Restoring an old conversion, Finally back to work Options

[914e]

When the kids turned 14 my son and daughter for some reason decided they needed to build a car. I still suspect somehow my brothers stuck this idea in their heads. After months of failing to get them to drop the idea. I was able to convince them the $500 muscle cars that I grew up with are long gone. So I convinced them a bug was a perfect first car. Cheap and easy to get parts for. They found a 74 super with a blown engine for about $700. The owner claimed it was daily driver till the engine blew. The body looked pretty solid.


My plan was to have them rebuild the engine, do the body work, and get it back on the road. We dissembled it and started on the body work. After a few months we had a machine shop examine the engine parts, it was in worse shape then I expected but workable. Meanwhile my daughter started suggesting we should make it electric. Looking at the motor and controller cost it seemed to be in the range of the engine rebuild, then I looked up the batteries.... No way batteries are 20K. They sanded and soda blasted for months. Found some rust areas, being in Arizona a quarter size rust area is a disaster. After looking at what everyone in the world considers rust, I got over it and bought a welder.

My daughter kept on me about making it electric, after I figured out the smart way was to use batteries from a wreaked car for pennies on the dollar, I agreed. Of course teenagers can't finish the body work in April when it is below 90F. They wait August weeks before school to try to finish when it is still110F. Anyway after many days of painting at 4 am we finish.





Back in the 90's and 2000's the local utility sponsored electric car races. Often a 914 was converted to electric and raced. As we built the bug I ran across a few of the old 914 conversions.
After the bug was on the road, I enjoyed driving it so much I started looking for making something of my own. I started looking a Ghia's, Buses, 911's and then one day a 914 pops up on Craigslist.



Old DC motor, converted by a high school or college 20 years ago. Even had a battery module. The body looked good, the price cheap.