.

Despite the setback, I had been chipping away at cutting, cleaning, and prepping my donor pieces for the rear trunk during the odd hour here and there. By Saturday evening, I was ready to tack in the tail patch.



So I did



The patch is slightly lumpy along the spot weld line from having to weld up all the spot weld cutter holes. But it isn't too bad and I'm hoping my new shrinking disc with some hammer and dolly work will smooth it out. But first I need to finish welding in the patch.

So that's where things stand now. Next will be patching the rear trunk floor which should go pretty quick. Then the fun stuff with the outer longs. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/sawzall-smiley.gif) (IMG:style_emoticons/default/smash.gif)

[bbrock]

This weeks update is a short one. I got the tail patch welded and ground...



and welded in the rear trunk floor patch.





Got to use my new shrinking disc on the tail to smooth out the lumps created from welding the spot weld cutter holes shut. It worked great. The surface is within about 1/32" of smooth. I think I could get it to perfection with a lot more time and effort, but 1/32" of filler seems a fair price to pay for gaining time for other work. I still have a small patch to fabricate on the lower right corner of the tail. Donor patch didn't quite cover that area.

The donor patch for the floor had some pitting at the rear edge under the seam sealer. It's still solid metal but caused a bit of bubbling on some of the plug welds. But it is attached solidly and the welds will be ground down and buried under seam sealer when all is done anyway. After applying epoxy primer, I'll smooth the pitted areas with a thin layer of FG reinforced filler. For now, I brushed on a coat of Jasco to convert any lingering rust left after blasting with crushed glass.

Unfortunately, I have to leave town for a week so won't be able to grind the butt weld to see the final project until I return. But it feels good to having the junk in the trunks almost taken care of. Getting closer to ordering some RD steel and diving into those longs.

[tygaboy]

Man, that's a lot of inches of seam welding you've done on your car. Looks really good! (IMG:style_emoticons/default/aktion035.gif)
I've been holding off on a similar repair I need to do to my rear panel and you're motivating me to get after it!
Keep up the great work (and the pics) and continued success on your build. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/smilie_pokal.gif)

[bbrock]

Man, that's a lot of inches of seam welding you've done on your car. Looks really good! (IMG:style_emoticons/default/aktion035.gif)
I've been holding off on a similar repair I need to do to my rear panel and you're motivating me to get after it!
Keep up the great work (and the pics) and continued success on your build. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/smilie_pokal.gif)

Thanks. I think we are inspiring each other because I've been following your build. When I have to fab pieces for my longs and floor, I hope they turn out half as good as yours. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/beer.gif)

A better picture would reveal that there are a few spots on that seam that look like a bird took a (IMG:style_emoticons/default/post-2-1117899824.gif), but not too many. I really struggled over where to make that seam. I wanted to hide it under the center support channel but that looked like it would get involved with the transmission mounts and other stuff. In the end, I'm happy with where things sit. But I was nervous as hell about it. The nice thing about a monster butt joint like this is that there is a lot of real estate to move your tack welds around in and keep things cool. It still took a couple hours of "tack - tack - tack - wait...." though.

[bbrock]

Overdue for an update again.

As usual, I like to divide time between rustoring the chassis and a more fiddly task I can do while relaxing on the couch, staring at the idiot box. This time, it was re-keying the door locks. I ran into a problem with the pass side door handle when the outer stud just spun free and detailed in another thread. Probably as a result of trying to get that handle off, I found a hairline crack where the hinge arch meets the mounting tab.

(IMG:http://www.914world.com/bbs2/uploads/post-20845-1501039695.jpg)

I knew that would bite me in the butt eventually so decided to attempt a solder repair with a propane torch to reinforce the crack to maybe by some time. I figured the handle was toast otherwise so nothing to lose. The repair actually went well and I think I had it... But then I decided to touch it up just a little better... (IMG:style_emoticons/default/headbang.gif) I wound up blowing out a chunk of the hinge arch with the torch. It didn't blow all the way through, but enough to weaken the piece. Undeterred, I decided to experiment with the limits of cheap pot metal repair. So I melted on a big glob of silver solder and then ground and shaped it back to it original form.

(IMG:http://www.914world.com/bbs2/uploads/post-20845-1501207880.jpg)

Amazingly, that seemed to actually work! I reassembled the handle with spring and reefed on it a bit to see if it would hold. It did! And then I noticed that the hole on the repaired side was ever so slightly misaligned so the gap with the flapper tapered a tiny bit... like maybe 1/64". I stewed on it awhile and decided I couldn't live with that. So I decided to touch it up to make it perfect. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/headbang.gif) (IMG:style_emoticons/default/headbang.gif) (IMG:style_emoticons/default/headbang.gif) (IMG:style_emoticons/default/fyou1.gif)

And here is the result:



I cry Uncle! If anyone has a handle with a busted flapper but good base they would like to sell.... (IMG:style_emoticons/default/pray.gif)

Anyway, rekeying the locks was a piece of cake. Dan (a.k.a. Tweet) set me up with new tumblers. He actually went way beyond what I expected to get this done with minimum cost. Dan also sold me a nice ignition lock to replace the VW part that I had on the car, and a new key blank that I will have cut to code. Now I have all of my locks working with the original key for this car (glove box lock not shown because it already fit the key so I didn't mess with it). The frunk handle was also refreshed with a new coat of paint.



Going to hell.

Back on the car, it was time to dig into the hell hole. This is the make or break moment for the project. I had peeked inside with a fiber optic scope before, so there were no real surprises when I opened up the long. It's bad.



And still bad after a bit of cleanup.



After gaining insight and inspiration from many previous build threads, my plan is to rebuild the inner wheel well and lower section of inner long with fabbed parts and button up the outside with RD pieces. I believe I can do this without removing that outer suspension console.

I started with the top of the inner long in the wheel well by fabbing a patch made out of one of the sail panels I previously removed for replacement. Before this project, I didn't even know what a metal shrinker and stretcher was. This was my first attempt using one. I like these tools!




I carefully gut away just the top layer to keep the inner double layer intact. After cutting around the perimeter with a dremel and cutoff wheel, the layers were easily separated with an air chisel. I drilled the inner wall for rosette welding to the new patch. This should provide a strong reinforcement to the patch. Many thanks to Cary for pointing out the U-Pol copper rich weld through primer! (IMG:style_emoticons/default/smilie_pokal.gif) I had been using Eastwood's self-etching weld-thru and hate it. This copper stuff is fantastic.





Then it was just a matter of clamping the patch in place and welding it up.





While I was there, I decided to patch the rust on the firewall.



I fabbed a couple patches from the other sail panel. So far, all the patches in this car have been made either from metal removed elsewhere on the car, or from unused portions of donor parts from other 914s. For some reason, I think that's kind of cool. The upper piece was my first complex bend on this project. I'm happy with how it turned out and this gave me confidence going forward. Here are the patches loose before cutting out the rust.





And here they are, welded in with just a little more grinding to go. I had one spot that blew through over the bend at the lower right of the upper section. I lost the definition of that bend repairing the blowout and the location of the rear engine shelf made it impossible to get a dolly behind to bump the crease back in. So I tried my hand at using body solder. My hat is off to anyone who has the skill to use this stuff (IMG:style_emoticons/default/pray.gif) I don't! In the end, I did get the bend somewhat redefined but couldn't get the solder to feather out the way I'd like. You can see my botched solder job just above where the pinch seam runs diagonal.



I'm still having trouble with that sunken edge around the welds preventing me from being able to grind the weld smooth without grinding away parent material. Do I need to increase my wire speed to get more fill in there? Structurally, it is sound, but it would be nice for all those welds to disappear without using filler.



And here it is with a temporary coat of primer. Not perfect, but not bad. I think it will look perfect with a very thin skim of FG reinforced filler. The dark spot is wet paint - not a dent. That weld bead in the pinch seam looks worse in these pics. But I think I'll hit it with the grinder anyway.






That's how it looks today. Next up is rebuilding the lower part of both layers of that inner wheel well.

[tygaboy]

I'm still having trouble with that sunken edge around the welds preventing me from being able to grind the weld smooth without grinding away parent material. Do I need to increase my wire speed to get more fill in there? Structurally, it is sound, but it would be nice for all those welds to disappear without using filler.

I think you're running into the heat shrinkage causing the "dip" that prevents you getting at the entire weld bead. If you were gas welding or even TIG, you could hammer and dolly to stretch it back to flat.

With MIG, about all I found that works better is going REALLY slowly. Like: one tack, hit it with compressed air until it's cool, next tack, cool, repeat until you're ready to kill yourself... or accept the fact that it's going to be under the back pad and no one will ever see it.

That said, I have the same "but I'll know it's there" problem and I agonize over every bit where you can tell it's been repaired.

BTW, that complex patch piece you made looks fantastic! Nice fab work.
Chris

[burton73]

Brock,

You really are doing a great job on restoring you car. I have fear that a lot of people do bad jobs on welding their cars and that there are a lot of cars that the owners say they are restored but in fact they really are crap.

You should be very proud of bringing back you car that has great memories for you.

Bob B


(IMG:style_emoticons/default/welder.gif)

[bbrock]

I'm still having trouble with that sunken edge around the welds preventing me from being able to grind the weld smooth without grinding away parent material. Do I need to increase my wire speed to get more fill in there? Structurally, it is sound, but it would be nice for all those welds to disappear without using filler.

I think you're running into the heat shrinkage causing the "dip" that prevents you getting at the entire weld bead. If you were gas welding or even TIG, you could hammer and dolly to stretch it back to flat.

With MIG, about all I found that works better is going REALLY slowly. Like: one tack, hit it with compressed air until it's cool, next tack, cool, repeat until you're ready to kill yourself... or accept the fact that it's going to be under the back pad and no one will ever see it.

That said, I have the same "but I'll know it's there" problem and I agonize over every bit where you can tell it's been repaired.

BTW, that complex patch piece you made looks fantastic! Nice fab work.
Chris

Thanks for the tips Chris. I think you are exactly right about what happened on the welds here. My usual method is even more painful. I typically put in just a few tacks spread out around the patch and then walk away and let things cool down slowly thinking that a slow cool will be less brittle than if I rush it. I have no idea if there is any truth to that.

But because of all the bends in this panel, I wasn't quite as worried about warping so I got cocky and tried throwing down three or four tacks in a row and then let it cool. Looking back, where I did that is exactly the spot I showed. Your post helped me think it through. I have yet to grind the long seam in the rear trunk and that one was tacked very slowly. It will be interesting to see how it finishes.

Brock,

You really are doing a great job on restoring you car. I have fear that a lot of people do bad jobs on welding their cars and that there are a lot of cars that the owners say they are restored but in fact they really are crap.

You should be very proud of bringing back you car that has great memories for you.

Bob B


(IMG:style_emoticons/default/welder.gif)

Thanks Bob, you have no idea how good that is to hear. I know what you mean about crappy welding on restorations. The engine compartment side of the hell hole has a bunch of really bad welding that needs to be cut out and redone. But the thing is, that crappy welder was me 30+ years ago. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/yikes.gif)

[bbrock]

Well Bummer.

Since my rear trunk lid is not repairable, I decided to salvage the skin off of it thinking I could use it to fabricate patches for elsewhere on the car. I thought I had read that all the sheet metal on a 914 is 19 gauge but I must be mistaken. I cleaned up the nice sheet I got from my deck lid and threw a thickness gauge on it. 20 ga. dammit! (IMG:style_emoticons/default/mad.gif) I checked around the car to make sure my gauge was correct and discovered that all of the structural stuff is 19ga. but the body skins are 20. I think that's too thin for fabbing inner long patches so I guess I'm off to buy a sheet of 18ga tomorrow. And here I was feeling smug about the idea of creating all my patches from metal salvaged elsewhere on the car. Oh well, I can still use the lid for some door skin patches at least.

[xperu]

By chance is Kelly Seevers one of your neighbors? He lives up one of those canyons. Old friend from Albertsons.

Amazing! Yes he is. Just around the bend. I don't really know him, but neighbors speak highly of the whole family. They are tucked up in "the holler" on Goes Nowhere Road which is aptly named. You'd probably be able to see their house in some of the photos I posted if you cut down the trees.

The roller problem is the whole reason I've put this off for so long. Winds can be wicked in this canyon so awnings would have to be built hell for stout. And my MIG is worthless outside because it is rarely calm enough not to blow the shielding gas away. I picked up a set of these casters at HF to handle rolling on gravel. Snooping the Web, it seems others have made these work. I will know soon enough as I plan to pick up tubing for the jig this week. I can leave the car in the garage for the time it takes to complete the long work. I think the rest can go in and out as needed. Worst case, I may have to throw up a temporary shed around he car in the drive. But I'll try this first. Ideally I would wait on this project until I had built another garage/shop. But the longer I let this car sit, the more expensive the project gets. So I will muddle forward as best I can.

Are you near Noxen, my brother lives there. He is into model A Fords

[xperu]

By chance is Kelly Seevers one of your neighbors? He lives up one of those canyons. Old friend from Albertsons.

Amazing! Yes he is. Just around the bend. I don't really know him, but neighbors speak highly of the whole family. They are tucked up in "the holler" on Goes Nowhere Road which is aptly named. You'd probably be able to see their house in some of the photos I posted if you cut down the trees.

The roller problem is the whole reason I've put this off for so long. Winds can be wicked in this canyon so awnings would have to be built hell for stout. And my MIG is worthless outside because it is rarely calm enough not to blow the shielding gas away. I picked up a set of these casters at HF to handle rolling on gravel. Snooping the Web, it seems others have made these work. I will know soon enough as I plan to pick up tubing for the jig this week. I can leave the car in the garage for the time it takes to complete the long work. I think the rest can go in and out as needed. Worst case, I may have to throw up a temporary shed around he car in the drive. But I'll try this first. Ideally I would wait on this project until I had built another garage/shop. But the longer I let this car sit, the more expensive the project gets. So I will muddle forward as best I can.

Are you near Noxon, my brother lives there. He is into model A Fords

[bbrock]

Are you near Noxon, my brother lives there. He is into model A Fords

Nice country up there. But no, I'm way down south in Bozeman.