So Here It Is... Options

[sfrenck]

If you have the space:

1) buy another roller from the west coast that has a solid body
2) pick the best parts from both cars and put them on the roller
3) sell the extra parts to recoup money

That's what I did - pretty sure I made all the money back from the west coast roller (including the transport fees) by selling the parts. Had a lot of fun with the dis-assembly / re-assembly on the new roller than I would have learning to weld.

[mb911]

That's a nice driver here..

I can tell you this much. Mine was at least that bad if not worse. Took me 3 years to get it on the ground after all the metal work.. That said your car would not scare me.. I would estimate 1k in metal and 6 or 7 k for a proper install.. I know that's what I would charge and I think that's a deal..

[vbrad26]

(IMG:style_emoticons/default/agree.gif) that this is a decent project car but for someone dedicated to a DIY project rather than something they can spruce up over a couple weekends and drive. "Sketchy" is exactly the word I would use for the rust repairs too. They might be solid but it's hard to say. The gusset under the jack tube bothers me because it suggests that tube wasn't welded in right. If that is wrong, what else did they get wrong? I'd want to do a lot of probing of those repairs and get a boroscope inside the longs to get a better assessment. Bottom line is the car is not terminal and lots of people, including myself, would enjoy a project like that. Only you can decide how much project you want and what you can live with.

I want it to be as much DIY as possible, but like I said most of the body work would have to be done by someone else.
Finding any and all structural issues is definitely the number one priority before any other work.

Well, that is kind of the wrong answer on metal working IF you care about total financial outlay. The parts are, relatively speaking, cheap compared to the labor costs. It is hard to estimate the cost for a shop to repair because labor rates and standards etc all vary wildly, but let me just say that it will be cheap to find another better car. There are some people on here that do this professionally who might offer up numbers but they will be scary (but totally worth it) due to the sheer amount of time.

There is a decent red one for sale here for $6k asking as an FYI.

Like I said, money is not necessarily a factor but obviously need it to make sense. What wouldn't make sense is spending a bunch of money to fix something when another more sensible route could be taken
I wouldn't mind learning metal work but I don't think this is the time to do it hah.

Labor (from a decent shop) is 5-10X or more the cost of the RD parts. If the longs are that rough, the rear suspension consoles and other parts of the car are usually in need of repair. Also, a critical look at the seems at the front and back trunks will often show evidence of prior hits. Very common on our 50 year old cars. you could easily put $10-15K into that car before you even talk about paint. Not trying to discourage you, that's just how these cars work.

Yeah once it's known how much structural work this car will need, then decisions will have to be make about how much money is willing to be spent in getting it fixed.

I see a lot of rather sketchy looking rust "repair" on both longs.

My guess is the car still has its fair share of cancer and if you want it to be done right, you'll have to undo those "repairs" and redo them correctly.


If anything in this thread scares you, you're in over your head:
http://www.914world.com/bbs2/index.php?showtopic=16748

(IMG:style_emoticons/default/shades.gif)

I'm more afraid of the "repairs" being repaired than just having the rust repaired right from the beginning.

Fix the fuel problem drive it and have fun.
Beats the hell out of a 6 year jack stand slog.
My 2 cents

Hah, I like your style.
But I also don't want this thing to fold in half on my while im driving it!

In this image. What is that expanding foam colored stuff?

Hmmm, good question.

If you have the space:

1) buy another roller from the west coast that has a solid body
2) pick the best parts from both cars and put them on the roller
3) sell the extra parts to recoup money

That's what I did - pretty sure I made all the money back from the west coast roller (including the transport fees) by selling the parts. Had a lot of fun with the dis-assembly / re-assembly on the new roller than I would have learning to weld.

That could possibly be an option. And not a bad one in my opinion.

That's a nice driver here..

I can tell you this much. Mine was at least that bad if not worse. Took me 3 years to get it on the ground after all the metal work.. That said your car would not scare me.. I would estimate 1k in metal and 6 or 7 k for a proper install.. I know that's what I would charge and I think that's a deal..

If your estimate is in the ballpark of what I could expect, then that may not be too crazy...

[vbrad26]

Just to be perfectly clear this car is not intended to be a pristine example by any means of the word.
First things first, it needs to be safe and (mostly) mechanically sound.
Cosmetics are way down on the list of things that needs to be addressed.
Sure it should look good, but there is time for that once the other things have been sorted out.
It will be a driver. Not a show car.

[Tdskip]

Just to be perfectly clear this car is not intended to be a pristine example by any means of the word.
First things first, it needs to be safe and (mostly) mechanically sound.
Cosmetics are way down on the list of things that needs to be addressed.
Sure it should look good, but there is time for that once the other things have been sorted out.
It will be a driver. Not a show car.

That will help focus how we can help you.

Not sure I’d go hammer it doing autocrosses at this point, but for running around as you get to know the car the body is probably fine to use.

It sounds like you were mixture is off on the weber-have you ever tune the one before? It’s not that hard and that would be a good place to start.

How bad is the clutch? Slipping or hard to shift?

[vbrad26]

That will help focus how we can help you.

Not sure I’d go hammer it doing autocrosses at this point, but for running around as you get to know the car the body is probably fine to use.

It sounds like you were mixture is off on the weber-have you ever tune the one before? It’s not that hard and that would be a good place to start.

How bad is the clutch? Slipping or hard to shift?

Yeah any sort of "hard" driving will not be happening any time soon.
And honestly would probably be not to often at all because there are other cars for that task!
And no, I honestly do not know much about carburetors so I figured now would be my time to learn a little!
However I have yet to research anything, mainly because I want to make sure this thing stays around before I start investing time into it.
Clutch slips. Not familiar with a finely tuned 901 so I'm not sure if it is how it is supposed to feel or not.

[bbrock]

Well, we know those structural repairs are ugly but it is harder to assess whether they are solid and how much rust is still inside from pics. Ugly and solid is okay. Poking around with a screw driver and running a boroscope inside could help answer those questions. You could get lucky and just need some internal frame coating to at least slow the tin worms to an acceptable pace. I'm with Ben, this may well be a good driver as it sits, just hard to say with confidence from pics.

I never had much luck with those single progressive carbs on Type 4 engines. Had one on a 914, and another on a bus. Both sucked. The intake tubes are so long that fuel likes to condense out before it reaches the heads. They would even freeze up and kill the engine in cold weather. I've heard others say they did okay with them but it seems rare.

[vbrad26]

Well, we know those structural repairs are ugly but it is harder to assess whether they are solid and how much rust is still inside from pics. Ugly and solid is okay. Poking around with a screw driver and running a boroscope inside could help answer those questions. You could get lucky and just need some internal frame coating to at least slow the tin worms to an acceptable pace. I'm with Ben, this may well be a good driver as it sits, just hard to say with confidence from pics.

I never had much luck with those single progressive carbs on Type 4 engines. Had one on a 914, and another on a bus. Both sucked. The intake tubes are so long that fuel likes to condense out before it reaches the heads. They would even freeze up and kill the engine in cold weather. I've heard others say they did okay with them but it seems rare.

Yeah this is a drivers car not a show car.
Sure I want it to look pretty but that will be down the road.
I doubt it will go back to FI.
If the rest of the car checks out enough for it to be a keeper the motor would be coming out for a re-build.
At that point, FI VS. dual carbs would be figured out.
Not sure it would stay single...

[mb911]

(IMG:style_emoticons/default/agree.gif) that this is a decent project car but for someone dedicated to a DIY project rather than something they can spruce up over a couple weekends and drive. "Sketchy" is exactly the word I would use for the rust repairs too. They might be solid but it's hard to say. The gusset under the jack tube bothers me because it suggests that tube wasn't welded in right. If that is wrong, what else did they get wrong? I'd want to do a lot of probing of those repairs and get a boroscope inside the longs to get a better assessment. Bottom line is the car is not terminal and lots of people, including myself, would enjoy a project like that. Only you can decide how much project you want and what you can live with.

I want it to be as much DIY as possible, but like I said most of the body work would have to be done by someone else.
Finding any and all structural issues is definitely the number one priority before any other work.

Well, that is kind of the wrong answer on metal working IF you care about total financial outlay. The parts are, relatively speaking, cheap compared to the labor costs. It is hard to estimate the cost for a shop to repair because labor rates and standards etc all vary wildly, but let me just say that it will be cheap to find another better car. There are some people on here that do this professionally who might offer up numbers but they will be scary (but totally worth it) due to the sheer amount of time.

There is a decent red one for sale here for $6k asking as an FYI.

Like I said, money is not necessarily a factor but obviously need it to make sense. What wouldn't make sense is spending a bunch of money to fix something when another more sensible route could be taken
I wouldn't mind learning metal work but I don't think this is the time to do it hah.

Labor (from a decent shop) is 5-10X or more the cost of the RD parts. If the longs are that rough, the rear suspension consoles and other parts of the car are usually in need of repair. Also, a critical look at the seems at the front and back trunks will often show evidence of prior hits. Very common on our 50 year old cars. you could easily put $10-15K into that car before you even talk about paint. Not trying to discourage you, that's just how these cars work.

Yeah once it's known how much structural work this car will need, then decisions will have to be make about how much money is willing to be spent in getting it fixed.

I see a lot of rather sketchy looking rust "repair" on both longs.

My guess is the car still has its fair share of cancer and if you want it to be done right, you'll have to undo those "repairs" and redo them correctly.


If anything in this thread scares you, you're in over your head:
http://www.914world.com/bbs2/index.php?showtopic=16748

(IMG:style_emoticons/default/shades.gif)

I'm more afraid of the "repairs" being repaired than just having the rust repaired right from the beginning.

Fix the fuel problem drive it and have fun.
Beats the hell out of a 6 year jack stand slog.
My 2 cents

Hah, I like your style.
But I also don't want this thing to fold in half on my while im driving it!

In this image. What is that expanding foam colored stuff?

Hmmm, good question.

If you have the space:

1) buy another roller from the west coast that has a solid body
2) pick the best parts from both cars and put them on the roller
3) sell the extra parts to recoup money

That's what I did - pretty sure I made all the money back from the west coast roller (including the transport fees) by selling the parts. Had a lot of fun with the dis-assembly / re-assembly on the new roller than I would have learning to weld.

That could possibly be an option. And not a bad one in my opinion.

That's a nice driver here..

I can tell you this much. Mine was at least that bad if not worse. Took me 3 years to get it on the ground after all the metal work.. That said your car would not scare me.. I would estimate 1k in metal and 6 or 7 k for a proper install.. I know that's what I would charge and I think that's a deal..

If your estimate is in the ballpark of what I could expect, then that may not be too crazy...

I do believe that it could be done for that.. A couple names would be 914limited (Ltd)
@mcmark

Maybe even auto Atlanta..

I would suggest you just get the metal work done 1st then worry about everything else..

Last resort ping me.. I maybe willing..

[Tdskip]

Let’s work with what you got at this point.

The first thing to check, as I learned through others here, is to make sure that the clutch itself is actually slipping versus just being poorly adjusted. If you lay down on the ground on the passenger side just ahead of the rear wheel you should be able to put your hand on the clutch cable to see how tight it is.

The clutch cable mounts on a white/yellow Road plastic wheel and there should be a little bit of give it it when you take a single finger and pull the top of the cable that comes off the wheel towards the ground.

If you were close to the car wanted to check that and then report back

[ConeDodger]

It’s a shame that went black because Zambezi is an outstanding 914 color. Worse thing I see is the carb. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/sad.gif) looks a bit rusty in all the wrong places.

[vbrad26]

I do believe that it could be done for that.. A couple names would be 914limited (Ltd)
@mcmark

Maybe even auto Atlanta..

I would suggest you just get the metal work done 1st then worry about everything else..

Last resort ping me.. I maybe willing..

Hah ok thanks for the offer.
All metal work would definitely be addressed first before anything else.

Let’s work with what you got at this point.

The first thing to check, as I learned through others here, is to make sure that the clutch itself is actually slipping versus just being poorly adjusted. If you lay down on the ground on the passenger side just ahead of the rear wheel you should be able to put your hand on the clutch cable to see how tight it is.

The clutch cable mounts on a white/yellow Road plastic wheel and there should be a little bit of give it it when you take a single finger and pull the top of the cable that comes off the wheel towards the ground.

If you were close to the car wanted to check that and then report back

Good info, thank you!
Unfortunately the car has been at the shop since Tuesday evening so I have not been around it.
Not even sure when it will be back in the garage, but like I've said, not in a hurry.
I'm hoping to hear something soon though because I feel like the car is in limbo right now.
Hopefully I will have a good idea of everything that needs to be addressed and go from there.
If it ends up needing to just go then it needs to be gone and on to the next!

It’s a shame that went black because Zambezi is an outstanding 914 color. Worse thing I see is the carb. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/sad.gif) looks a bit rusty in all the wrong places.

My thoughts exactly on the OEM color.
I would have LOVED if it had still been green, or just anything other than black as it is one of my least favorite car colors.