37 years of brutal California winters did this to my car

More of the horror!!

A little work with evil wire wheels on the angle grinders and all is mostly good.

A little rust converter and it should be good. Should I weld up the drain holes or leave them for future 'use'?

better start looking for a solid roller eh? lol at least living in cali has one advantage. Dave

Unfortunately I really do have some real rust under the seats that will take more than 20 minutes to buff out. The rest of car is almost perfect.

That wasn't rust, just some discoloration.

Thats funny shit!! I'll have to post some pics of the 62 Ford F100 that im doing some rust repair. I swear the only thing that was holding the roof on was the rear bit.

i had the same..i pulled up all the tar in the cockpit, then wire brushed any brown stuff...rust converter then rust encapsulator for good measure. primer ,paint then 2nd skin sound dampener. the whole thing took quite a few hours but it will really put your mind at rest. i wouldnt fill any drain holes if i were you, they put them for a reason IMO. just treat and move on. we live in cali, your stuff will last at least another 20 years i believe. Dave

Awhh Qwichur Whinin' Steve!

This is what I found on my 73 2L last April, after it had been in blocks in my dry & fully enclosed SoCal garage - & none of it was there when it went in there May 85!!

It's also always been a SoCal 914 since Nov. 72 first sale, & I've owned since Dec 75, & was a DD from 11/72 to 5/85, then stored!

Battery Tray - & with NO rust before & NO Battery in it since 85!
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2" x 3" "L" by pass side steering rack brace - this one's a real puzzle how the F it got there!
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Behind Drivers Door after a half-fast fix by body shop in 1980!
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... & that doesn't count the F&R body damage from the ditz who hit it in the parking structure which temporarily retired my 914!!
Now that's a reason to

You do realize I was just joking right? I think my car has been here in the bay area it's whole life - and garaged most of that time, I am supposed to be the third owner - just like my 67' Mustang (built in San Jose) that my dad has now. It is really rusty too! My 80' Volvo 244 has NO rust at all - it's perfect like new.

Steve, how many miles does your 914 have on it?

PNW teeners certainly see rust. But I have seen some really clean 914's with almost 200k miles that had very little rust anywhere. I think the key is, you can drive them, but keep them garaged, check and fix rust every couple of years and keep the 914 off the road on the worst weather days. Like sanded or salted roads etc.

The 914 I bought from CA a few years back had the same rust in the trunk, and a bit of surface rust on the battery tray, thats it!

CA car, yuk

above is 37 years of "hey, your tail light to body seal leaks."

...not nice to leave that nasty image burning your retna

About 150-160K the odometer broke at 40,000 about 10 years ago. The PO didn't drive it much and I only drove it about 75 miles before it went up on jackstands.

I am pretty sure the PO put the holes in to let the water out the ones in the trunk look like they were made with a nail - squarish holes. I did the same on the passenger floor when it had an inch or so of water pooled on it from the one night I parked the car outside - it rained like hell and the rear window leaks badly. At least I got a good avitar picture from that.
The rust in the cockpit is bad and will need new sheet-metal (I can see the garage floor - nothing but tar) I need to lower the drivers seat anyway so no big deal.
Steve

Good use of satire.... I like it...

Someone from the northeast had to say it.

This thread reminds me to mention all of the "CA" cars that I've seen in the last month's PCA newsletter and Panorama . . . all hailing from states other than California.

I think the battery area and the rear window and the tail light area can be destructive no matter where the car lived it's life. My 75 came from Co. and WY. and I thought it looked pretty good. But looking through the past receipts it has had the battery area and around the jack post worked on. I had it two years before I figgured out it has clearcoat on the entire car. The front hood had a bunch of rock chips that were getting rusty so I redid it and when I sanded the paint off it had clearcoat on it. Boy, Im a painter and I didn't notice any tape lines anywhere or evidence of a repaint. I thought it only had a repaint on the rear trunk when I bought it because the repair was obvious over the latch area from a ham fisted closer and you can see the wave on the underside. The receipts only said 2k for engine compartment area refresh and 1900.00 for motor and tranny refresh in about 91 from a porsche shop in CO. The car only had about 50k on it then.