A client of mine was out driving his '74 with his son this afternoon traveling about 60mph on a 2 lane divided highway. There was another car behind him. Out of nowhere, a Corolla hit them in the driver's rear quarter at about 90mph spinning them 3 times. They were unhurt and the car never left the highway. He surmises that the Corolla was trying to make the exit ramp, overtook the first car and never saw the 914.

After the accident, the knucklehead in the Corolla says, "Don't worry, my insurance will cover it." Bloody genius . The good news is that my client has classic car insurance with an appraised value on the car.

What really sucks is that as of Tuesday of this past week, I had just finished getting the car 100% correct. Driving the car was like stepping back in time to a showroom new 914.

He is the original owner of the car, purchasing it new in 1974. It just rolled over 50k miles this year.

The good news is that the alignment was unaffected (verified by measurement) and all the damage occurred above the suspension console.

So the big question is, does anyone have or know where to find an NOS driver's rear fender?

I'd like to try and save the door, but that may not be possible.

2 weeks ago:
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Today :
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Damn, that sucks big time! . Was going to drive my 914 today but too many Memorial Day Weekend tourists in town today so it stayed in the garage.

Give Craig a call at Camp 914, he had a rear panel for me in pronto when my car was hit in the rear a year a go.

Thanks Gary, will do.

Makes me sick. Glad they were not hurt. I now hope that you can return this beautiful car to its former glorious state. Good luck.

Is he out east too? Send it up to Scottyb when you get it settled. He should be able to replace that panel with no drama.

If Craig does not have one, I have a NOS fender I might part with if the price is right. Let me know if you are interested and I will come up with a price in a day or two.

Good luck with the repair.

Rob

my daughter came up with this one a while ago "do you think we would get in trouble for beating people in the head with a book called driving for dummies"

He's here in Syracuse and I can replace the panel but Scottyb was brought up in my conversation with the owner. It's a straightforward replacement with a spotweld cutter and patience.

I would never use a spot weld cutter on a car that nice. Use only the best restoration technics and a panel spotter like the factory.

I persoanlly have not seen one on sale since I bought my one from Mittelmotor,

The spot weld cutter is to get the old panel off. Then use a angle die grinder with an 80 grit roloc disc to take off what's left of the spot weld. That's the best technique I know that will have minimal impact on the metal that will remain. Is there a better way?


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P7FrgdyuhVA

What a bummer, hope it will look good again soon.

I will do a how-to when I get home from working the tornado in Oklahoma. I never use a spot weld cutter. No matter how hard you try you end up cutting through the salvage edge. And if your using a center punch you end up distorting the salvage edge. You end up blocking and repairing the salvage edge. I personally don't like the cutters. But hey, on some cars that's fine.

Sounds great Rick!

Man, I am SO sad to see this car hurt. It was a survivor, and hopefully it will SURVIVE this.

The owner is DAMN lucky he has you to help him Tom.

I have my dads 76, same thing happened after getting it out of storage a Pepsi truck didn't see the 914 while backing Not near that much damage.
Marv at Magic customs saved the panel, I was very happy.

At least they drive it and enjoy it. Nice 914

Is there any chance that panel can be saved without removing it from the car?

Maybe this is just crazy talk?

Not a chance. Where the door strike mounts is bent at a 90 degree. The remainder of the fender has been stretched and torn in places. Good thought, but not feasible.

What a bummer but sounds like your determined to getting her fixed

Here's a rear quarter on Ebay

http://www.ebay.com/itm/REAR-LEFT-FENDER-F...1e3&vxp=mtr

There IS a differance in brands of spot weld cutters as some of the cheaper ones are hard to control.I think mine came from Snap-on and I can get a quarter panel off without damage but I use a air drill to keep the speed controlled.Is not a job to get in a hurry or you'll just make more work for yourself.

SUCKS!!!!!!!!!!

Did you find a NOS fender?
Pete from Restoration Design had one here at the clinic.

I forgot to link this post here. Like I said, sometime the Blair is ok. But when it counts I never risk damage to the spot weld flange.

http://www.914world.com/bbs2/index.php?sho...=212470&hl=

Thanks Mark, a 914World member sold us one. Thanks!


Thanks for posting that Rick. I've used that method as well.

For giggles, I picked up a different kind of spot weld cutter that you can set the depth on. This one clamps down on the work and drills to the sheet metal thickness you set. It leaves no dot to grid off like the Blair. Sure it was a couple hundred bucks, but it could potentially save at least a couple hundred bucks worth of labor as well. I'll try to post video of it.

Ya, back in the day the brand name for those was the Spottle I believe.

Yep, Spotle is still out there. About the same price but would have to ship from the Netherlands.

I'll jump straight to the pics and post the repair process later. I replaced the fender and door, did the bodywork, paint and completed the reassembly. Also uncovered some rust which I took care of as well. We'll get to that later. A picture for now:

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Wow that looks great! That takes lots of skill and effort to do right.

very nice. you did that work yourself?

Very nice work. Glad to see this car back in shape. Looking forward to the in-progress pictures.

Thanks. Yes, all done in my garage. I'll post some of the gory details later.

That looks fantastic compared to the before shots , is that color Light Ivory or straight up white ???

Jack

Thanks. Originally it was light ivory, but when he had it painted with Imron back in the mid-80's, they painted it a generic white. Keep in mind that there are infinite shades of white. I buffed out an area and had the paint color matched. After painting, I discovered just how dirty the rest of the paint was.

Yep , that's why I asked , as it seemed a little lighter / brighter than my Light Ivory . I know about infinite shades , I use to be a color matcher for a printing ink company , you have never seen so many different shades from different color books, Pantone , Toyo, Van Son's, etc...

Jack

nice

The first step was to put the car up on jackstands and make sure everything was level and solid for the fender removal and transplant (isn't that the position that most 914s like anyways?) Then remove the seats, backpad, all the trim and anything else that could be damaged while in the R&R process.

Almost forgot, I took a brand new razor blade and CAREFULLY removed the VIN sticker for later reinstallation before going any further.

Next, break out the spot weld cutter mentioned on page 1. This isn't just any spot weld cutter. This one has a depth stop to it so you can't go to deep with the end mill. Pulling the trigger starts the bit rotating and pushes the cutter into the workpiece. It stops at the depth stop setting. This tool made spot weld removal a breeze. Results below:

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Even though this is a 50k mile original owner car which wasn't driven in the winter, you can still see that rust has formed between the two spot welded panels. Comforting? No.

Once the fender was off, I got a good look at the jack plate which revealed some rust through. Might as well take care of it, "while I'm in there". It only needed the outer cover replaced (thanks, Restoration Design). The rusty bits behind were blasted and coated with POR-15.

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Nice work.

Other drivers make me nervous as hell.

Too many people not paying attention.

Seems like every other person on the road is talking on their phone while driving.

John

Fantastic Work Tom!

Thanks for saving this 914!

BTW, While you are in there...

Nice work. The car looks great.

Having experienced a rear-ender in my 914, it pisses me off every time I see one of these little cars getting crunched. It's like there's a fucking bulls eye on these cars.

When mine was hit and totaled, the young girl called her dad (using my cell phone) and said there wasn't much damage. Yeah, right.

ok, let's see, next was to get the whole fender off and start fitting the new one. I decided not to take it all the way off and instead set it up to butt weld near the top of the sail. That way I wouldn't disturb the original vinyl across the roll bar or get into major disassembly within the roll bar area.

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That's when more rust discovery happened. There was a rust hole at the rear base of the inner sail and the beginnings of rust through under the vinyl.

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Which was fixed and coated inside and out with metal.

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An interesting little detail is the little tab that lines up with the hole in the fender to hold the aluminum trim down, also near the rear base of the sail.

Then trim and fit the new fender for the first time.

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Hmm, unfortunately I didn't take any more pictures beyond those below after I had spot welded the fender on like the factory did.

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Even after the damage that the car sustained, the door alignment was right on. I left the damaged door on to check fitment and alignment, then stripped the good used door and checked it for alignment. Everything fit and shut correctly.

A HUGE amount of thanks to Rob914 for selling my client his NOS fender that he had squirreled away. I couldn't have repaired the car without it.

Also thanks to bdstone914 for selling me the rust free door. There were some hidden surprises under the many layers of paint that took some time to repair, but that was to be expected of a used door.

Great job ! and thak you for sharing all the details.