Well now that the whole body has been taken down to bare metal and epoxy primer applied, it went to my friends shop to get the body work done . I really hate doing body work and my friend has a really good bodyman and will finish it a lot faster and better than I ever could.

Click to view attachment

Click to view attachment

Click to view attachment

Click to view attachment

Upon arrival at my friends shop, couldn't wait for the work to begin

Click to view attachment

First thing I did was install suspension and wheels to check the fitment of the fenders. At this point I didn't have the front tires, but I got them before the final fitment of the fenders.

Click to view attachment

Click to view attachment

Now that the car is at the body shop, I can concentrate on working on restoring other parts. First up was the handbrake, it was in really bad shape and thanks to parts availability I was able to get it working again.

Here is what it looked like when I first removed it from the car. It didn't have the spring, handle or any of the internals.

Click to view attachment

Click to view attachment

The hole for the cable was deformed so I welded it up and then drilled a new hole

Click to view attachment

Click to view attachment

Removed all the paint and rust

Click to view attachment

Here are all the parts that I had to get to make it functional

Click to view attachment

And the finished product


Click to view attachment

Another thing on my to do list before paint was the front sway bar modification. I bought it from GR German Parts Restoration. Made the bracket for the inner fender well, and then drilled the holes to fit the sway bar. Here I'm checking the alignment prior to welding the bracket on.

Click to view attachment

Click to view attachment

Click to view attachment

Click to view attachment

Click to view attachment

Click to view attachment

Lots of bodywork has been going on, here are some of the highlights. Cutting the fenders took a bit of courage, but I love the widebody look so no looking back now.

Click to view attachment

Click to view attachment

Here most of the body work is finished and from here I will be taking it to a garage I have to do the final blocking and getting ready for paint.

Click to view attachment

Click to view attachment

Got it back to my shop, hopefully I won't have to move it again. It is always stressful to move it with the dolly on a flatbed tow truck. I'm always afraid its going to fall off.

Click to view attachment

Click to view attachment

Front end nearly complete

Click to view attachment

Click to view attachment

I still had to take care of some details for the floor so I thought this was a good time to get them off my list. I needed to add the hand brake cable guide and the rear bracket for the small cover.

Click to view attachment

Then I had to make some of the little posts to hold the floor mats in place.


Click to view attachment

Click to view attachment


All finished on the inside and now it is basically ready for paint, finally

Click to view attachment


Click to view attachment

Click to view attachment

Finished first round of guide coat and blocking and now the car is in full primer. Ready for the second round of guide coat and blocking, then a third one

Click to view attachment

Click to view attachment

Click to view attachment

Click to view attachment

I turned my attention to the wheel wells to make them nice and pretty before I spray on the Raptor Liner. I already ordered the tintable 4 liter kit and it should show up early next week.

Click to view attachment

Click to view attachment

And some full shots to see it in its current state.

Click to view attachment

Click to view attachment

Underside of the car is now finished, just waiting for the Raptor liner to show up and start spraying some color

Click to view attachment

Click to view attachment

Click to view attachment

There's something about a bare, ready to paint 914 tub that makes my heart flutter a bit. Nice progress!

Thank you very much! I also love looking at cars at this stage.

So last week I went down to European Motor Works to pick up my engine case, heads, crankshaft and all my other parts that Jorge was very kind to fix for me. I want to say thanks to Jorge and his crew, they did an awesome job. Here is a list of what they did:
Align Bore
Drill and tap the oil galley holes
Deck the Case
Regrind 2.0 Crank
Rebuild and Balance 2.0 Rods
Surface and CC'd Heads

Set it up on the bench to do a final clean and hopefully start putting it back together next week.

Click to view attachment

Jorge also gave me a modified type 1 oil pump but there is always that one fastener that doesn't want to cooperate

Click to view attachment

A body in “white” & a proper power plant. Coming together beautifully Pedro.
Like the Datsun! Keep it coming.

This body is looking fantastic

Looking forward to the next steps

Antoine

Great build and well done. You move quickly.

Thank you very much Dion! Little Datsun has been with me for a while, I also restored that one and hopefully it will have the 914 join it on the road soon.




Antoine, hopefully soon I can get it to paint and then start the assembly



Thank you very much, greatly appreciated!

Not too much to show this week but I did get a few things done. I blocked the hood and sprayed some more primer on it. I think after this second round of blocking it should be really good. Also got a little bit of work done on the firewall, for some reason it had some small dents that were bothering me so I decided to fix them also.

Click to view attachment

Click to view attachment

Click to view attachment

Click to view attachment

Had a productive day yesterday, I was able to get most of my engine assembly complete. Everything went smoothly thanks to the great work from European Motor Works. Assembly was made easier thanks to all the great resources here and the videos from Ian Karr, thank you for putting out such great content

Anyways here are some pictures of the assembly process. Frist one is the bare case half.

Click to view attachment

Here we have the crankshaft, crank and the permatex aviation sealant all ready for the other half of the case.

Click to view attachment


And finally the two case half's joined and torqued. I also installed a Type 1 oil pump that EMW modified.

Click to view attachment

Click to view attachment

Click to view attachment

Moved on to cylinder and piston installation, I started with the #4 cylinder. Verified my deck height to be .04 in. and that the cylinders were even to have a good seal with the heads. Everything checked out ok.

Click to view attachment

Click to view attachment


Bolted on the heads and installed my lower cooling tins.

Click to view attachment

Installed the Billet Taco Plate I got from Rich at 914 Werke. I love this thing, very well made

Click to view attachment

I forgot to add these pictures of where I left off that day on the engine build.

Click to view attachment

Click to view attachment

Click to view attachment

So before spraying the Raptor I wanted to finish priming the body. I finished blocking everything after the second round of primer and I only found a few spots that needed attention. Here is the 3rd primer round and the guide coat applied. From here I will be blocking with 220 and then 400 and 600 wet and it should be ready for paint.

Click to view attachment

Finally we have some color and most of the hard work has been finished. This week was getting the underside done, I went to the paint store and they were able to match the Raptor to the color I will be spraying on the car. Since I wanted a smoother texture, I modified a spray gun from Harbor Freight by drilling the tip out to 2.0 I also reduced the raptor liner by about 5% and that seemed to give me the texture I was looking for. I was very surprised at how well it covered and how easy it was to spray. I bought the 4 quart kit and I still had a bit left over once I was done. I did the floor, lower engine bay and the wheel wells.

Click to view attachment

Click to view attachment

Click to view attachment

Click to view attachment

Click to view attachment

Click to view attachment

way to go
saving another one.

and that is a great looking truck!
brant

Thank you Brant, some of your parts will be going on this one

Hey Pedro. That came out great, I was wondering about these bed liners as a undercoating. Price is right and being able to tint it is awesome. Nice job.

Very nice. Reaching the point where you are putting on paint, and assembling parts, is a great milestone.

Hey thanks Shivers, in my eyes it's very economical. The kit cost me $113.00 on Amazon and it came with a free gun even though I didn't use it. Paint for tinting it was $35.00, so $150.00 to do the whole underside of the car is pretty decent.




Thanks it does feel great to get to this point. I've been studying your build with great pleasure and I will definitely be using it as a guide for when I put my car back together. Yours is such a great build.

The pictures with the raptor look so great..now I want the underside of mine to look like this !! One day maybe

Antoine

My latest set of pictures, painting the interiors of the car. I always find these areas so much more difficult to paint than the exterior of the car. With this done now, I can finish sanding the exterior and will be ready to paint in about a week.

But first I had to build a makeshift paint booth.

Click to view attachment

Click to view attachment

Click to view attachment

Click to view attachment

Click to view attachment

More

Click to view attachment

Click to view attachment

Click to view attachment

Click to view attachment

Click to view attachment

Click to view attachment

A couple from the engine compartment

Click to view attachment

Click to view attachment

After that I needed to paint the inside of the doors and trunks. Here are the parts ready for painting.

Click to view attachmentClick to view attachment


With basecoat only

Click to view attachment

Here they are all cleared

Click to view attachment

Click to view attachment

Click to view attachment

Click to view attachment

Great update, love that color





Oscar

Likely need new tires.

Beautiful!

Don't recall seeing this thread earlier. Comparing your recent paint photos to your starting point is remarkable progress! Well done!

Nice paint work.

Awesome colour. Nice work.

Awesome seeing this fresh Paint, what a cool progress !

Antoine

Really nice!

Great job on the makeshift paint booth - that makes a huge difference in ability to lay down paint without contamination.

Thanks Oscar


I wanted them color matched


Thank you very much Brant!


Well there has been a lot of stopping and going on the bodywork and paint. Although in the meantime, I do work a bit on all the other stuff for the car. Appreciate the compliment!


Thank you, I have been painting cars since I was in college and I took an autobody shop class. After that I worked at a dealership in San Diego painting cars.


Thank you very much Dion, hopefully I can be at the point you are at soon. I’m trying.


Yes, it is thank you Antoine!


Thanks! I agree, there is no way to paint a car without a booth. I should have shown a bit more of what I did but I was in a hurry and didn’t take any pictures. I have 2 fans set up, one on the back of the booth and one at the front. The one at the back is set at a slightly higher speed so that I have positive pressure in the booth. The one at the front with the lower speed helps with removing all the overspray and I have filters at both ends.

That's beautiful paint dude... You should be proud.

Thanks man, I'm happy with the way it's coming out but I am even more happy to have this almost done to were I can start assembling the car.

Today I prepped the car to get ready for paint this weekend. I already told my wife not to bother me all weekend because I was going to be busy, you can imagine how that went

Got the car in the booth and ready for masking, tomorrow I'll do a final surface cleaning and start spraying color. Time to get this smurf painted.

Click to view attachment

Click to view attachment

Click to view attachment

Click to view attachment

Just started reading through this build, looks great!

Thanks, glad you are liking it!

So went Saturday to the shop to start spraying and everything was going good until my compressor started spitting out a lot of water. Drained the tank but it would still keep doing it. Had to stop and went to a friends tire shop to borrow his compressor, gotta love my little Datsun truck The only problem was that by the time I got back and had it all set up it was too late to start painting.

Click to view attachment

Then on Sunday I was at a car show in Coronado and spotted these two beauties, don't know if anyone one here owns them

Click to view attachment

Click to view attachment

The 75 1.8 F.I. was my 1st 914 baby. Stacey ( @Fatboy007 ) owns it since 2017.

So no paint on Saturday, no paint on Sunday but Monday was my day. I left work early to go paint the car, this time without any problems. I'll leave the car in here for the rest of the week and on Saturday I will paint the doors and trunks.

Click to view attachment

Click to view attachment

Click to view attachment

Click to view attachment

Click to view attachment