@Krieger @Dion @Cracker @Cairo94507 @Andyrew @bbrock @Superhawk996 @914forme and all you other guys:

Thanks so much for the nice thoughts and comments. It really means a lot.

Yes, I saw the Shelby documentary. Makes me want to build a Le Mans or CanAm replica. P4 or T70? Well, how about I finish this 914 first, eh?

And as to what silly things can happen when I'm not able to do much, and how this will impact what I'm up to next year, it's too late.

I've already made a stir craziness-induced component purchase that I'm sure will have many of you shaking your heads in disbelief.

But let me get things a bit farther down the road and be sure I can pull it off before I go public with it. Assuming it comes together as planned, it'll be too cool.

Stay tuned!

Silly boy...

Cracker

Chris, best wishes for a peaceful holiday season and an uneventful recovery. Just a quick tip: online shopping and pain medications do not mix well. Ask me how I ended up with my collection of depression glass pitchers.... I know you are self sufficient out there but you know how to reach me if you need anything.

Hey folks, your good thoughts seem to have worked! My pathology report came back and the good news is the initial excision work got all the cancer! It's clear margins for me so no more "rust removal". On Jan 7, I go in for what is literally final "body work"!

I'm still supposed to be taking it pretty easy but I couldn't resist the shop's call...
That said, I'm only doing "light" sorts of things. Again, I know this sort of stuff is boring but it needs doing. Today was final install of the passenger door sill - I'm happy with how it turned out.

The to-do list is getting shorter.

OH my gosh! Chris is better looking!

Great to hear the good news Chris!!!

Tony

Awesome!

beat that C!

AWESOME!!!!

I'm thinking if the doctor is anything like you, he'll have to go in and redo the "final body work" five or six times which is bad, but you'll get better looking each time.

Great news Chris! Can’t wait to see what you have in store for us next year.

Happy New Year

John

All - I really appreciate the kind words. Thanks so much.

Now, let's get back to work!

Today was knocking a few items off the to-do list:
- I needed to replace a few of the 6mm threaded inserts in the replacement outer longs, those that hold on the underside of the rockers. One had a rusted in/broken off bolt, the two middle ones had to be added as the replacement outers don't come with them installed.

So boring I didn't even take pics!

Next, it was on to the flares. Those that have done this know how poorly the "ends" are formed (mine actually have spots where the metal was folded over onto itself and is now three layers!) and how they don't match the shape of the chassis.

So today I went after the rear part of the rear flares. Let me start with a pic of the essentially complete driver's side. Car is upside down, obviously!

To match things side to side, I made a quick card board template of the driver side. I've found that the large size Post Grape Nuts boxes work really well for this!

I used that rear-most part of the curved lip and cut it to length and width at the wheel well opening.

Here's an example of how the flares come. You can see one of the "folded over on itself" areas and how not quite paint ready they are.

Ignore those Sharpie lines. They were initial guestimates from before I did the driver side.

Let's do this.
- flip the template over and get it positioned
- find a suitable dolly and clamp it in place to set the line where the flange needs to be

You can see how I set the dolly against the factory flange to ensure the flare's flange coincides with it.

Start hammering the flange up (down? ). Go slowly, working a bend along the entire length of the flare material.

Go back and add a little more angle to the entire flange.

Repeat until the flange is tipped to where it needs to be.

Like this!

Yes, I swapped the position of the dolly and clamps. I did this to allow the hammering angle I needed and to get to the entire flange.

Really though, once you get the flange started, it's no big deal to move the dolly around. Just be sure it's clamped fast and firm into the corner you started before you continue tipping the flange.

I did a quick, rough trim, just to get the excess material out of the way.
Next, I'll weld up that seam and final trim the flange.

On to the next thing...

Corner welded and flange trimmed to final shape.

Boy thats some pretty metal work!!

Looks awesome Chris! Better than Porsche would've done!

@Andyrew @Krieger Thanks for the positive comments. There are certainly areas that could be improved but I'm not yet capable of delivering a 100% metal finished result. Filler will cover/correct my imperfect fab work. Not that I'm NOT giving it all I have!

In keeping with the "finish the flares" effort, I moved to start on one of the front flares, rear section.

I cut the corner areas off the factory wheel openings figuring I could add them back on and merge them with the flares. Here's how the first one went.

Note that that hole for the rocker mount has to be in the correct location so I mounted the rocker and eyeballed where this piece needs to be, clamped it in place and roughly tacked it in.

I did my best to get everything lined up...

Tack, weld a bit, grind, hammer/dolly, check for alignment, tweak as needed. Repeat until done.

Trim things to shape, final grind with 80 grit then hit things with a conditioning disc. It turned out pretty well.

Looking great Chris, keep up the awesome work.

Final check that the rocker mount hole is where it needs to be. Yep.

On to the next corner...

I love the fabrication work and your determination to produce high quality final results. Someday, I’ll do flares. I just have to remember to use your thread as inspiration!

I figured I may as well work on the other "hard" part of the flares. This is the front edge of the rear flare. You can see how the flare has essentially just a radius curved edge where the chassis has the two flat planes with crisp breaks as it wraps around under the car.

So the first thing I did was crisp up the flare to get it in alignment with the chassis.
This is one of those moments where I'm thinking to myself "is this what they mean when they say 'things are going to get worse before they get better...'"?

I hope so!

That section of the chassis was in the way so I opted to slice it a bit and rotate it out of the way. It has the rocker mounting hole in it so I really wanted to keep it attached.

Again, worse before better? Eeesh...

Anyway, with that first part crisped up, I bent the flare back up into alignment with that first, angled part of the chassis.

Tack those planes together to keep things aligned.

Clamp the trusty "bending buck" into position and tip the flange to establish that 2nd crisp corner.

Using this style of Vise Grip made aligning things more consistent than using only my hands or a hammer and dolly.

Close up that seam.

Bend that small section back into position, lots of hammer and dolly work, weld things up, grind as needed, hammer and dolly, grind and conditioning disc everything and it's essentially done.

I will say that crisping up that first edge forced a flat-ish area into the lower about 1.5" of the flare bottom. I compared it to the other side, where the flare is "as delivered" and it's not quite as noticeably bad but also not really how I'd like things.

I think I'll do a bit of slicing and dicing to move it into what I think is a better shape.

It's always something, ain't it?

Anyone else want to chime in on addressing these flare corner areas?

Very impressive Chris...I see surgery has had little effect at slowing you down!!!

T

@Cracker Tony, the initial excision was nearly 2 weeks ago so I sorta figured I could do at least some stuff. The reconstruction surgery is tomorrow so it's back to another week of taking it easy.

I decided to see what I could do about that flat spot I introduced/exacerbated when I created the crisper corners. I started by using a small cut off wheel to make a couple relief cuts.
Then I used a curved dolly to try and persuade the curve to reappear. A bit hard to tell from the pic but it worked! The flat spot is gone.

I'll weld things up and call this area done. Again, it going to require filler. But overall, another great learning, experience and skill development opportunity.

When I do the other side, I think I'll make the relief cut first to see if I can "preserve the curve" as I'm crisping up those corners/bends.

That little slice to restore the curve looks sorta familiar to me...

from the photos I can not tell if your face is flat on the curve, but the fenders look to have a slight radius on the edge. But the fender is more of a crisp edge. Is that what is making it look odd.

Custom T dolly and a slightly larger cut might be your friend. Advantage of metal, you can always shrink, stretch or weld it back to what you want. I don't have to tell you that.

Yeah, well you should see the other guy!

Reconstruction surgery was completed yesterday. All went well so a week of rest/no lifting and I'll be all set. Finger crossed that the 3rd time is the charm and this is the last of my issues.

Oh, and fuck cancer.

You'll be as pretty as always in a couple weeks! Be a good boy and lay low as instructed!!!

T

Time to watch some cartoons!

Woo Hoo!!!! Success!



I hear someone's building a youtube channel with LS 914 content.. But you didnt hear that from me

https://youtu.be/twl_gr6svqA

I've passed the "wait a week after surgery before doing anything strenuous" time period so I'm back in the shop!
Today it was another of the flare corners. I must be out of practice - I neglected to take any pics of what I did. All I can do is show the other side to give an idea of the before/after.
Here's another example of what the corners look like: wrinkly and folded over on itself. Wait...that sounds like what's happening to me!

You can see it's the same story with the flare corner not being crisp or being anywhere close to the shape of the chassis, no flange, etc, etc.

Again, sorry for no in-process shots but here's how this corner turned out. Obviously, it'll need filler but it's lots better than what I started with. On to the next one.

Great work Chris; glad you are back out in the shop.

Looks great, its all a learning process the next one will turn out even better.