tick tock tick tock

Lots of updates (long overdue) but not till tomorrow

tease!

Hi Lars, I hope all is well. Nice work again!



http://www.autosintl.net/

Autos International. Seriously, if there is a better upholstery shop I'd like to know about it.

They are doing my 914 seats right now. They did a set of 356 seats for me last month. Just amazing.

Liar

Don't make me come up there

tomorrow never comes..

It does come ...sometimes. Ok where was I, or more like where am I?
The car came back form the blaster and there were no real surprises. Two different kinds of media used, heavy for the inside and lighter for the outside. AS usual, when you think the body has only one spray, you find underneath the paint, areas of bondo which obviously means not only resprays, but also body damage at some point. Here is what we looked like coming home...
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I also had the headers cleaned up. These will get hot coated and sold. I have sourced a nice pair of heat exchangers in their place
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Here are some of the areas that "came clean"
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Clean continued....
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Now for something completely different...the not so clean...the bad news...the unhappy steel. Take a deep breath...

Very nice chassis. I hope mine looks reasonably close to that when it is done in the next couple of weeks.

Nice progress

car is good
when do you need help lifting it onto the rotiseree

The "unwashed"...the worst first
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I have recently picked up a donor 71 parts car that I will be using for some small stuff...corners specifically. I hauled a 3 wheeled car off of a mountain outside Evergreen Colorado with a buddy who also is needing parts for his GT914 conversion. Price was right $100, but it had become overgrown with plants and trees from being dumped there 30 years ago. What an enormous PITA. Took several hours, and the seller claimed he could help us load it on my trailer with his backhoe...what a disaster. Never again at any price! We ultimately got it back to Tad's house and it has since been disassembled...so lots of good straight parts, but if you ever find a car that looks to be priced too cheaply...there is a reason it is priced that way. Run far far away.

Instead of "the corner workers", these are the corners needing work...
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Some are worse than others, but the donor shell will come in handy
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Better buy a couple hundred dremel cut-off discs

I ordered a big batch of repro steel from RD with Peter's help. Somewhere along the line, the shipper laid the box flat, something got stacked on the box, and the outer rocker for the right side got damaged so we had to ship it back. Claim seems to be going smoothly...we'll see.
The repro steel...
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I ordered some 2 inch square steel tube to make the front and rear attach points for the rotisserie. In the beginning...
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After getting it cut and trimmed and mocked up, the welding was a piece of cake.

Braces going together...trial fit
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I had to use a cutoff wheel in a chop box to fine tune the steel tubing angles. This meant that the steel got hot...very hot. I finished the vertical for the left rear, removed it (carefully) and was setting the right side in the box. Leaning forward ready to pull the saw down...I braced my left (bare) arm on something for no more than a second. I have a nice brand of that left side vertical on the back side of my forearm. Didn't take long to go through several layers of skin quickly. Seared it right up. Glad I'm not a cow.
Finished mounts
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And with plugs for yokes
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I needed to massage a few front trunk areas while the car was still supported by it's suspension. This area is solid, but beat up. Like it was seriously offroaded. The PO did a lot of autox in his day...but the cones he hit must have been made out of wood. Take a look
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I talked with Peter again at RD and he sent me a link to his stamping link for the new front pan. I wanted to know how far down I need to work the pan. I believe there is a very slight "arch" at the front of the pan after it comes up off the floor of the pan. I am amazed that this thing has dents (upward) on top of dents. Like looking at pictures of mars with craters inside craters inside craters. You get the picture.
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I metal worked with a hammer and dolly all of the small dings and some of the large ones. The pan is still "proud", but not much I can to from here...I will likely run my cutoff saw exactly down the middle of the pan north to south and release the tension. That will allow me to work both sides down so that I can stitch the center back together once flat.
Won't go into the detail, but I needed to fabricate side braces that telescope. Put these together and gave just a tidge of "pre-load". I used the typical top hinge and the seat belt support
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Crap! I rolled my car!

So not claiming to be the best driver...I have had my share of unfortunate circumstances in cars. Most of the time, it was a result of rapidly changing conditions (weather) or deer...hey I live in the mountains at 8100 ft. I remember as a kid hearing some teenagers bragging about having "rolled their car" and walking away unscathed. Well as I usually drive a 911 year round and don't have much seat time in a 914...I guess I got a bit cocky yesterday. I should have been more careful, it was nobodies fault but my own...and as I can fix it...I will.

Not for the faint of heart, but here are the pictures.
Before...kind of a nice artsy shot
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During ...
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And after...
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Pretty scary stuff.
Oh I get it, if I keep rotating the car...more of this stuff (sandblasters media) will come out. I could just hook a small motor up to the rotisserie and leave it over night. I might also polish the internals on the chassis
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Removing the suspension is going to be an easy job while upside down
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Front suspension first. Nice to have easy access to the crossmember and A-arm mount points. No problem till I found this...
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Wait, not the other side too? Really?
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These are hardened bolts. These are not scuffed, or gouged...these are ground down to the point that there is little seperating them from the lock washers. Amazing. Probably a result of hitting those dog-gone autox cones so many times. This is going to either turn out badly or double badly.
I will try to grind the remaining heads down to the washers
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And pry the crossmember off the remaining headless bolts
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Bingo...fortunately the bolts were not rusted to the inside of the crossmember. On 911s, this can happen on the early cars with steel crossmembers. With the later aluminum crossmembers, not a problem
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Whew...feel like I dodged that bullet.

My next concern was whether or not the remaining bolts were rusted to the inserts in the chassis. I was lucky so far. Fortunately with some penetrating fluid, they backed right out
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This is all that was left
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On to the rear suspension. As the 914 front suspension is identical to the 911 suspension...I was in my comfort zone. The rear is new territory for me.
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BTW how do you get to this fitting to grease it? Is this factory?
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Everything came apart as one might expect. This beast just lost about 700 pounds
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Now I need to disassemble and clean up all the suspension components...maybe sandblast and repaint or powdercoat. Am I correct in thinking that the A-arms and crossmember and rear control arms were all semi gloss black? The struts will be their basic colors (Koni orange, Bilstein green, and Boge black)...right? Looks like I have Boge with some sort of aftermarket inserts.

Boge are Grey on sixes,

Long days work...but it feels good to get the car up in the air and get the suspension out of the way.
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I got my plating (latches etc) back from the plater
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Still wondering about this engine...me thinks this is not a 2.7 at all...but a 2.4 instead.
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I emailed the seller and he says that he built up the engine himself. I suppose a head dated in 72 could be an early 90 mm 2.7 head, but my guess is that it is an 85 mm head which would make it a 2.4 and I am fine with that. I measured the ports and they are 36 I and 35 E. With 2.4 S pistons and a Crane cam (S profile), that would mean likely the engine was built to 2.4 S specs...ok with me.

I sent the fan-shroud-strap and valve covers off with the engine tin to get powder coated. I will tear the engine down to short block and decide if I split the case at that point...TBD by what all I find. I am inclined to go to zero and have the case line bored and build it back up...but if the short block seems stout, and bearing are devoid of slop, maybe I clean it up and just do a top end.

To be continued...hopefully sooner than later

2.4 heads only need a chmfer to work for 2.7 PC's,
Mahle 2.7 cylinders have 11 fins
Mahle 2.4 Biral Cylinders have 16 fins

So as they are 11 fins...I guess we are back to a 2.7
Spent the day diassembling suspension that had been removed. Fronts are Boge struts with Koni sport inserts, rears are Koni coil-overs. Is Ford orange still the orange repaint of choice? No dust/brake shields on either end...were those cad yellow from the factory? My slotted rotors up front were 20.5mm and the solid rears were 9.5mm...look like those are still in spec? I need to replace the wheel studs back to stock (so if someone has extras for sale, let me know. The car had 3x8mm spacers on 52mm front studs and 59mm rear studs...these are going to be for sale.

Speedo

Nice work Lars

I think the stock 914/6 wheel stud lengths are the same as the 911 ones..

those grease zerks in the back are not stock
the stock bushings were bonded into the swingarm and also bonded onto the shaft

so the stock bushing really was an elastic effect

all replacement bushings rotate on the shaft
those are 99.99% likely delrin or replacement hard plastic bushings sold in the 70's - 80's
they squeeked and when properly installed grease chanels were cut inside and zerks added to make them serviceable.

(I've got the same on my black car)

So I need to get a concensus as to whether where the front latch panel meets the floor panel is completely horizontal. From my pics, there is a minor arch. I can't believe that autox cones have symmetrically created this arch. I know that the front trunck pans are bowed upwards...but this looks factory. Responses encouraged...but be nice.


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This guy served his purpose protecting the front of the A-arm...but needs to be welded back together again...
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That looks bent to me.

sorry but I agree... bent

can people please add pics of their front ends to use as a comparison.

72er 6er front end

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Yup; should be flat.

Nice shot DEC

does anyone have a frontal shot showing the flatness?

Heres a pic...

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Pete's looks pushed up in the center also.

Dang, I wonder if the PO used the flat of the front floor pan as a jacking point.

All those little dings coud be from zooming into the pit, jamming a jack under there, and jacking away.

The dents at the scraped and dented areas along the bend in the front also make me wonder if the PO finally noticed the dents and caved in floor, and switched to the front bend area which has more stiffness.

I like where you're going with that ken.

I was going to start hammering on the front end to bring the arch down...using a jack and a 6x6 timber on end to act as a bucking block...but when I applied pressure to the pan with the jack, it wanted to lift the front half of the rotisserie off the ground. Plan B...wait until the car is rotated rightside up and hammer down against the bucking block. Brant offered to let me come out to see the underside of his black car as he was going to remove the front bumper. I decided to get the welding going instead. So I decided to launch into the welding...here
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I need to get the wire brush out to see where the rust starts and ends...
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So this is the nice resto design replacement outer longitudinal...but I don't think I need this much.
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I only need to replace a decent size area, and up here a bit also needs to be scabbed in...
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I think I will save this nice peice and patch this area myself. What I have to work with...
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I will try to visualize how the steel needs to be shaped to fit the replacement area.

I like the fab work...so we start. Peter's part was a nice one, so I have to be able to create a part nice enough to justify not using his. I am not going to walk you through the process...you all know how this goes.
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Now I need to add the dogleg and stich it all in place

Nice Lars

Pretty straightforward....cut and fit and repeat.
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The suspension mount had some very schetchy factory welds...mig wire sticking out everywhere...bubbling welds
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I need to clean up the welds to finish off and prime. I need to do some small stuff to take a quick break. Coming up....

My front A-arms didn't want to give up the t-bars...so I drilled a hole in the forward end and liberally applied penetrating fluid. After a couple days, they agreed to come out. Now the holes need to be sealed (not caulked)
The engine tin that was bent and cracked also was going to be too expensive to replace...so while the welder was out, thin welding repairs occurred. Finally the front cracked A-arm cover was due.
The before...
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The after...
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I am about to send more parts to be powdercoated...anybody have a color for me for the "grey" Boge front struts? And the front t-bars...the bars and through the body brackets...black or yellow zinc?

Thanks guys.

Hey, I resemble that remark...

Been working all summer and hadn't seen this thread until today. Nice work Lars! Who blasted your tub?

I needed to beat on something this weekend. As it has been suggested (by people far smarter than me)...that the front pan is beyond repair, I decided to tackle it. My first problem was how to create a bucking block. No sense in pushing or hammering awy at the pan without something behind , or on the other side of the force. With the floor jack on the concrete pushing up on the pan using a 6x6, all I accomplished was to lift both the car and the rotisserie up into the air. Not exactly what I wanted to accomplish. So my plan B was to create a platform across the two legs of the rotisserie on which I could place the jack. Now as I force the 6x6 pole up into the floor pan...either the car was going to give (floor pan move), or the rotisserie was going to explode. Fortunately the former happened. Here was my rig...sorry, couldn't get the pic to stay rightside up.
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I will go to work on the front lip first. You guys have convinced me that the lip was originally straight, not arched. I don't want to believe, but the pics posted don't lie. This area will be hidden behind the bumper...but it needs to be made right. So this needs to be massaged...note also how badly dented down/in the pan behind the lip...tow hook can hardly be seen
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I worked in small segments, using my mallet to relieve the steel as I went along. It was slow work, but it worked. Nothing broke, not sheet metal tearage...I'm quite pleased.
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Side view...
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So now I bring the tow hook back to life and start to work on the front pan. I thought initially that the pan was so stretched that I'd have to slice it lengthwise and reweld it flat. Or, as Peter at RD suggested...just replace it. I'm optimistic.
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This is going to take some time...lots of big damage, and lots of dings too. I would use the flat surface of the top of the 6x6 as my bucking block as I worked the steel. The jack forces the floor up pas the neutral position and I would work with the hammed to compress/shrink the steel. Then I would release the jack and the floor would settle. Press repeat 100 times. Here is what I used to work the dings out...same process but focused on much smaller ares (like a square inch)
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Slowly she is coming back
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Side to side and front to back
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This would have been a lot easier with two people
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Wow Lars - looks fantastic.




You guys should see his 911R that he built........

And the finished product...
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Beats replacing the entire pan. This is in better shape than most pans I have seen (granted that would only be a few) and after it gts wire brushed and sealed up, the Wurth undercoating will hide any minor imperfections that remain. There are some dings in the center floor pan, but I think they will best be addressed when the car is back upright. The bottom lip,flange of the floor pan was trashed from "errors in jacpoint decisions" in many places, so I spent some time circling the car, bringing these seams back to vertical. Next step is to attack the passenger rocker and jackpoint. I get to drill out some spotwelds in preparation.
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What are the supports called that hold the sill in place...sill supports?
I may need to remove the lower 8 inches of the lockpost to get good access to this area.
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I am actually looking forward to this area as it is totally different than repairs on 911s in the same area.

Lars,

If your mindset is like mine the only reason your investing so much time, talent, and money is the Serial# right up there on the right side inner fender well.

Keep up the good work.
I've BTDT. 2-3 years worth of rust repair. In the end, when you are riding down the road, you and you alone will know the sacrifices, and you'll smaile at the results..

Ron

It is going to get worse before it gets better...so I invested in some 1/4 inch cobalt bits for the spots I am going to drill out. Hard to see how much is bad, and how much access I will need to create...but I have to start somewhere. first pass at the passenger side rocker (upsidedown). Still not sure why the picture wants to lay down when the file on my computer has been rotated 90 clockwise...good excercise for our necks...
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And we end up with....
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Something here caught my eye....so I started digging
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This is a doubler on the bottom of the longitudinal. It was created in the over lap from the inner side of the longitudinal overlapping the outer. and there is a tiny channel that is created. Anywhere a cavity exists, moisture (can) gets in and the reaction begins. This is looking at the overlap area from the inside of the longitudinal which would be the top of the channel Really hard to see, but the area is about 2-3 inches long, an inch wide and very weak.
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I will dig into it repairing the underside first, then do the other layer from inside the longitudinal. Start to create some room. There is a lot going on back here. Have to approach it like peeling back the layers of the onion...and sometimes you do feel like crying
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It is what it is.....I am going to just open this up
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Could be worse. I will section out the bad and weld in the good and that will take care of the bottom. Top will get done from the inside. The small pile of the good the bad and the ugly.
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I can treat this area and get ready to close it back up.
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Just found out that my mig wire ran out. Helped a buddy weld the rear door on his old jeep back together. Thought I had an extra roll, but it turned out to be flux core gassless .030 and I run .023 with gas so it is off to the hardware store at 5 pm on a Sunay afternoon if I want to do any welding tomorrow. On my bumper run to Denver (gathering up my cores to drop off for rechroming) on Friday, I spied this beauty "barney" in S. Denver. Seriously...a right hand drive fiberglass 959 convertible...really? I had anything to eat yet...fortunately.
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Alright alright.
I've made progress, but an not as comfortable posting on this board (familiarity) as I am on PP so...forgive me. Last posts were of the underside of the passenger rear floor corner. Going to have to go at this from the bottom, and then because it is a sandwich, from the top...inside the longitudinal. Bad metal removed and cavity treated...Click to view attachment
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