Hey all.
I bought a running and driving 1974 2.0 white (not light ivory) with the appearance package914 in December of 2012. Since then I have joined this awsome site and have been doing some , and wrenching . I wanted to document what I have been doing and get some more help along the way. I have already met a bunch of generous and helpful people here on 914 world. (jsconst is my hero) I h made it to two events already. The panckake breakfast in Freemont and the Sacramento area meet last month.

The best thing about these cars is right? I am doing all that I can to fix it up while keeping it on the road. I have a reoccuring nightmare of putting it on jackstands and never driving it again. (See I have learned a lot from this site already)

My plan is to get everything working and in good shape before I tear it completly apart, do the hell hole work and bring it back to the original light ivory color.

Here is what I have done so far....
Brought it home 150 miles on a trailer. It ran but the guy I got it from said the transmission was going out. It wouldnt go into 1st or reverse without grinding. It just needed the clutch cable adjusted!
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Got some ramps after reading about the "Jack stand incident" thanks again world
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I found some holes in the jack post and into the long when I took my rockers off to paint them.Click to view attachment Click to view attachment

Fabricated my first anything
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And welded the new part on.
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And back on the road.
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Your already smarter than most of us!

The next project was to change out my smashed in drivers door. kg6dsn saw my door on the site and gave me a spare that he has for almost free. The only problem was that the door he gave me was an early door with the old style window elevator and hardware. I couldn figure out how to make it all work with my parts so I swapped out the inside structure on the two door and bam. back on the road.Click to view attachment

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I ordered one of these just to make sure that it really wasnt a grasshopper. Jeff Bowlsby was right... Its notClick to view attachment

Welcome to 914world Eric!

just wondering, did you fix that rusted/damaged engine support area at the back of the body parts (long) you just repaired?

Not yet but thanks for the heads up. I got in there and checked it out. It looks a lot worse from the outside than it does on the inside. I need to drop the engine and do it right. I don't think my engine is going to fall out just yet.

So you just cut the structure off the newer door and welded it on the older door. How did you know where to position it?

All of the contact points lined up perfectly except the one at the rear of the door. (top of picture) that one has a little more contact area.
I cut the new one out then just used it as a teplate to mark my cut line on the one I was getting rid of. Cut it out and matched it all up.
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I spent twice as much time trying to make the old door work with the new guts before I gave up and tried this.
Sometimes you gotta just go for it!

I want to get rid of the hockey pucks on the side of my car. I went back and forth if I should remove them or not. I think that they are really ugly. They were only put on the U.S. cars to meet the regulations here. So thats good enough for me delete them to clean up the look. I had to fill in the holes obviously. here is how I did it. Click to view attachment

Ive seen some guys use a magnet to hold the part in place while they weld it. I didnt have a magnet and the panel actualy has a slight curve to it. I tacked a little rod to the disk so that I could manipulate the right contour as I was tack welding my filler.
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Click to view attachment not my best welding but with a little grinding and body filler it works.

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I knew that there was some damage on the drivers quarter panel. I did some exploratory sanding to see just how bad it was going to be. It was bad. Click to view attachment
The picure actually doesnt show all of the holes that a po has drilled into this body to try and pull out a huge dent. the whole thing was caved in at one point. When I got all of the bodo off 3/4" in some spots, It revealed the drivers door stuck out past the body panel by about 1/2 inch. (The door was adjusted properly too).
The worst part was that at some point this panel has already been kinda replaced. I found a rivited seam under the sail panel trim and it was overlapped in the trunk rain channel. I decided I would try to find another quarter panel to replace the whole section.
I told Jeff (jsconst) what I found and he said come on over I have one you can cut off.
he has a picture somewhere.
He has a parts car that had seen some better days. I got the new quarter off after a lot of effort not to mess it up in the process.
When I got it home and cleaned it all up guess what I found. RUST. I know... they are all rusty.

Here is my new quarter that we spent all afternoon drilling, cutting and grinding everything around it to try to keep pristine. I didnt know what was hiding under the pretty red paint until I got it home.
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It this point I was really scratching my head on what to do. Save the old one? Repair this one? Put the new one and old one together to make one good one? Or try to find another one. At one moment my wife came out and asked what I was doing. I told her that I had no idea. Look at the part right above the door handle. How in the heck am I gonna make that section?

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I decided to fix this beauty. I repaired the big hole while the quarter was still off of the car but the tricky part above the door handle needed to be done in place to keep the right gaps.Click to view attachment
I know pretty scary for a rookie. I was thinking here we go. All cut up and never to see the road agian!
You guys like that sticker on my back window?
Thanks Van!

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test fit #1 of about 20...

Final fitment.
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Looking pretty good.Click to view attachment Click to view attachment

Pretty Good......That looks fuching awesome
Nice work Eric, but slow down your putting us all to shame.

Here are some pictures of Eric and his son cutting the rear quarter panel off the parts car. And I know...looks too nice to be a parts car....trust me the longs and rear suspension mounts, floorboards and other areas are rusted beyond California standards for repair.

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More cutting, Eric did a great job, I just told him where to cut.

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Finally off

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Looking great Eric, keep up the good work, and smart idea...don't buy jack stands.

Can't wait to see it back on the road.....what ...tomorrow...or are you going to paint it first ....so maybe saturday.


Jeff

A few weeks back I was frustrated with my sloppy hex bar throttle linkage that was controlling my webers. After a lot of research and design hijacking, I decided to build my own cable/ pulley throttle linkage. Props to Tangarine racing and another guy named Van on this board.
I also considered McMarks push pull rod style linkage. I wanted to go with a smooth pulley type action.
I ended up purchasing and modifiying two pulleys with a master and slave type of system. I threaded one pulley onto the first carb that linked to another pulley on the second carb. I make it fully adjustable so that I can control both of the carbs to actuate at exactly the same time with exactly the same amount of throw.
In addition the throttle control is consistent all the way through the pedal range. The hex bar style pushes on a lever that moves the butterflies more in the middle of the pedal range than the begining and end of the range. The pulley system pulls on a true arc so that it is consistent all the way. It makes sence to me...
I took off my carbs and mocked it up many times until it worked how I wanted.Click to view attachment
this one has the stock throttle cable to the top of the pulley and the secondary cable going across to the other carb. You can see I have threaded adjusters to take up any slack so I can eliminate any throttle delay.
My engine bay is filthy.
That is ok Im just trying to get everything how I want it right now. I will make it pretty later.
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Thanks Jeff. You are Da Man!
That parts car looks too nice in the pictures. Its in bad shape up close.
Thanks for all the inspiration... and parts. I would be spreading a lot of bondo without your help.

Its hard to take good pictures inside the engine bay.Click to view attachment

Nice work Eric, You are doing a great job, you are making me look bad. I haven't even started on my new project yet, I have all the parts I need but don't have your energy. Might need to have a work party this summer. John

Sounds good to me John. Im just fixing the little stuff. You and Jeff have the big 6 projects going.

I am going to revive this build thread. I have been doing a bare metal resto. I started in November of 2013. I finished in September of 2014. I did not keep up on the documentation here on the world but I took lots of pictures along the way. I am so happy that I got the bug for these odd little cars and built one from the ground up.
This is my first restoration of any vehicle. I made some mistakes along the way but learned a lot. I could not have done it without this site and help from the members like Jeff stroud and others.
I am very proud of the transformation. I had my two sons Zachary 14 and Justin 19 lending a hand here and there too. It is something that we will always have together.
Job one was to make the decision to pull it off the road and dismantle everything. Reading the fourm scared me a little. I see so many of us that never get to enjoy driving for a long time after this step. I will be posting a few photos as I get time.
Here we go!Click to view attachmentClick to view attachment Click to view attachment

I welded up a dolly and put it on casters so I could move the tub around as needed. Click to view attachment Click to view attachmentClick to view attachment

Click to view attachment There were several areas that needed patch panels. I was able to fab what I needed myself. Click to view attachment

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I sanded all of the exterior down to bare metal with a d a sander. I did a few panels at a time and did a light rattle can primer just to protect the metal from surface rust while I worked on the rest of the panels. Then right before I was ready to spray my 2k epoxy primer, I re sanded the light primer coat back off. I hate sanding even more than I did before I started. If I had it to do all over again I would pay to have the tub media blasted and sealed with epoxy by a pro.
I stripped the trunks with aircraft stripper and did the same with the rattle can primer.
I pounded out an dents or imperfections as much as possible and then skimed those areas with a high quality filler over the bare metal. My body skills are not as good as some of the gurus around here.
I have seen work from the "metal surgeon" that I would not even put paint over. Just clear coat it like a delorean
Most modern filler products are ok to go over primer. I was taught to to put your filler over a scuffed metal so that is what I did. Click to view attachmentClick to view attachment Click to view attachment

Terrific thread. Please keep the pictures coming, your car is looking nice.

Great work and courage to take it on!

Welding in where angels would fear to tread.

John

Getting ready to shoot primer in my make shift paint booth. My son Zachary is getting out of the way. Click to view attachment

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I wish I had more room to lay out all the panels and shoot the tub at the same time.
Painting in the garage is not easy. I had to plan my shoots to get all the panels set up and get both sides. Click to view attachment
I used high build primer then block sanded everything by hand.
Then did the high build again and blocked it all a second time. I really hate sanding but this body is straight!

Finally time to shoot the original light ivory. I used a single stage paint then put two coats of clear over the top to get a deep finish. I think it turned out well for a rookie. I have never painted a whole car before? I started with the trunks. Click to view attachment
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A rotisserie would have been nice. It is really hard to paint the bottom of the car, Down in the trunks, wheel wells and engine bay with the gun and air hose trying to mess everything up.
It worked out.

And the next day we did the important parts.
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I got a couple of runs but nothing that won't sand out.

Nice and beauty!

looks great.

I have some orange peel in the clearcoat but some cutting and buffing makes it all smooth. Click to view attachment Click to view attachment
See the blurry reflection of the lights in the top picture? It looks much better in the second photo. That is the same part of the hood after some buffing. I used the 3m two part system.
You may have noticed that I welded up my windshield sprayers, jack tube cut outs in the rockers and some other areas to clean up the exterior. This is not a concourse car.

Now to start working on all of the satin black parts. I had no idea of how many parts and surfaces I would be prepping until i started laying it all out. Along with the rockers valence, engine tins and engine lid screenS, I am painting the sail trim, door pillars, and door handles black. I know the purists will it's my car and I like the cleaner look.
The only chrome will be my backdated bumpers and outside mirrors.
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Now the rewarding part begins. I hope I don't scratch it! I cleaned and wire brushed everything the very best I could before putting any of it back on the car. I learned that a large part of restoration is cleaning. I had a little cleaning, scrubbing soaking station set up in the laundry room sink for a month or more. The wife was not thrilled. She wants to know why I can't clean anything around the house.
I replaced the front suspension bushings, sway bar bushings, koni adjustable strut inserts and rear shocks. I wife brushed the brake calipers, changed the pads and installed all new rubber brake lines. I painted all of the suspension parts with satin black rattle can. Click to view attachment

Thanks for the compliments guys.

This is inspiring! Looks great and I hope to see it in person someday. Keep I t up.

Are you saying she's a little abrasive?

Car looks beautiful btw, very impressive efforts.

Wire not wife. Lol. Dam spell check.