How do you get the car up there?

Aliens

Thought I would give this a bump. I'm just finishing Ben's 6 and a 72 911 targa. If I don't get called to work I may be able to rent the fixtures and get started with the first pulls.

A couple issues. I have a parts roller I have to retrieve from Mosier OR. first. I may need the front fenders off the roller. I'm also working another deal on a front clip in Cali. I may be out west sooner than I can get up to OR. What to do...

A lot has happened since my last post. I delivered the 911 to Cleveland. My intension was to hit the road with my trailer from there and head west. I have a rear trunk lid in Vegas to collect from JP and a roller in OR. to try to get home.

While in Cleveland I got a call to work. So instead of heading to JP's I ended up in Nebraska. I spent a couple weeks there then had a blast back home for another obligation I can't mention yet...

Then from home I ended up going back to Cleveland to get the Mercedes back here to finish. 14+ hrs. both ways is a killer!

I talked to SoCal Andy yesterday about the 6. It inspired me to bump this thread. I am thinking about renting the fixtures and starting on the 6 even without the roller I need to collect from OR. So maybe some progress soon.

BTW: my friend that owned the Mercedes I'm working on gave me 5 cans of this for the 6.

I heard beige is nla. Probably worth it's weight in gold.

Awesome. You can paint over it and even if you get a few chips over time it won't be too noticeable with beige.

I haven't used the word "beige" in a while . Beige....it looks funny.

I got my COA but started a new thread instead of adding to this one. Anywho, here's the link to get everything in the same place.

http://www.914world.com/bbs2/index.php?sho...=238745&hl=


So I would like to search out the original engine if possible. 6404371. I know it's a needle in a hay stack but the thrill is in the hunt.

Also what is option C13?

Does "light metal wheels" always mean 14" Fuch wheels or 15" Mahle gas burners?

Were 15" Fuch wheels also in that mix?

Light metal wheels is usually Mahle wheels. 14" Fuchs were the factory wheel but many dealers and individuals swapped them for the 911 15" Fuchs.

C13 is unknown to me.

A special WOW! and thank you to PMB performance for fixing me up with these awesome 6 parts!

same here, but I'll research c 13 !
I happened on this set of 15" mahles in L.A., and a local guy paid me almost $2,800 for the set of 4. He stockpiles these, sometimes sells on Samba.
At approx 7.5 lbs each, these have to be the lightest Porsche wheels ever.
There are some good (but heavier) aluminum replicas out there if you are in a pinch.
Marty

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My set of mahles weighed 10.2.

Trying to keep my posts in the same place.

http://www.914world.com/bbs2/index.php?showtopic=243457

Searching for one of the former owners of my 6 turned up this info. Trying to back track the factory engine. # 4371

Oregon Rennsport
12929 NW Laidlaw Rd., Portland, OR 97229-2413

503) 645-1199
Contact name: Gordon Ledbetter

I was able to connect with Gordon Ledbetter today. He sent me an email response. I shortened it up some but this is the thrust of his reply.

Gordon,

I was attempting to contact you to talk about a 914-6 I have. I was told you used to own and possibly AX'd the car. The car is # 624. I was hoping you may know something about the history of the car before you owned it. I would like to try to track back the history and when the car lost it's original engine. Anything you can share would be greatly appreciated.

I am a former resto/collision shop owner. I have a Celette and have plans for a full on restoration.

(reply)

We bought the car in the spring of 76 from an ad in the Sunday Oregonian. Don't remember from whom. We auto x and tracked the car in Portland. In 77 I put an injected 2.2S engine in the car and the original engine went into another car. Don't know what car.

We moved to Boise and I built the side shifter trans as the original had cracked the case above the main shaft roller bearing, very common. I geared it AFMSX and installed a LSD. Also the front oil cooler was installed, I'm no fabricator, just an engine and trans guy.

In 80 I built a injected 2.8 and installed it. We auto x and hill climbed the car. The rear suspension pick up under the battery came apart so the work you see was to repair it, I'm no body guy or welder. We did run slicks so lots of extra load. At an auto x we hit a curb and tore one of the front suspension consoles out, had it repaired.

Sold the car in 84 to a guy in salt lake thru pano. I stole the engine, LSD, R wheels and installed a 2.4 CIS T with carbs and 6's. I put all the stuff in a 73S I bought to replace the 914. Till that point the car had all original paint. The salt lake guy painted the car and when I saw it later it looked great. He sold it to a guy in San Jose.

Back in the early days I did the engine grill. Chuck Stoddard had bitchen 6, and we all tried copy his stuff. I hope it can be restored to more original looking configuration. Back in those days we weren't concerned about originality.

Thank god I came to my senses with the 73S. For a while when I was trying to sell it, it had my 2.4S in it for $13G. When all people would only go $10G, I put the T engine in. How stupid would that of been to separate the engine from the 73. I sold the 2.8 and restored the 73, which I still have.

Good luck Gordon

So it looks like the last known location for the original engine # 4371 is Oregon.

Keep an eye out. You never know when it may show up.

Cool. Hope you can get you hands on the original motor, Rick

It's a long shot but some have turned up over time. If I happen to locate it, fine. If I don't that's fine too.

Oh, and I wanted to try to keep all the info in one place. Link to my strange chassis number: 130666

http://www.914world.com/bbs2/index.php?sho...=240960&hl=

Special thank you to Peter 0396 for generously offering his factory NOS left fender. Although I never met Peter I have had the good fortune of having a couple telephone conversations with him. He is one of the strongest and most determined men I have ever had the pleasure to know.

And another guy that helped put this together and deserves a tip of the hat is Mark euro911. Mark went out of his way to collect this fender, package it up safely and get it shipped out.

Thanks to both of you!

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No more generous than Rick. I wanted to see the alien and he ran home from a busy day and fed my entire family. I hope this build and pull goes as I am sure it will, with all of the chips sliding your way. I wanted to publicly thank you Rick but I was worried that you would be seeing hordes of teeners. Then I calculated the distance between California and Minnesota. so with that worry gone, thank you so much for the nice time. My younger son put it well. "so Dad, we are going to have dinner with someone you have never met?" Yep, and I had a great time.

We enjoyed the company! You two raised a couple of great boys there! You are all welcome anytime. Tell your boy if he get bored on his off hours he can come over and hang out here in Area51Werks.

My pleasure, Rick. Glad to see the shipper didn't beat it up

Keep your chin up, Peter ... and get your butt home soon

Time for an update. I really shouldn't have spent the time out in the garage this weekend but I did. I'll pay for it tomorrow at work. But hey I couldn't stand to see the six sit there idle another month.

I pulled out the tower, hooked it up to the Celette and did the rough in pulled. Some know I have a little experience with this. I owned a collision/resto shop for 18 years. I had a 4000 sf shop with a 1300 sf computerized office, 6 full time employees and all the drama that goes with it.

For those that are interested in the approach to proper collision repair on a unitized car I'll give you a little taste of the process and the how and how not to proceed.

First you need to picture a car built like a wire framework. Push on one corner and the wire frame moved is several different directions throughout the structure. Now image the wire frame is bent like the photos I will post. The object is to use the damaged structure, specially the parts you know you will not re-use to move the wire frame back into position.

Imagine you just say, heck, I'm not using the front handle I'm just going to cut it off. Proceed that way and you will trap damage back into the wire frame with no way to pull it evenly and move all the members back into position. When you go to re-assemble you will have issues with door fit, top fit and chassis balance, braking predictability and cornering. It is also possible the chassis will end up with kinked or pre-damaged members that will make it unsafe.

So, here's the plan. Do the rough-in pulls. This does not require fixtures those will come later. My goal is to relieve the stress introduced into the unit-body,(drag all the wires effected back in place) start to reshape both right and left inner wheelhouses. and prepare the car for the removal of the parts I will not need when I get the fixtures from Celette and start rebuilding the chassis.

Here's where I started.

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The car is set up on the Celette. There is a set of 4 clamps that are attached to the pinch flange on the bottom of the longitudinal members. They are tightened with an impact gun. During the pulling process I actually pulled the car out of the forward clamps several times. The pinch flange on the 914 is pretty small. Sometimes You have to weld an angle iron the chassis to get a good hold. I used a second set of chains running through the strut towers to help hold the car down during an upward pull.

Both inner wheel houses were kinked very deep. More on the right than the left Both the right and left wheelhouses where they arch over the rack had closed up and the pinch welds were split in several places. I have to say I am impressed the way the chassis took the impact and specially the way I was able to move the damaged metal back into place.


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Some may say...Eeek! That looks like crap! Have no fear. Once I remove the front panel. the right and left fenders, the headlight buckets, the floor pan and the gas tank bulkhead I will be able to us an air powered planishing hammer on the damage and smooth it all out. Here's a link to some hand work I did before I got my hammer.

http://www.914world.com/bbs2/index.php?showtopic=132215

So here is where I'm at today. The rough-in is done. I went to check up on fixtures a couple weeks ago. I was told the original fixture set was scrapped. In order to rent fixtures you now need to own your own towers. The new fixture set is downsized and lighter to ship. The real problem comes in when you have to purchase a 6k set of towers to rent a 1k-1500.00 worth of fixtures. So, I think I'm stalled for a short while until I locate a deal on towers...

Wow. The initial pull is impressive. Good work!

That is amazing. I look forward to seeing this come along.

Looks like you're done !

Sorry that's not even funny to Rick. He'll spend hundreds more hours on that thing.

Hey doesn't McMark have a Celette bench? Should be on it's way to the Midwest. Not sure about the fixtures and stuff but maybe he has some of what you need.

Compared to where it started, it looks almost like new! I'm in awe at what some force, applied with skill and knowledge, can do!

--DD

What do the towers look like Rick? Do you have their dimensions? I would think they could be custom fabbed easier/cheaper than $6K.

These are the towers for the newer models. They are generic for many models, you own them, then rent the top and bottom portions from Celette for your specific application. The red parts in the next pic are what you rent. Last pic is the actual 914 parts for the older benched like Ricks and one I'm looking at. I'm also pricing out to build one from scratch and so far, when I calculate my time, the materials, and the possibility of surface grinding the whole table, + the plates welded onto it, it makes the cost of a used or even new Celette look pretty reasonable You want to know anything about Celette's just ask....I've got more pics then you can shake a stick at. Rick and I have been going over this issue for quite a while now

Thanks for posting that Scotty. Yes, I just contacted Celette again today. Jenny verified the original fixtures you see there in red were shipped back to France. She double checked. So they were not sold off to a shop here in the US. She is going to price out the bare bones tower set and send me an email with pricing. The set you see in blue covers a range of many vehicles.

I have a swiss made car o liner that is very similar to the celette..
I have 3 towers and hydraulics 2 benches and a ton of fixtures and a Unik lifter..all for under 3k.. If your going to make fixtures the celette is not necessary...I found both of mine 2 separate deals on craigs list...

The old celette fixture where hella stout..the new ones more for checking

There is also a blackhawk bench that is similar and a few 911 fixture for it..

Unless you want to buy new..then cellette

I just noticed this

I've had a few setbacks In the last couple years. Hope to get an RFN soon so I can spend more time in the shop. I'm not going to comment on that further for now.

I wanted to include a special thank you to Glenn Stazak. He helped me score a set on NOS front fenders! Wooo hoo!

I now have a left side NOS Euro fender which I will be using on Juergen's car and a set of NOS fenders for my 6. There are still in the factory boxes!

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These are late fenders. Couple small differences that are easily erased to make these early style.

There are brackets for the late bumpers and hole for the valence I think.

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Hi Rick -

Welcome back and I was wondering what had happened. Those are some terrific NOS parts you scored there. Nice to see you posting and hopefully back at it.

Cheers
Michael

Excited to see the project come together.

Rick,
I am glad they met with your approval
Hopefully we can meet in person next time.

Mark I Hope you have overcome your allergy !

Turns out it was gluten intolerance.

Hell Rick, I don't care if your rebuilding Mail Box's. Just glad your back.

Any updates?

Anyone of you that really know me know I am extremely driven. I haven't talked about this before but I had some set backs. Going to Mayo for a surgical consult. May or may not be a candidate. Either way I'm doing what I do everyday. Just some days it's a lot. Had my legs collapse a few times. Makes inspecting roofs scary. Anywho that's enough of that Waaa waaa BS. Not going to let it defeat me. Not going to happen. Don't even comment on it cuss I'm not going to respond.

My friend Chappy gave me an early front clip several years ago before I even had this 6. When I got the car I spent a butt load of time trimming it in preparation for the repair. I had it ready to transfer.

Along came Juergen's 6 in need of a serious front end repair to an otherwise near rust free car. Only reason it needs the work is because some rookie completely spanked the repair. I purchased a 74 shell and planned on using it for Juergen's car. The cost to ship it is way out of control. I bid it up to $ 1100.00 with no takers.
I ended up donating the early front I had trimmed for my 6 in order to get this moving. I am still collecting parts for his repair. But I'm close now. As soon as I can get the parts I need from Glenn. Mark and I can work out the details with regard to his fixtures.

Brings me to my 6. I now plan to use the 74 parts car. I am working out a deal with Garold to pick up a car for Mark from 914 rubber in Michigan and bring it to Glenn's place West of Chicago. I have to collect some parts from Glenn for Juergen's car. So I will have my son pick up Mark's car from Glenn and eventually haul it west to Billings Montana where Mark or who ever he has come my way can swap cars. Crazy car relay but both of us have been unable to get shippers to move the cars at a price that makes sense.

So this will be awhile before my 6 gets reassembled.

I had a lot of trouble getting my bare shell shipped from CA. Cost almost 50% more than a running car.

Ya, $ 450.00 shell purchased for the front clip. Add $ 1,600.00 to ship it, then add in the cost to deconstruct it down to a usable section... A nose panel with headlight buckets and reinforcements end up costing 3500.00 before installation...

I guess I got lucky. $500 shell, $1,150 to ship CA to DE. Lat year a running 914 cost $800 for the same xcountry trip.
Still cheaper than rust repair.

I have come to the realization that I have too many commitments in my life. I have decided to put the 6 up for sale. I am posing the info in the classifieds later today. When looking remember this is not a rust bucket. I have collected some parts and pieces that go with the car.

Rick...are the NOS front fenders L/R going with the car or will they be for sale separately...Thanks John