Those engine mounts look good! I really like the front pivot! It's so clean without anything totally spanning the engine bay.

Eeek, how could anyone ship lenses out like that. No QC at all.



Just adding this because you have a picture of one of Andy Forrest's engine iterations posted above, but have you seen this recent interview with him? Lots of interesting stuff about the car, etc. https://www.facebook.com/HPAcademy/videos/990196814405772/

I'd like to placed a wager on that if it comes up! Sorry Steven. How does someone stay in business with those practices AND reputation?

it was a gamble like anything, we will see if the house wins.

Also what a great find on the Forrester interview. Thank you JD74914 Lots of detail info on how the car was built and ran.

1200 HP in that form is super nice. And it sounds like he ha the potential to get to 1400-1500 if he wanted to stress it out a bit. As he says and has been my contention, you rarely use all the HP you have.

Do I need that kind of HP in my build, NO, would I want to experience it OH HELL YES

I have one GT350R sitting here and also have a GM 3.8L super charger with lots of bad ideas going through my head. The GMs are cheap bone yard items. The GT350R are a little more dollars, if you get the real thing. I have also been eyeing a Paxton unit.

I don't need to do any of these right now, the thoughts and pondering just keeps me from completing the build.

Countdown clock says I have 24 weeks left. Lots to get done in 24 weekends. And in reality I have less than that due to work, social plans, daughters marriage, etc... As they say Damn the Torpedoes Full Speed Ahead

After spending all day driving back and forth between my house and Home Depot only to have my wife change her mind again, I realize the 914 will not be completed for Okteenerfest! Realistically there is no way.

I still have the following long list to do:

Engine Bay
Fix the Passenger Log
Reinforce the passenger log
Install mount for oil filter
Install Mount for Oil Thermostat
Install Mount for Accusump
Finish Engine Mount
Install Hand Brake Tubes
Fill Firewall Holes
Install Coil Pack Mount
Install Engine lid Latch setup
Install J-West Trunk Lid Springs

Rear Trunk
Remove Seam Seller
Install Upper Shock Mounts
Fill in a couple holes I have found

Lines
Run Cooling System Lines
Run Brake Lines
Run Clutch Lines
Run Fuel Lines
Run Oil Cooler Lines
Run Heater Lines
Run A/C Lines
Run Intercooler Lines - for Future usage
Run Overflow / burp Line
Provision for engine harness
Revision for Chassis Harness

Interior
Sport Seats
Brake Pedal Box
Shifter Console
A/C system
Stereo
Seat Heaters
All the other interior bits
Carpet
Door Panels
Pack pad carpet
Headliner
Sun Visors

Fuel Tank area
Mount for brake and clutch fluid bottle
A/C system
Wiper System
Fuel Tank
In Tank Pump
Notched Corners
Camber Plates
Gas Strut Mounts
Holes not needed filled in
Fuse box

Front Trunk
Radiator Mount
Radiator
Oil Cooler
Water Cooler for Intercooler
A/C Condensor
A/C dryer
Reinforce exit vents
Cooling system Shroud
Front Air inlet finish body work
Storage
Head light motors - think Miata Pieces, smaller and several pounds lighter

Body Work
Fender Flares
Front Bumper - GT style in Steel
Front Valance
914 / 944 hard top with sunroof - already converted to manual
Door fixes
Hood fixes

Engine
EFI
Intake
Ignition
Shorten the oil pan

Electrical

Tear the car down

Paint

Reassemble

Suspension
Raise front Spindles
Reinforce rear arms

Re-assemble everything



I am sure I have forgotten lots of little details of things to do.

Just so you know I am not giving up, just realizing the long row I have to hoe.

Off to Home Depot again, Need some new duct work, I love my wife. This is getting ridiculous.

Got my parts to install the Fuel Pump in the tank, you need a way to drop power into the tank. The ground is easy as you just need a lug.

So I grabbed one of these, because I don't need 49 more of these.

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And this is what all the parts you get in the kit.

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Not bad for $12 total with shipping. Thats all I got done on the car today. Still working on the new bathroom.

Not much done on the 914 in the last few weeks. I made the trip to Hersey, had a great time at the swap meet. Picked up a front painted bumper for GT bumper. Picked up a fe extra Centerline wheels, stupid things I can't resist them.

Before I left for Hersey I got a box from Chris at Tangerine Racing, I love Chris' work.

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I picked up a wicked bug and have been sick since I came back from Hersey, totally wiped out. Hope to get something done this weekend, but the way I feel right now, I am thinking it might not happen.

BTW, who's car is this?

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Yeah I know detail shots suck, but I feel this detail is a pretty unique item, so it should be enough for an identity.Click to view attachment

Today is my daughters wedding and I can't seem to fall a sleep, wonder why? This was at 2 am when I started writing this post. As of now, I have butterflies in my stomach and mind is racing with speech ideas, food blessings, and hoping i don't screw something up!

So instead I went off and worked on an issue Chris Foley warned me about with his rear shock tower kit that raise the rear shock towers to increase shock travel on lowered cars.

The issue is this, if you are running an aftermarket upper spring hat, it might not allow the shock bolt to make it to the bearing, as it hits the housing. This will cause the shock to bind, and eventually cause it to fail. Since I run a Coleman Racing adjustable spring preaches. And it uses a different hat to allow me to run a 2.5" standard spring I might have the issue.

So lets see

Ah yes I have an issue. That is the Coleman hat in Chris's extension, everything is upside down on the bench to allow gravity to do its job.

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This is what Chris was talking about. The top of the hat does not meet the bearing extension. By just a so small amount.

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Chris's solution is use the stock spring hat.

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That does solve the problem, and creates and opportunity. I would have to make or modify the stock hat so the 2.5" spring would be secured and not move around in the hat.



Why not just fill in the gap between the bearing and the Coleman. So off to the parts drawers I go and I get me two extra of these, clean them up, and ad some dykem.

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I then measure the difference in the two spring hats in height. And mark the difference on the that sleeve where I need to make the cut. So now how to make the cut. The obvious answer I need a metal lathe! So I run down the rabbit hole of small metal lathes.

I love the Sherline, always wanted one since I first saw one in a friends basement we where cleaning out. You can just see the quality in the product. Yes it would do what I need but not much over 2" I can live with that right. What is the next project you will be using it for. Modifying my crank pulleys on my EG for magnets for the hall pickup. That is a 6" Diameter . unit. Okay, a 7x10" would do that for me, cheap chines lathe. Reason being I will be on the face side of the piece an not the outside so I could spin it as I am over the bed, and don't have the cross slide in the way. No I would like more bed if I am getting into these. 7x16" Do lots of research, determine I am going down a really deep hole, and would be buying more tooling. So I look around the shop and decide enough dreaming, lets get back to doing. So I grabbed my Portaband. Chucked the sleeve in the vice. And cut it off just shy of the mark so I could true it up on my 12" sander.

That made short work off it, freeing up the funds I so quickly dedicated to a Metal Lathe, for other 914 parts.

Here is the spacers.

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So here it is all bolted up, this was the first one.

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For Reference the stock hat.

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I might need to add a little length to my spacer, as the coleman hat does hit still. At least now it is not a dead stop, and good thing I have a drawer full of this upper shock bolts. Hat designs are that much different. I could modify the Coleman Hat, there is the pesky metal lathe again, or Milling machine could also do that for me.

And now I am looking some tools, which I could have made on a the lathe

Dimple Dies, Hello SWAG OFFROAD

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I moved on in the effort to increase shock travel, again, I need a Lathe

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That gives me 20mm, I think I have some wiggle room there and 22mm should do the job.

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What that means I would have to run 17" wheels. What that really means currently is a wider selection of performance tires. And yes weight goes up on the wheels from 13 pounds with the Centerlines to 18 and 20 for the Carrera 10 Spokes I am running.

BTW, Forgelines are not better than the Carreras.

Forgeline wheels
ZX3R
17x10 21.15 lbs

It is very hard to find Forgeline wheel weights

The 10 spoke Carrera wheel is manufactured by BBS, and is lite in its sizes.

If I keep the Centerlines , I can only drop the spindle by 10mm. While we are talking wheels weights 17 Center lines are not lite in themselves.

Current champ is Fiske, I can't afford them, so Carrera 10 spokes it is for me.


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My high tech measuring device

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The odd thing is I had access to tons of Metal Lathes, Mills, etc... at work. And I never use them.

todays work, took the week off of work, Monday we where just to tired from all the partying to get up and play. Tuesday I had work todo, for work, darn Federalis won't wait for little ole me.

Today I go some time, and started working on the rear shock raise. As usual I will gladly plug Chris' stuff.

Chris says his hole saw fits around the shock cup no need for a centering ring. I am never that lucky. So I made a set of centering disc to keep my hole saw true.

Step one clean the cup so I can weld them in.

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Drop in my centering disc

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Hit it with the welder

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Chuck up a 3" hole saw in a 1/2" drill, when it catches it will yank your arm off.

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Drill a hole

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In reality it is two holes

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Set it in place, I scribed where I needed to file a little.

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Clean all the paint around the unit, and get it ready, here it is before I started welding it in place.

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Used my calipers to get a 1/8" space off the bottom of the shock tower.

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And burnt in on the topside, I forgot to take a picture of the bottom side it is all burnt in too. Mig wand is a little tight in there, glad I have it up on a rotisserie.

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Little Idea I am toying with, I need a Lathe bad for this kind of stuff!

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Can also see I started Seam welding the rear shock towers. That will be a much longer process.



Spent the rest of the day getting stuff ready to ship to Tangerine, and pressing studs. My 20 Ton press paid for itself today.

Todays Goals

1. Air Compressor Maintenance

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Even added an hour meter to the unit. Fabbed it up while on hold with Time Warner.

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Task one DONE

2. Finish my idea for the rear shock tower bolt in brace.

Needed to make the nuts longer and round to go through the hole. Welder and 12" sander to the rescue. Weld on a couple nuts onto my all thread couplers. Then turn them down on my fancy 12" abrasive lathe.

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I really need a small metal lathe for this work. I even clearances the top of the mount to allow the rod end to move to its maximum angle.

Installed these, and did not take pictures of the finished product. Task number two Done!

Onto task three, finish the Drivers side Tangerine Racing shock tower extension.

Since it is a rinse and repeat of the steps in the last post I will not bore you.

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And it is done

So I started working on doing more seam welding of the rear drivers side shock tower.

More than half way there.

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Whats left, man this is going to be a odd place to weld.

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The fun is yet to come with all these welds comes lots of grinding, sanding, and cleaning.

I have a few more days to work on the 914 before I go back to work. Tomorrow is family day. Saturday, Sunday, and Monday, hopefully shop time. after that, May will come to an end, and so does my time in the shop.

Month of June, I am traveling for work 16 days, and crosses 3 out of the 4 weekends in June. The fourth is fathers day weekend, and family ha me booked both days. SO I might get one day or maybe two if I grab some comp time.

So how is it I am still in the rear trunk

Tell your family that the greatest fathers day gift they can give you is to come and grind off these welds and sand...

yesterdays progress I had three things I needed to get done in the shop and I forgot all of them

Service my ZTM, done, but then I decided to drop the deck bad idea, I am still cleaning it, and painting it with some slip coating. We use it on grain wagons to make the grain flow better.

Fix two holes in the trunk floor.

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Welded in place

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a squirrel came along and I started doing this, that was not planned, but this tool makes short work of undercoating.

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The result

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Finished seam welding Drivers side shock tower, shock towers make nice tool holds, my Mig welder goes into them a lot also.

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Now for today

Pulled hubs out of my trailing arms

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These are headed for the classified

Took my Dynabrade, and removed a bunch more seam sealer, and started seam welding the pass side shock tower.

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Still have some seam sealer to dig out, the Dynabrade does not quite get in there.

that darn squirrel stopped by again, and I keep welding.

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And I am getting good penetration

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that was not all I did today, 1 step forward 2 steps back it seems. Rains came in, and washed my paint off my mower deck.

Also flash rusted my trailing arms.

Get to that tomorrow.

In my effort to do everything on the car at least twice I got a small shoreline lathe. I got it dirt cheap when I showed the guy the cross slide did not work.

Disassembled the entire lathe, lubed it up, found the cross slide thread boss which is brass had slide out of its mount. Put it all back together, tightened everything down. I had a working lathe, and a tool box full of lathe tooling, did not go through it to figure out what as what.

I did find a cut off tool.

Off to the parts drawer and grab a couple more shock top mounts. Chuck them in the lathe, and start my experiments.

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Got enough time to backup parts to send to Tangerine Racing for Chris to do his magic with them.

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took the time to get accurate weights on the Carrera 10 spoke BBS rims.

7x17 with center cap lug nuts and balance weights still in place.
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9.5x17 with center cap lug nuts and balance weights still in place.
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I then took my old transmission out of the car. Removed the spool, disassembled my new trans, installed the spool. Bolted it up to the an engine, mounted it in the car.

I need to make a couple spacers for my transmission hanger, and everything clears the trunk floor with out cutting. So I can weld my trunk bak in and make it look like stock.

Now for the catch, lowering the trans means I might be running into ground clearance issues as the car is also being lowered. I am having Chris move the front spindles up 30mm little over 1" up from stock. The rear pickp points are being raised 2" from the stock location. Not sure what that is going to do to this, except make it closer to the tar.

Solution wold be to raise the engine and trans. Not liking that one.

Run skid strips . Titanium makes for so dramatic roaster tails, That makes that a win!

Or nothing happens at all and it is all good. guess we won't know until it is done.

Off to find some Aluminum I can chuck in the lathe and make my spacers with.

So I got a little time yesterday to look over the stuff I did a few days ago.

Placement of the clutch slave.

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clearance of the start and clutch slave

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My spacer prototype system, stacks of washers

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930 Flange on the trans

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Howe Racing Master Cylinder compared to the Tilton 73 M/C not much difference, except on the Tilton the brake line exits out the back of the M/C

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Like the Howes for the positive threaded brake line feeds, I think I could have done the same thing with the Tilton 74 series. I will have some Tilton 73s up for sale shortly 2 3/4" and 1 5/8" units, complete kits if anyone would like them, they will be 1/2 the price of new. And well they are new, you just have my on them

Good progress. Question: Where are your output flanges in relation to the wheel centers?

Kent interesting question. At one point they where almost dead nuts on, with a slight bend maybe 5 degrees to make for a happy CV.

With the changes I am about to make they will be off by a little bit more, luckily by using 930 CVs I can get high degree angle CVs if I need to, and they can still take the torques. I will not know for sure until the rear pickup points get changed. This could all go to hell in a hand basket here shortly, and I redo the engine / trans mounts for a third time.

Ain't that the truth, Stephen! I want to tell every guy starting a conversion this same thing. If you can't admit defeat and doing things over and over till correct; don't even think about it! It took 4 iterations of the exhaust before I was satisfied. And a good thing too or I would have missed the water in the exhaust and possible some engine damage. Same deal with the cooling system, hydraulic clutch and yadi, yadi, yadi. Hopefully we can stub our toes enough that we settle upon a proven conversion system(s), be it Nissan, Audi or Subaru, for future guys and gals. Keep up the good work.

Between travels and family duties I got a bit more done of the car.

Removed the other -4 engine mount from the passenger side.

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Never knew how much I would enjoy a cordless sawzall

Removed the triangle and the lift donut.

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And well I am glad I did

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Work on getting that cleaned up and I might have to take off the driverside now.

Other items in the progress.

Chris now has my parts to work his magic with. I got some Picklex 20 in as the humid Ohio air has caused some flash rust on my shock towers. Give it a try as I can weld through it, stops rust, removes flash rust. It slices, dices and julians fries also.

LED backup lights came in from Jerry

Still looking for a piece of trunk sheetmetal to fill my hole, and maybe just maybe I will be done with the rear trunk. Never

No parts made with your new welder?

He's probably welded up a whole new chassis by now .

June was a low productivity month for me as well. Still having trouble getting all the seams to line up. So far no matter what I do I can not get the trunk to line up right.

Unexpected surprises: The difficulty of lining all this stuff up at once.

Vendors: None... DougL help me some more, but I still have not started welding...

I would drive this car off a cliff...... if it could get to a cliff.
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You bought a "new" welder?

Yes, a TIG. have not gotten it yet.

Well the update for today. Nothing done on the 914. I spent my day in the ER getting my figures reassembled. It seems that at 12" disc Sander and fingers down go together. The sander won! 12 stitches and two fake fingernails latter

So I am now sedated, and feeling very little pain. All I can think is "24 24 hours to go oh, I want to be sedated. Nothing to do, no where to go oh, I wanna be sedated. Put me in a wheel chair take me to the show. Hurry Hurry before I go explode. I can't control my fingers.

been there and didn't do it as bad as you did. that hurts that's what happens when you take the guard off but they just don't work with a guard i have dirt under the skin where i did my thumb you need anything just yell

Hope you heal quickly, messed up fingers are No fun...

Oh man sorry to hear that! 12 stitches?! That's a big gash.

Seems like everybody pays their dues at some point. Got mine with a cut-off wheel last year. Hope it heals fast, get some therapy and work it hard.

thank you everyone, I'll be back at it as soon as I can grip something. Going to have my son in law come over and finish my welding on the trailers. At least it will be forward progress towards getting things done. Use this time to continue to gather parts and get things ready, might sell a few things also.

Just make sure you can grip a steering wheel in 6 weeks . I think I'm ready to start the old girl today or tomorrow. Found a couple of small wiring issues that will make a HUGE difference. Will update my thread with details but you know what probably happens when you don't ground the MAF sensor plug? I'm guessing NOTHING . It'll run but not very well.

Crazy about the fingers, it seems every one of us in the challenge has visited the ER... The finger nail area may heal funny, I got mine with the grinder 6 months ago and still can't pinch.

Also, I absolutely love the Ramones reference, very pertinent to the situation.

It has been almost a week since my finger incident.

Scott took my mind off my fingers yesterday with a ride in PORSTI We went to Columbus cars and coffee event, some interesting stuff there. His car draws a crowd BTW. Then went over to the Godguys show, interesting stuff, I discovered something while I was there. I am a racer / fabricator, I like neat tech and cool ideas, I don't like 100% show cars. I as drawn to anything that hard a cool build feature, or was a race car.

Watched the Auto-x event, big american iron running around a 26 second course. Now for th odd thing when did good guys start letting VWs into their shows. My old recollection, been a while since I have been there, was it had to be pre 70s American Iron, or atlas be powered by American Iron.

Oh and I want a Ramp Truck

914 related, lots of time to think about stuff, keeping my right hand above my heart keeps the throbbing down in the fingers.

Scored some nice parts, and some great ideas.

Thank you Bruce for getting a rear trunk Panel cut out, and on its way

Thanks to Old914guy over on Pelican for a sweet deal on the Quaife steering rack quickener.

Spoke for the LED backup lights that makes all eternal lighting on the car LED

Speedhut for letting me know they can not put a boost gauge into their GPS speedo, oaks like I am back to building my own stuff, or adding one some where else. Maybe pass side so they have something to look at before they grab the Oh handle.

Eastwood for sending me two TIG welders working through that one with them.

Scott for taking my mind off the fingers, and introducing me to his wife Tara, who just so happens does consulting on safety accidents. The fingers are 100% my fault.

And for Scott reminding me that I need to get a few more tools in house, spending way to much time looking at dimple and other dies. I have even built a decision matrix spreadsheet to make my choice.

Still have not found the piece of metal I was deburring, thinking it might be in the disk sander body, along with my DNA, not sure I want to open it up just yet. Looking at my fingers every day is enough of a reminder.

But hey Doctor says I have a 99% chance of keeping them, and they look really good. To me they look like but they see this everyday, so I'll take their word for it. It could have been so much worse, grateful that it wasn't.

Off to take some pain-killers, and antibiotics. Enjoy your Sunday

Thank you Bruce for the rear trunk panel.

Chris H your box of parts showed up on Saturday, FedEx is for delivering on a Saturday unless Amazon was paying for the run.

Broke down after doing the math and ordered SpeedHut gauges. It would have cost me over a grand to finish out my build, with the tooling and items, not counting my labor.

SpeedHuts get me 90% there and the car on the road that much faster.

Taking it easy on the fingers, Dr. said I will have 100% success at keeping my fingers. That is because I now have the blood flow that he can fix anything that might go wrong with surgery Was not expecting that out of his mouth I was hoping I was in the clear, and be back in action in a week or two.

Scott you are a sick puppy

Finger number one.

I was successful in my attempt to make this finger shorter.

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And this one I decided to unsuccessfully modify.

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I am off all pain killers now, only time it hurts is when I run it into something, or my wife helps me wrap my finger and squeezes the nail bed to keep the dressing in place.


Happened two weeks ago, they look remarkably well. I have full function, I can say all dressed up in white, it makes them stand out for non verbal communications.

I am actually quite squeamish about this kind of stuff but everybody needs a real life reminder every once in a while about the importance of workshop safety.

It does look like it it healing really well.

OWWWWWW! (read this in your outside voice)

Dang Steve. You got those good. Amazing what a sanding/grinding tool will do to some soft flesh. I had a much smaller one TOUCH my thumb for a second over a month ago. I mean BARELY. Still don't have all the layers of skin back. Wearing gloves now .

Yes it does, I had a bunch of older trade guys in doing electrical work the other day. And they asked what I did. All of them turned white as a ghost, and said its always use old guys that get hurt. The young ones seem to remember that this stuff can bite. And when it does it does very well.

I still have not cleaned the shop floor, or looked behind the shield of the sander for the piece of metal I'm missing. Not sure I am ready to relive this experience, and I am trying to avoid most things that remind me of what happened. It is bad enough to see every day.

So learn from me wear your safety gear.

nice job seam welding. In my attempts at seam welding (old BMW 320) I kept getting contamination from the seam sealer stuck underneath the seam. How did you get it clean enough to seam weld?

Thank you

I used a combination of things.

A fail like this! it cuts out seam sealer like a dog eats brisket!

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A vibrating scraper, these can be used for more than just cutting drywall.

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Heat from a Mapp torch, do this in a well vented area, or with positive air flow mask.

And hand tools from a junked wood chisel to dental picks. I then go back with a hammer and dolly to seal the joint back up if I lifted it getting the sealer out. Luckily on the 914 the seam sealer sticks like crazy, but does not get into the joint unless the joint was lifted. Your 320 might had sealer with a more capillary action.

Also heat from the welder will burn stuff out of the joint, just need to do short seams, start in a clean section, and head towards the dirty part. The heat will burn out the crap. Hit it with a wire brush, and go again.

Choose your gloves carefully. Abrasive and cutting surfaces can grab cloth and yank your hand in. Gloves are not a free pass, it's just a different set of hazards.

Been wondering about that, I really don't like gloves except nitrile gloves, keeps my hands clean. But have had wire wheels take the fingers of them off. I also have a set of kevlar I use when working with sheet metal. This happened with a piece of 1/4" steel, did not even have a set of gloves on.

I am open to suggestions though.

I joke with my wife I need steel plate gloves.

I use welding gloves whenever welding, grinding or cutting. The cheap HF ones are really comphy...

I was told after my grinder incident that gloves would have made mine worse, but I've since had incidents where gloves totally saved me. I guess it's all about luck...

I've done the catch my shirt with the small round wire brush thing a couple dozen times. The one that looks like a vacuum attachment? You have like a half second to let go of the drill trigger or it gives you a sweet VERY TIGHT half shirt/mankini top .

Yes so do I,normally slip in judgement trying to get some work done, and OCD kicking in. I was demurring a piece of steel that would have been demurred once I slapped a weld bead on it anyway. I have gone 40+ years with out a serious shop incident. Well if you don't count the eye thing with plywood shrapnel, Stuff happens, I just needed to slow down and think. Again in a rush to get things done, is when the bad stuff happens.

For welding I have even ordered new gloves, sleeves for my TIG as I noticed I have a nice burn from where my short sleeve shirt ends, and my welding glove ends. TIG is a lot brighter than MIG. And you tend to get a lot closer to your subject while TIG welding.


I can see that if you go through the glove you risk embedding even more foreign particles into or under your skin. Natural hide products can harbor some nasty stuff.




No one needs to see me in a mankini that would assault everyones senses.

Glad to hear your fingers are healing up nicely! Accidents like that are really scary.



You also tend to have the arc on for longer and unlike MIG there isn't crap hitting you to remind you. Definitely watch the TIG burn; it can be really bad and you don't know it until after you stop.



I saw a buddy do that in about a tenth of a second; it scared the shit out of us.

Man, you want to do what you can to stack the cards in your favor. After I nearly lost a finger last year, I read a ton on use of gloves. Many machinists recommend no gloves because you get a false sense of security, they can get caught in spinning machinery and pull your hand in, and many cutting tools will go through them like they are not even there. But there are just as many that say gloves are mandatory.

After thinking hard on it, I realize what I probably should have known from the start: you cannot put on a pair of gloves with the intent of reducing your vigilance. So these days, I concentrate on visualizing the task at hand before I do it: where's the tool going to be, where's the workpiece, where will my hands and body be. Cutting angles, direction of force and kickback, consequences. When all that gets mentally tiring, take a break.

I'm bad for getting casual over time. Working hard to start paying more attention. I REALLY want to be in one piece to be driving this car when it's done. (914forme, sorry for going off on a tangent in your build thread!)

Not off topic it is here the build is right now, almost ground to a halt.

sorry about your accident Stephen. I am almost 72. I have been hotrodding and fabbing about 55 years. Kickback has gotten me once on the nose and once on the cheek. Both times working in a tight area. A face shield will always be on your mind after it is to late. I know we need our hands to do things but my left hand hasn't had any grip for 13 years and I still manage to work with my hands. To loose sight would be terrible for me. I guess wearing glasses probably has helped protect my eyes most times during cutting jobs with different tools. I did go to the er with aluminum in my eye before I wore glasses. Tigging or welding in a tee shirt has burned me more times than I remember but it is not good. I have mashed the meat out of my left thumb with a 5 lb hammer working on a 3spd jeep tranny in about 1970. I healed up and was good till the motorcycle accident that got my nerves 13 years ago. Once I was so happy to find a knock that sounded like a main bearing only to find the flywheel was loose, I stuck a long screwdriver in between the spinning flywheel and the pan lip on my chevy while it was idling to take the endplay out, the ring gear got my right thumb real good. I didn't stop to clean it up till I had pulled the three speed and clutch and pressure plate and got it all tightened back up. I nearly fainted while my grandmother scrubbed the dirt and grease out later that evening. I will never forget that was the day kennedy got shot. A bench grinder will really grind meat so fast you will not hurt for a minute or two, always use vicegrips too hold what you are grinding like when you need to shorten a bolt. Always put the piece of metal up against the drill press post to stop the bit from grabbing and jerking it out of your hand or spinning around and wacking you. If you could keep that 1/2 craftsmen drill from grabbing on that 3 inch hole you are pretty good though. You might know most of these things. You might think I am rambling but my fingers have had a lot of close calls. I've had two operations to tie tendons back together from cuts and two operations to put metal in my fingers to fix broken bones. Neither of my little fingers will straighten out fully but the right one still grips better than most 50 yr olds. I chainsaw with one hand.

One tool you might want at the top of your list is a long 4 inch air cutoff wheel tool. It looks like the wire wheel tool you have, once you use one you will wish it was one of your first tools. hf has them and I have bought two on sale but haven't tried them yet as the expensive one I have has not quit yet, it was about a 250.00 dollar one my friend gave me after he got one for fiberglass use. I use mine mostly for metal with a 1/32 thick wheel.

Hope you heal quickly and with out problems. Not having the nail will remind you to use gloves, believe me leather is tougher than flesh. No gloves with drill presses or mills or lathes though.

We got a heat wave going on anyway right now so you can spend this time studying and price shopping.

I enjoy your hotrodding skills. You do take great pictures.

Yes we all take our lumps through out life, it is your reaction to them that makes you who you are. Thank you for your kind words and taking your time to write these tips. They might help someone just getting started in this craft. Been doing this 40 years, and still learning everyday. Sometimes the lessons come the hard way Sometimes I am intelligent enough to learn from others.

Way to stay in there, and keep hot rodding.

Safety gear should be in tomorrow

Item number one Nitrel Finger Cots, keep the two open wound sites clean.

New Fabricator gloves, I ponied up the $$ for Mechanix brand fabricator glove, we will see. I also got a set of much cheaper ones for comparison.

Restocked my supply of cheater safety glasses

Bought two full face masks, and a tinted grinding shield for one of them. I got a lot of grinding to do

And got a new welding helmet, as my old one was starting to flake out. Maybe its the batteries, seems to have issues with welding in the sun, and picking up the flash from the welder. New mask darkens based on light wave length. So I can be outside welding facing the sun, not the best position, yet when I stick the arc, the helmet goes dark.

Up after this will be to build the TIG cart, finish the trailer work this weekend. Move the boat back to the farm for storage and move Dad's flat bed back to the farm. That clears out the shop to get back to work on the 914. I also have some standard vehicle maintenance items to do this weekend, oil changes, inspections, etc....

On a 914 project note:

Got information back from Chris everything is done waiting for him to ship. Well almost everything, one piece of the front camber boxes is not done. Will not hold up him shipping the items. Guy is seriously busy, and I am extremely happy. Can't wait to see the finished products. Hopefully in a week or so. Chris switch that hat I can wait on you Sir. Great workmanship is worth waiting on.

Got a three day weekend coming up, Safety gear will be here, wife has given me clearance to head to the shop. She knows I have been going stir crazy. And have a list of minor projects to complete. Have Son-in-law scheduled to do some welding for me. And hope the weather will be nice, Mid eighties with lows in the mid 60s. That is good enough for me!

Who knows maybe I will start doing things like restoring light housings, switch cleaning, prep trim and wheels for painting. You know the minor items that can hold you up, but never get done cause you always have the bigger items to complete.