I don't remember ever seeing the factory assembly line for the 914. I have a factory prepared video of the 356, I've seen 911 stuff. I would really like to see what process was used to paint our cars.

I've seen it on here somewhere. SEARCH could be futile. Maybe TC will have the pic archived somewhere...?

Not the paint line, but....

Early cars. Silver button gauges and early bumpers. Hey I think that is my car.

Click to view attachment

Someone else recently asked about 914 assy. line videos, but AFAIK nobody came up with anything.

Apparently they just brush painted the headlight covers.....
Click to view attachment

Seriously though, I think this is a higher rez or bigger pic of the Das 914 Buch from Sleepin above, which you may be able to zoom in on more, but I don't think they show anything about the painting process here .....

Click to view attachment

When you click & zoom in, those calipers look just like Eric Shea's/PMB's restos!!

I am fairly certain they let the chassis sit out in the rain/snow for a few months before they went in for paint

Did someone photo shop out the side light on the first car?

That was only for the Euro version, IIRC. The US version got to sit on the deck of a boat for a few weeks. Somewhere there is a description of the "Factory Prep" that included sanding the rotors...

Rick,

Look at the flipped lower quality pic on post 3.. Im going to say NO.

Possibly US and Euro on the same line?

If you check closely the 2nd car, it has side markers and euro signal lens. What was the market for that version?

All i see is a white pipe in front of the turn signal ...

Anyone want to guess as to what body part might be used to interface with the hanger from those overhead cranes?

Richard

Ric here is one document I have that provides a little paint/prep info, as well as #31 here:

http://bowlsby.net/914/Classic/RareDocs.htm

I thought that was what the donuts were for...factory assembly dollies and such.

rear donuts can support all the rear, they are under the longs.
Fronts can handle the front...it weighs alot less, especially once you put a motor in place.

RIch

Volkswagen versions originally featured an 80 hp (60 kW) fuel-injected 1.7 L flat-4 engine based on the Volkswagen air cooled engine. Porsche's 914/6 variant featured a carburated 110 hp (82 kW) 2.0 L flat-6 engine from the 1969 911T, placed amidships in front of a version of the 1969 911's "901" gearbox configured for a mid-engine car. Karmann manufactured the rolling chassis at their plant, completing Volkswagen production in-house or delivering versions to Porsche for their final assembly.



So are both these pictures from the Karmann factory who did the body construction up to rolling chassis? Does any one have a photo of the 914/6 being fitted at the Porsche factory?

How come nobody is drinking beer?

look again, in the high resolution picture. You can see that the bottom part of the signal is white.

fixed it for you....

I blew the photo up and it still looks like a white pipe to me.

I'm worried about the guy under it ... he doesn't have a friendly smile.

Only during the breaks.

Beer is not allowed on the assembly line, only in the break room ...

Check it out again.
I enlarged the picture and tried some color enhancing (no photoshop)

Click to view attachment

The second car in line is actually my '73 Phoenix Red car. That guy is using a screwdriver to scrape away some of the undercoating to give the rust a head start.

They did that for cars coming to North America.

Crazy Germans . . .

OMG

Ummmmmmmm Valy,

Don't you have turn signal switches to modify?

Don't worry, I have my inlaws living with us for the entire month. I'll lock myself in the garage

I believe the picture posted by Michael N was taken at the Porsche factory. It sure looks like the same background I am used to seeing in the old factory photos of 356's. Porsche is also known to use those dollies, not Karmann.

color pic

...... Does any one have a photo of the 914/6 being fitted at the Porsche factory?
[/quote]

pre-wheels & perhaps, pre-engine....

Cars for Japan had side markers and euro lenses ...
Cars for Italy had side markers and clear lenses

That is my thought exactly.

On top of that, as far as I can tell, I don't see evidence that the drive train is installed in those photos. So my hypothesis is that the donuts are only intended for production line lift only. And that maybe when they marry the body to the drivetrain, that they lower the body onto the drivetrain rather than lift the drivetrain up? If that assumption is true then maybe in the assembly line they never suspended an entire complete car via the donut holes? My point (using a lot of "this might be true" logic) is that this all might be more evidence that you should not use the donut holes as lift points for a complete car (which is not a new idea by any stretch).

(Quick edit after I just read what I had typed. I think what I am trying to say is that you an lift that car if the weight is distributed across all four donuts, but I don't think it's a good idea to try to jack up the car using just a single donut. Especially one of the front ones only)

Richard

I lift either the front or the rear all together.
I never liked lifting one side only...or especially one corner....it seems to twist these cars a bit to much.

Lifting up the front by the donuts never seems to bother the car...its fairly light up front.

Rears...seems like the best place with or without the donut.

Rich

The donuts are used as a check set on the factory jigs. They were the starting point when VW built the chassis. When you set the car up on a Celette that is the first place you check to see if an impact has introduced a twist in the chassis. Once you know the car is square and level you attach the pinch clamps and move forward and aft to check the rest of the chassis. They are not designed to be jack points. Specially the fronts. They are attached to a light part of the floor pan. That's why Porsche installed the jack spur at the balance point. I don't use it, but that's why they put it there.

Since we're OT.

Yeah, the front donuts are not for jacking. Back ones are okay.

The front ones work well with a piece of 2 x 12!

I jack via the jack points, but I put my stands under the donuts. I even cut and slotted some round pipe to tightly fit atop my stands for the donuts to fit into. Is this bad?

I tend to agree that the jacking donuts are for jig locating and carrier hook up ... I'll have to check under the cars when I go into work this afternoon, but I think we do the same thing with our cars... I think that since the rear donuts are beef'd up a bit on the traingle that when lifting at all 4 corners, having the drivetrain installed would be no issue...
Lowering the cars onto the drivetrain would be a PITA... You would still need to have a pit under the car for people to bolt in the engine bar and trans. mounts. We raise the drivetrain up into the car when its overhead and it can be adjusted back/forth a little bit incase the carriers/engine dolly arent perfectly sync'd up. Everything has to be sync'd up right since each step along the line is 55 seconds... including stuffing the drivetrain in 55 sec.