Thanks, Cairo. I definitely appreciate his help.


Had a chance to get just a little more work done this week. The "cross bars" are welded and ready to go and the "hoops" are drilled (should have drilled these before welding together...)





All thats left is to add the caster wheels and actual car mounts. Maybe we'll see the teener in this stand in the next few days?

All done... just needs a 914 inside of it!

It was a little bit of a challenge, but my 914 is now firmly mounted in its rotisserie!



The donor that will give life back to my car:


All put away, for now:

Nice work. I'm kind of fascinated by these octagon rotisseries. I'm wondering if you could make one out of this:
http://www.tractorsupply.com/tsc/product/g...CFZIBaQodNGME6g

$180, it would roll real easy, you would need to add minimal work to add brackets...

Spent a little time this weekend working on some of the repair panels I cut out of my '72 parts car.

I will use this section to replace the missing rear trunk floor on my car:



I trimmed it down to what I will need and cleaned up for a closer inspection:



The typical rear edge where it meets the rear fascia is rusted pretty badly:



Closer inspection finds some holes:









I will be trying to fill some of these holes with a little help from a copper spoon. Hopefully I can salvage this piece because a new one from RD is $$$.

I'll also *try* to cut a patch panel out of this to repair where my car was chopped up for A/C. It definitely will need to be straightened and have a few crack seams welded up. It looks like the car was driven over a few too many things:



There are some bad signs including serious rust under the seam sealer:



Lastly, I stole the battery box & tray out of the parts car. It's in mostly good shape save some surface rust and twisting I did getting it out. It will only need minor repairs:







That's it for now. Obviously these pieces will need more work in the future.

Well, it's been a month but I was finally able to align the stars and bring my project home to my garage where I can work on it much more frequently.

Here it is all loaded up on the rotisserie with remaining parts from the 72 parts car:


In transit:


Finally home!


O/T - correct me if I'm wrong, but is the aluminum crossmember exclusive to the 911? It came out of the 72 parts car:


Well, I wasted no time and dug in to start the sheet metal repairs. As I cleaned off the paint, the rust holes kept getting bigger...




Backside:


I was able to fill a few small holes with the welder, but there are three main areas that will have to be gutted (under the trunk latch mount, and under the two side support mounts?)



All holes cut:


Likely going to have to recreate the bottom 2cm or so of these support braces:




Here's some rusty porsche for everyone:


After taking measurements, decided to go ahead and fill in the trim holes so I can run without vinyl & cross-trim:


Also O/T, but does anyone know what these carpet nail looking things are for around the rear taillights? I'm thinking they need to be pulled and filled:


Decided to cut into the sail panel and see if there was any rust due to the foam seal inside. I figured there might be as there was some surface rust on the outside of these panels. Surprisingly, it is very clean inside. May not cut open the other side:


At least I have the right sized patch panel? I'm going to coat the inside with rust-proofing before I seal it back up:


That's where I'm stopping tonight. I realized I don't have any sheet metal lying around, so I will have to track some down to make patches.

Time for a few updates… While I was out of town, my Dad was bored enough to wander into the garage and play around with the teener (much appreciated). He knocked out some patches for the side marker warts and also filled the antenna hole:





Heat shield now separated from donor panel and ready to be welded onto new rear trunk floor:


He also discovered what must be years of accumulated rat droppings under the headlight buckets:





Enough to fill almost 3" deep inside of our 16 gal shop vac.


Still some left even after lots and lots of vacuuming:



The insides of these areas under the buckets will have to be treated with master series for sure.

I ordered a (cheap) paintless dent removal tool off amazon to try out on some of the dents on the car. It seems to work pretty well, other than the glue getting stuck to the plastic pullers. Here is a dent we experimented on:



Glue applied:


Using the puller:


Dent is almost gone after one attempt (note it is in fact NOT paintless)


After pondering over the patches I needed to make, I broke down and ordered a front and rear trunk floor panel from Restoration Design. We've just about got those in place now, so will update with more pictures soon!

Playing around with some paint stripper...













Overall some very clean, very original sheet metal. A few bumps and bruises but no major beating required other than a crease in the front hood.

Decided not to blast it?
Zach

I'm weighing up the time / money question. As of now I am planning to strip the "flat" surfaces and blast all of the nooks / crannies / areas not easily stripped. Should cut down the amount of time needed to blast and allows me to make some progress in the meantime. The whole bottom of the car will be blasted (then epoxy and color-match upol raptor liner).

Time for some sheet metal updates....

Here's the trunk with what was left of the rear floor removed:


We decided to weld the RD floor panel to the existing lip as a flange using rosette welds. Here is that lip cleaned up:


After some sandblasting, you can see the areas that are heavily oxidized with rust (black spots). These areas were treated with PickleX20 and then top coated with Zinc Weld Through Primer for now.


Starting to fit the new panel from RD:


First issue encountered -- the original trunk floor sat much lower than this replacement panel, causing an interference with the two reinforcement supports and with the trunk latch mounting bracket. In this picture, we had already trimmed the supports and latch bracket to allow the repair panel to slide up high enough in place:


Doing some minor shaping to get the replacement panel to fit snugly:


Here's a reference shot of how much higher the new floor sits as compared to the old. The old was spotted in where the holes are drilled. You can see the new floor level through the holes cut for patches.


The second issue we ran into is with regards to these bumper support pieces. Originally, the floor was tacked to these supports (see circles where old spots drilled out):


The new panels have a corrugation that falls exactly in the middle of this support, creating a gap between the two pieces:


I blasted the tops of these bumper supports so that they could be top coated with Master Series encapsulator as they will be "sealed up" when the floor is welded back down.




We decided to coat some other areas with MS as well including the inside of the transmission support frame. I also broke out the siphon gun to spray the inside of the sail panel I cut open:


Third issue with the RD panel is that the corners are not formed anywhere close to the shape of the original panel. This leaves pretty significant gaps in the corners. One option would be to unfold the edge, but that would leave practically zero lip to flange to the car. Another option is to fill with seam sealer.





After some final fit and finish, I used screws to hold the new panel firmly in place and rosette welded the panel in. Additionally, I finished the patches on the rear fascia.

Next up... front trunk floor! The front panel from RD was a very close fit and we had no issues getting it in place after some trimming. Similar to the rear trunk floor, we decided to flange the new metal with the existing and use rosette welds. This will call for seam sealer, but a lot less work than seam welding & grinding. I also salvaged the tow hook and spare tire hold down off of the original floor.

RD Patch Panel:


Existing mess from aftermarket A/C & sharpie line for rough cut:


The "final" hole size:


Cutting to size / Fitting Shape:


Trunk prepped w/ Zinc Primer:


Holes Drilled & Prepped w/ Zinc Primer:


Adding Tow Hook:




Fitted & ready for welding:


All done (minus the spare tire bracket)

I've been making a lot of progress on unexpected firewall patches and soon-to-be new rear floor pans. Will update with those pics soon... but until then, the 914 just got a new garage mate:







This is Dad's new project car, however I'll be jumping to help whenever I can. 1962 Sunbeam Alpine Mark II (which also came with a '67 parts car). In pretty good shape for its age with minimal visible rust. The only scary bits might be what is hidden under what appear to be outer rocker repair panels that were riveted on. Will find out soon...

Well, this will be a pretty big update. After spot blasting areas of the floor it was clear that there were quite a few holes and a couple of the seat mounts were looking pretty crusty. There were a few holes in the lower firewall that seemed to grow as well. At that point, we decided it was best to order a rear floor half from Restoration Design.

In the mean time, we got started taking out the old floor and cleaning up the leftover spot welds. In order to do this... the car needed to go up on its side, so it was the perfect chance to test out the rotisserie stand!





After much much much drilling, the old floors started to come out:


Inside of the tunnel, mostly clean. But if you look closely there are three fuel lines - one is the original plastic line and there are two other black rubber lines that were added later on. Of course, this means one of the PO's added another hole in the back of the firewall.



Mud dobber nest hiding away in the tunnel:




Of course, once the floor came out and we started cleaning around we found more and more rot. It became clear that I would need to make some serious patches in both inside and outside corners of the firewall. Here's some of the carnage:







Note all of the junk that is on the floor that fell out of the inside of the firewall:


Close up:


More holes discovered on the engine side:


Look how thick the white sealant from the factory is! Easily 1/2"


While examining the firewall, there was a small section of the long that seemed too soft for my liking. I cut it out and made a patch to go in its place:




Weld-through primer:


Repaired and ground down:


Here's the first patch I made for the driver front side of the firewall. I flanged around most of the edges to try and get a better flush fit using rosette welds. This worked ok, but still ended up having to do some stitch welding.


The old crunchy on top, replacement on bottom:


And another patch for the driver backside of the firewall:


Backside patch in place:




Both patches welded in, and tubes for parking brakes repaired and back in place:




Cut out the bad metal from the passenger inside firewall:


Some rust hiding out under the passenger side jack point support plate:


I was hoping to be able to save the passenger outer firewall, but no dice. So this is my mark for what to cut out and replace:


Outside patch welded in and fitting inside passenger patch:


While I was there, I decided to see if there was a good way to add a doubler around the clutch tube as I've seen some other cars with metal fatigue / failure here. I also discovered some more history... it looks like the car had driven over something pretty hard that put a good bend on the middle of the firewall. I made some relief cuts and worked to flatten it back out. This picture is after re-shaping and with weld primer in place for the doubler:



Here is the doubler I made:


Welded in place:


After all of the firewall repairs were made, we finished grinding and preparing the flanges for the new floor. Prior to closing up the bottom side, I wanted to do some extra rust prevention measures for the future. We shot master series inside of the tunnel, firewall cavity, crossmember cavity, and into the longs.



All coated with MS & weld primer on the flanges:


Kind of a wild shot with no floors:


Next up was test fitting the replacement floor from RD. Overall, a really quality piece that required minimal fitting for my application. Here is a rough overlay to determine what needed trimming:


We decided to flange the new repair on top of the existing floor at the front edge of the crossmember. This will effectively leave three layers of metal spot welded together at that point. The entire piece was rosette welded into place. Here is the piece with all holes drilled and weld primer on top:


Here it is screwed into place with self tapping screws:


And finally, after a good two hours of rosette welding, here is the new floor firmly in place. I have new support rails and hinge mounting plates for the seats from RD that will go in next.


Unrelated #1, but after quite the fit I also managed to separate the rusty crusty pedal assembly:


Unrelated #2, spent a weekend building a nice metal shop table to house a vice and a break for all of the metal work:


Phew, that was a long update. The remaining metal work includes two patches higher up on the firewall where it is single layered, a portion of the engine shelf, and adding back the battery box. After that work is completed, I'll shift my focus to blasting the bottom of the car, coating with epoxy primer, seam sealing, and top coat of paint to match bedliner.

I just dropped off another load of parts for powder coating and visited an upholstery shop to get some ideas for a slightly custom interior. In mid-March I'm planning to get started with the engine. I'm making pretty good progress and really pushing to have this teener driving in 2017.

Very nice working documentation. That is going to be one very nice chassis when done.

nice work. Looked exactly like my crusty old car

Thanks for the kind words, gents.

Small update, but here goes. I ended up spending all of last weekend with my other project ('70 Cal Look) that is stowed away for now. I had it before I bought my teener but, long story short, it's on hold and stored in my old college roommate's house for now.





So, after a weekend of cleaning out / placing the bug body back onto the rebuilt chassis / bringing some tools back, I was pretty pooped. But, I had a little spare time & energy today so I was able to knock out a few quickies on the teener. The new seat support frames / rails from RD are now welded in place. I also cleaned up the jack points / mounts and Dad helped to straighten them out as they were pretty bent up from years of abuse. The backsides were coated with master series and then welded into place. I also took a few minutes after to grind down the high spots of all my rosette welds from the new floors.





I think that's everything I need to do on the underside of the car, so it looks like I may be flipping her back over soon to look at the remaining patches!

Amazing job, well done

Grinding down rosette welds takes the Fun right outa welding. I like your pace. Don't let up!

Thank you! Just giving the car what it deserves.



Amen... I'm ready to drive this thing already!

Ok, so the fun continues tonight... It is officially time to tear into the hell hole and see what lurks ahead....

Firewall, engine shelf, inner fender, and top of long all rusted with pinholes. In this pic, the lower corner of the firewall has been cut out.




So, I started dissecting... Here is everything all opened up with just a little bit of the engine shelf left to cut out. Also appears that a PO hacked off part of the engine tin seal channel and folded it down? Need to confirm but doesn't look original to me.



This is the section of the top of the long I cut out and will have to re-create. I did not realize there was a doubler underneath, so I'll have to get creative to weld something back in to retain that original strength.



But, still glad I cut it out because the top of the long was pretty pitted with a few pinholes:


Pretty clean down inside there:


Before stopping for the night, I coated the inside of the long with Master Series:


We'll see how energetic I'm feeling tomorrow after work, would really like to get this repair knocked out to say I'm "done" with the major sheet metal repairs.

The repair saga continues... doubler is in and so is inner fender patch. These two tiny patches were four hours of work... not fun Next will be the long patch and engine shelf. I can't wait to close this back up.



Repair patch for top of long is cut and sitting on top here, but will need final trimming and adjustment.

Small update... I just got a truck load of parts back from the powdercoaters so will get some pics of those parts soon. Also dropped off the engine at my "go-to" VW engine guy out in Comfort, TX. After closer inspection, the worst is confirmed, and some parts including the rods and crankshaft will be replaced with new. I'm itching to get back in the garage after being out of town for what seems like two weeks. Will post updates on the metal work once I actually make some progress !

Finally got a chance to get in the garage and play last night. Doesn't look like much, but was a few hours worth of fitting and welding.

Hell hole / Top of Long patch fitted to size:



Welded in place (still need to grind and fill holes)



Also made a new piece for the passenger side sail panel and got this welded in. I was way down on the welder (A-1.5) and used compressed air after each weld to try and prevent and warpage. I think we did ok, but will have to grind and block to see if there is anything serious.



I'm still not sure if I am going to attempt to cut open the driver's side just for peace of mind. The inside of the passenger sail was very clean with no real rot to speak of. I'm wondering if I can find a way to drill / cut a small hole and "melt" the foam out with heat or chemicals. Then spray in some Master Series as future rust prevention. Not sure...

I still need to re-create the missing engine shelf, patch the firewall, and replace the missing engine seal track. And then still need to tack in the battery tray and muffler heat shield. Possibly some of that this weekend? I also have a bit of patch work left to do up where the front trunk seal channel is. There are definitely some crunchy corners that will need replaced. But, once that work is done I think I will be almost done with all metal repairs? Oh... except for the emergency brake pivot mount that is missing a pivot. The list never ends.

Lastly, I discovered two weeks ago when crawling around in the engine bay that the PO, for some reason unbeknownst to me, decided to remove both the rear trunk hinge pivot mounts and then lose one of the brackets. So, rather than fight with welding the OE style mount back in place, I broke down and ordered the J West Engineering kit with heim joints. I also ordered front & rear strut kits from Camp. Should be a nice upgrade. When life gives you lemons...

Time for another update! Today we finished up the engine shelf, creating the patch from scratch. Man, that was a chore. We stared with a gaping hole to fill:



Dad took charge shaping the patch:



The PO had cut out part of the engine seal channel and folded down that portion of the engine shelf out of the way. I decided to cut out some more of the what was left of the original shelf and build out to where the seal channel should go with new steel. We made a template of the driver's side seal channel shape and mirrored it to use on the passenger side.

The main patch of the engine shelf took quite a bit of creative shaping, as neither one of us are skilled sheet metal workers and we certainly don't have all of the typical tools. But, we were able to create a patch that is pretty darn close to the original shape. We used a torch and ball-peen hammer to dimple the metal patch and create a low spot to re-create the original drain hole.

I think it turned out pretty good, but these aren't the best pictures:





Also managed to blast & paint the exhaust shield and battery box with Master Series. Will be looking to tack these parts in soon:



That's all for now... More metal work updates to come!

Took her out, flipped her over, and got her wet.

I couldn't stand the road grime and grease when crawling around getting in / out of the engine compartment. So, I soaked everything with some super clean and pressure washed. Probably the first time the underside has seen a bath since new? Also ended up washing out a few pounds of petrified rat turds.. think I got the last of them now.

Gotta keep going while I'm on a roll...

I used the seat rails to figure out where to mount the hinges back in place on the floor. These were missing since the rear floor pan half was replaced with a new panel from RD. I wanted to make sure there would be no future fitment issues, so I tacked everything with the seat frame in place, then removed to burn in.



I also welded the emergency brake cable guide back in place. I was curious about the overlap of this guide and the outside, driver seat frame mount. But, after referencing the original floor pan it looks like there was some overlap from the factory.



Lastly, got the spare tire hold down back in place in the front trunk.



Slowly getting there....

Some small updates, but first a little day-dreaming:



Loving these ABS rockers I picked up from another forum member. Going to look great when actually installed. Note the real shiny section of the door and front fender - I did a little polishing the other day. The original Malaga red shined up pretty good. It's a shame this car was taken apart and screwed with because the paint was good enough to be a survivor with a buff.

I ended up stealing the rotors off of my '72 parts car because they measured out to basically brand new thickness despite some really heavy rust. I had them turned down to within machine limits, so saved some money there vs. buying new rotors all the way around. I'm going to blast and paint the centers black once I get a chance:



Now back to the last of the remaining hell hole repairs. I made the firewall patch and got it welded in place on the front side. I didn't feel like crawling around in the hell hole tonight but I'll have to finish the welds on the back side soon.







On to the front hood seal track... the more I dig the more I discover some really rotten areas under the seal. There are likely 3 corners that will have to be replaced, like this one here:



The passenger side where it meets with the fender has some areas of concern that really need to be cut out and replaced. I tried to tack weld up some of the rust holes but the more I poke around the less I trust the metal that's actually leftover. So, I think I'm going to cut it out in three sections, but it's going to be a pain in the butt to recreate some of this...









More to come once I figure out my game plan for the seal channel replacement. I'm also planning to knock out fitting the new J West hinges and Camp hood struts soon. My goal is to have all of the "metal work" done in April, so that I can strip down to bare metal and epoxy prime in May.

Great work and great thread! I've got the same problem with the channel seal on my 914, so I'm paying close attention to how you go about fixing the problem. Thx.

Thanks! Good to see another TX member here. Wish me luck with the seal channel... I'll take lots of pics and post them here for you.

Took the plunge last night and decided there was no time like the present to start cutting.

I've decided on two areas that need to be cut out, but I will make it out of three patch pieces. The black lines outline where I will cut:



I had to use a pretty unique combination of tools to get the old channel out without damaging the inner fender wall too much. The long straight cuts were made with an air cut off and 4" disc. Then I drilled holes so I could fit my air body saw with a small blade to do the "cross" cuts. I drilled out the factory spot welds in the flange and then used a hammer and chisel to finally persuade everything out.

Spots drilled:


Everything cleaned out:

Note that the further back you get towards the windshield, the inner fender wall starts to curve back towards the outside of the car. This just barely crossed the underside of my back patch, you can see in the above picture. I cleaned up the rough edges with my mini air belt sander where it would fit, and used the wire wheel to prep the metal and remove the factory seam sealer where I would be welding (that sh*t catches on fire easily).

Next, I made up some cardboard templates for the three patches:


Here is the first patch made and sitting in the hole:


That's where I stopped for the night, will get back to it soon and finish up the other two patches. It's really not been as bad as I thought so far, the worst part was just figuring everything out and then teasing the old metal off the car. Yes, some of it was paper-thin.

Spent most of today at the Mecum auction in Houston. Pretty sweet to see the action in person, plus there were over 1000 cars there this weekend. No teeners but a few 911's and a 356B. If you've never been, it's worth the $20 to go if nearby.

Anyways... back to the trunk seal channel. I made the two remaining patch pieces. One is just an "L" and one was a "U". Here's a pic of the "L" in place:



Missed a picture of the "U" patch, but here is everything all welded in:




I got sidetracked after finishing those patches and decided to go ahead and make the modifications for early bumpers to the front. I first took off the side rails by drilling out the original spot welds:



Then took off the extra lip for late rubber bumpers in front of the headlights. Same technique here, just drilling spot welds:


At this point, I stopped to read old threads and ponder what the best way to handle the remaining rail was. I've seen some just cut it flush with the seal channel, but that feels unfinished to me and I don't like leaving the extra strip of metal there. Additionally, I knew there would be some rust between the two pieces of metal. I decided to remove the front rail completely by drilling out spot welds:





Next, I identified all of the corners I will have to rebuild. I was thinking it was only three, but I found four corners that were rusted out and a possible fifth patch up at the top of the seal channel on the driver's side. Yeesh, these stupid little fixes keep adding up time.

Driver's upper, inner headlight bucket corner, rust already cut out:


And, here is the repair:


Driver's lower headlight corner:


Here is the fix:


Still to go, passenger's lower headlight corner:


Also remaining, driver's upper, outer headlight corner:


Possible fifth patch up on the driver's side:


Going to try my best to knock out those three remaining corners tomorrow to be done with the trunk seal channel. I really was not expecting to spend this much time on the front trunk, oh well. More to come tomorrow, hopefully!

Few more repairs done...

Here is the passenger lower corner rebuilt:



I was able to drill through the pin-holes and fill with new weld at the driver's upper, outer corner. Will grind and see what I'm left with, hoping this is enough with some rust conversion and encapsulation:



Off topic, but managed to blast and paint my rotors with some satin black. Much better:

If you will recall, I was missing both factory trunk hinge mounting points from my car as the PO removed them for some unknown reason. Well, last night I got around to fitting the new J West trunk pivot mounts with heim joints. Overall, it wasn't too bad of a process. The hardest part was figuring out exactly where I wanted to align the trunk lid to still have maximum future adjust-ability. It's not perfect, but it's pretty good.

Here is the lid taped down after we shimmed (with an old valve cover gasket) to get the lid where we wanted it:



Then, I crawled underneath and marked the holes with a sharpie. The trunk lid had to be removed to drill the holes, and even then two of them were challenge because of the angle you have to attack them from. Here is the mounted J West pivot:


Lastly, a pic with the trunk hinge installed and in place:


Also realized last night I might not be able to fit my Camp 914 struts while the car is still in the rotisserie as you cannot open the trunks all the way... Oversight on my end.

You could have welded that in place. Probably not a bad idea to seam weld it if you can grind a clean spot on that piece. I believe that JWest hinge is for those that don't want to weld. Enjoying your build thread.

I did kick that idea around before getting started. But, I ultimately decided against it because I figure the pivot will get more sheer strength from the two plates being bolted together on either side of the inner fender wall. Who knows, but somehow I rationalized it in my head. I will be painting the black brackets body color to help disguise them.

On another note, glad you're enjoying watching my learning curve

My hell hole repair is finally completed!!!

I finished up remaining welds and ground everything down. Not looking for a Dave Kendig perfection engine bay, but I didn't want my weld seams to stick out like a sore thumb. I soaked master series into the seams and brushed under where the battery tray will go / around the HH in general. I will probably end up blasting most of this off, but at least I know there is some rust protection in the nooks and crannies.



Here is my "re-purposed" battery tray out of the 72 parts car. It's not perfect but it's in decent shape. I had a little issues getting the flanges to align with my long / inner fender wall. So, I re-shaped some of the flanges and made a new "L" flange piece on the bottom inner edge (closest to the engine) to help support the tray. Not factory by any means, but should to the job. Still need to clean up these welds.



I stole some engine seal channel from a VW Beetle rear apron to replace the missing section of my 914. Not an exact match as the Type 1 seal channel is a little taller, maybe 3-4 mms. But, it should be close enough that with a little bending here and there, the 914 seal fits in place without problem. This was kind of a pain in the butt to weld in place, as I am not a skilled enough welder to not leave some weld in the channel where the seal would eventually go. So, I folded out the edges of the channel around the places I plug welded just enough to fit my air belt sander in place and grind them down after the fact. Then, when everything was smooth again, I bent it back to the "C" shape.





I think I am finally getting close to done with metal work...

Here's a nice break from all the metal work... I picked up my "new" engine longblock this weekend. This project ended up costing quite a bit more than I had planned once we discovered some of the parts that came with the car were not worth using in the rebuild. I'm taking a nice break from grinding and welding to get the top end assembled so I can hear this thing roar to life.

Here are some specs for the 2056:
-Factory GC Case, align-bored .020" Over
-New DRD C/W Forged 71mm Crankshaft
-New Connecting Rods
-New AA 96MM Pistons
-New Webcam 86a & Lifters
-Original, stock oil pump
-Original, lightened flywheel
-Rebuilt 2.0L Heads
-New Webcam HD single springs
-OE 911 Swivel Adjusters
-9.1:1 Static Compression

Will be adding a pertronix flamethrower III distributor and a set of Empi HPMX IDF 40 dual carbs shortly.





Still amazed by how clean these heads came out after bead blasting:


I spent some time test-fitting cooling tin this afternoon. I will get this cleaned up and powder-coated for final assembly:


That's all for now, but a nice distraction from all the metal work!

Work has picked up and progress has screeched to a halt... I'm trying to pick away at small things for now until I can get a free weekend. I bought an oil filter adapter off of a world member and installed that and the oil cooler this weekend.

Also bought a 3-4 side passenger tin as the one I had was a 1.7/1.8 and the plug holes were in the wrong spot. It needed some repairs as a PO had hacked up the coil bracket mount. My repairs are rough, but good enough for engine tin:





I'm going to drop the tin off tomorrow with the powder coater, hopefully I'll have some tin soon and be even closer to a break-in run of my new engine.

Wow long time, no post. Life has gotten in the way of working on my 914, but I am still pecking away every now and then. I've also been dreading updating this thread as photobucket has decided to limit my image hosting bandwidth unless I want to buy some absurdly expensive hosting plan . I knew I was going to have to make a switch, so now using IMGUR to host pics. If for some reason my previous pictures in this thread don't load, blame the greedy bastards at photobucket.

The engine is assembled and tucked away on it's test stand, ready for first fire and break-in. Side note -- how crucial is removing pushrods when building oil pressure? Seems like a lot of extra work.





Pretty much all of the "big" metal work is knocked out on the body. I started stripping down the car today. First, I roughed up the surface with my DA sander. Then, I applied chemical paint stripper. After scraping all of the paint off, I neutralized with water. I roughed over all of the stripped areas with 80 grit on the DA. Lastly, everything was coated in Picklex 20 as it will likely sit for a few weeks as bare metal.











There were a few dings and dents I beat on as I worked on stripping. Also found a hole by the rear passenger taillight corner when wire wheeling some rust spots under the paint. All in all, this is a very honest car with just the one (factory?) layer of paint on it. Pretty neat to see her back down in her birthday suit. I needed to do something to get the motivation started again...

The original plan was to sandblast everything, but I'm now making an analysis of what will be the best / easiest / quickest way to strip different areas of the car. I'm going to strip / sand the big flat areas that would otherwise take a while to blast. This will hopefully just leave me with seal channels, jambs, inside trucks and under the car to blast. Staging it this way will also let me keep working until I am set up and ready to blast.

I'm also thinking through now what will be the best way to stage the body work, primer and eventual paint. Pretty soon I'm going to have to commit to a color. I'm really leaning towards Adriatic Blue...

You aren't going to use the cooling flaps and thermostat on this engine?

When the time is right and I have money to spare, I'll purchase those bits as I am missing everything. For first fire and break-in, I'll be fine without them. Last time I checked, I believe replacing all of the missing pieces was going to push $400, yikes. I'm procrastinating as long as I can.

+1 on the Adriatic Blue. My 914 has been painted a weird shade of yellow and I thought I would update with a correct shade of yellow, but after a lot of thought, I'm going back to the original Adriatic blue. Nice work! Keep it going.
Jesse

If you missed my other thread, I'm choosing hard between colors. I think I've ruled out the original Malaga Red (gasp ) and I am now between Adriatic Blue and Mexico Blue. I love the way Adriatic looks when in the sun, but in the shade / inside it definitely gets darker. Mexico Blue is simply a fun color. Not going to be an easy decision...



This weekend we built a temporary blast / spray "booth" to do some sand blasting and get some epoxy primer on the car. I'm doing the stripping / spraying in stages. Its' not ideal but it keeps me and the project moving. Man, I forgot how much work sandblasting is. It sure seemed to go quicker when I was blasting my beetle.

Here are some pics inside the booth. Ignore the spot blaster, all of this work was done with a Harbor Freight 100lb blaster and "clean bite" glass media.









I ended up taking the rest of the seam sealer out of the front compartment of the front trunk. I'm too afraid of rust hiding out underneath the original sealer. I am going to order an air needle scaler to tackle the tight spaces of the back compartment of the front trunk.

After blasting, I wiped down the fresh metal with Picklex20. Here are some pics after cleaning & tack ragging:





Lastly, here she is after Eastwood epoxy primer in white:







I broke down and bought an inner long / stiffening kit that should show up this week. I will probably end up stripping down the cabin with wire wheels and the like. I still need to strip the engine bay and underside of the car. Fun fun fun...

I wish my "pecking away every now and then" resulted in as much progress as this. Looking great!

Thanks mbseto. Your build isn't looking too shabby either, and you definitely have more metal work than I ever dreamed. I admire your patience!

I finished cleaning up the back half of the front trunk and sure enough found some rust under the factory seam sealer. This was a lot of work... it took two of us 2 hours or so picking away with about 10 different tools to get it all out.







Accidentally punched a hole through here, will have to repair:


Hard to see in this pic, but I decided to put a coat of master series over the seam line to encapsulate and treat any rust before epoxy:


Here she is in epoxy primer:





I also starting working on filler in a few small dings. I'm dreading stripping the rest of the paint on the bottom of the car, but I know that needs to come first.

Hello world, time for an update! Progress has been slow, it sure seems like one step forward and ten back. For some reason I convinced myself last minute to add a chassis / long stiffening kit while I had the interior stripped down. I purchased the Maddog long stiffening kit. I have to admit that it wasn't as seamless of an installation as some of the write ups make it seem, or maybe I am just too nit-picky.

I cleaned out any and all seam sealer and used master series in the seams to prevent future rust flare ups. I drilled a pin hole in the door hinges and took the doors off as well to make some extra space.







Here are the stiffeners welded in place. I used some Eastwood self-etch weld-through primer under the new pieces. Lots of crackling and my welds were not the prettiest so there was some grinding to be done. For some reason, this new steel seemed to melt away way too easily with little heat, even compared to the 40+ year old OG German steel.





I decided to blast the inside of the cabin after several hours of trying to clean it by other means. The blasting worked pretty well until the cheap HF blaster started acting up and stopped feeding. There was about 10% left to do at that point so we broke out the wire wheels and scotch pads.





I noticed some of the seam sealer cracking where the fender meets the A pillar, so Dad helped clean it all out. There was a little bit of rust underneath but not as bad as we expected.





Side note: I would like to time travel back to 1975 with a 12-gauge and some buck shot to address whomever slopped so much seam sealer on this car. It never freaking ends.

The one downside to sandblasting is obviously the leftover sand. We spent a good amount of time blowing air and vacuuming crevices to try and get all of the grit out. Here we are prepping for paint:



I decided to put a thin coat of master series over the whole bottom half of the tub to prevent any rust from flaring up. It's not pretty but it gets the job done.





Finally, it was time to spray some epoxy primer. I laid a full wet coat on and a second coat in some select places. This Eastwood stuff sprays really well out of my Starting Line guns. No complaints there.









This was a good dry run for learning how to bend and reach to spray certain areas of the car. I'm not sure how I'm going to do when it comes time for color, because I had my fair share of bumping the air line into fresh paint or backing into the windshield frame. Will be fun...

Here is a good picture that illustrate why sand blasting may not be the best choice. Despite our efforts of getting all the sand out, it just keeps coming. I noticed when spraying but it was already too late. There is some fine grit in a few areas and this is just an example picture. I will knock it down with some sandpaper before color. Good thing this will all be hidden except for the door jambs.



Of course, what would a good weekend's worth of work be without a few surprises. I found two new rust spots I was unaware of during blasting, both on the passenger side door jamb / sail panel area. Hopefully I can just tack these up without blowing through the metal too badly.

The front fenders and front cowl are what's left to epoxy prime. Then, the whole topside will be in white and all that's left will be to flip the car over and tackle the bottom (no easy task).

Hoping I can stay motivated and push through while we're having some nice weather here in TX.

Very impressed have been following progress....POS to really nice car is my thoughts,well done.

I didn't see if anybody answered your question about removing pushrods to build oil pressure. Never heard of such a thing.

Adjust your valves. Remove your sparkplugs and disable the ignition. Crank until you get oil pressure, then install spark plugs, connect ignition, and fire it up. Maintain 2000 RPM for 20 minutes to beak in the cam. (Or whatever the cam MFG recommends.)

Also bought a 3-4 side passenger tin as the one I had was a 1.7/1.8 and the plug holes were in the wrong spot. It needed some repairs as a PO had hacked up the coil bracket mount. My repairs are rough, but good enough for engine tin:





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The probable reason your tin was hacked up is that the coil mounted in that location often creates cracks due to heavy coil mounted on flimsy sheet metal. Mine was cracked badly in these locations as well.
You should mount the coil on the fan housing where it's much stronger as sone years were done