My father had a 1927 Model T and a 1952 MG TD when I was growing up. They sat in the barn and he would always say “I’m going to rebuild them” “We’ll start on them soon”. Well that never happened. They sat for many years and we only drove the MG once and it blew an oil line and was parked. He sold the cars when he moved to Florida. I decided then that I would never have a classic car project that I didn’t have the ways or means to complete it.

A few years ago, my father was diagnosed with dementia and it has gotten progressively worse. He still talks about the cars and wonders what they would be worth if he still had them. We look up prices and he just say’s “shoulda kept them”. This is a weekly occurrence. Dementia sucks, but because everything is new to him, he’s the happiest guy I know. Give him a cold beer and he'll tell you he hasn't had one in years and how good it tastes. It really sucks for my mom and the rest of us to see him like this and to have to watch him constantly.

Last April I started disassembly of my 72 914. I have since replaced the inner passenger long, inner wheelhouse, inner and outer firewalls, passenger engine mount and suspension mount, tunnel, floor boards, battery tray, seat hinges etc. At least once a week I have my mom and dad over for dinner and I always take him out to the garage to show him the car. He always seems amazed that I’m doing it and it’s always the “first” time he’s seen it. After a few months of showing him the car something happened and he started asking to see it before I showed him. He remembered my car. Then he would say “you gotta take me for a ride when your done”. Talk about motivation! I have since sped up the build working 10 hour days every weekend. Week nights are spent researching, planning and buying. I even took 10 days off from work and did nothing but work on this car during my time off. My wife is a saint.

My plan was to post photos of the build as others have here and was planning on taking 2 years to get to the point I am now. Now the only plan I have is to finish it before he forgets everything. So, I haven’t even taken many photos of before during and after. I just get in there to get it done. However, I’m not skimping on quality.

Many of you have assisted in this build, so far, whether you knew it or not. From the build threads to directly answered questions and purchases I have made from members; the assistance is greatly appreciated. I’ve called some of you about parts, engines and other items to purchase and may have sounded like I was interested and then either didn’t respond or just emailed you saying I found something else. I hope I haven’t offended or put anyone off in any way by doing this. I just have to make decisions quickly and I always have the unknown time frame in my mind. So, if I have left you hanging without a response, I apologize. And thank you to everyone here for the assistance thus far. I’m sure I will have lot’s of questions as I enter phase II.

Hopefully it will be in the body shop for paint in March and I’ll start all of the other part reconditioning for the assembly when she returns.

I Can’t wait to take my dad for that ride!

Please share pictures.. Would love to see it..

Go for it!

Best of luck with the car and with your dad! Dementia is challenging at the best of times... I hope you both get a lot of joy out of the drive once you finish it up!

--DD

Okay. I'll post some photos soon. I have before and after. Not many during or showing the actual work.

Good luck with the build - we can't wait to see a picture of you and your dad taking a ride!

I cannot think of a higher purpose for such a project. Very cool.

If I can give one word of advice. Go ahead and snap as many pics as you can of at least the after work to document the quality of your build. Snapping pics with a cell phone takes almost no time away from the project, posting them in a build thread does, so skip the posting to focus on giving your dad that ride. But you will be glad you have the pics later. My neighbor did a complete resto on a '64 Mustang and now has an interested buyer. He wants to see pics of all the problem spots deep in the bowels of the car. Unfortunately, she didn't take pics as the car went together so it is a bit of an issue trying to document how well the problem areas were addressed.

I'm hoping you can make that happen BPic !! Best of luck buddy.

Good luck and Godspeed, I’m sure your dad will be very excited to take that ride with you.

Nice, keep your eye on the prize and get her done! As much as I want to see pics and read about the progress, I’d rather hear (several years from now) the touching story of making the best with the time you have!

Good luck with the build and can’t wait to hear the story of your dads first ride.

Alright, I'll start at the beginning. The car arrived in March 2018. I drove it 100 feet from the trailer to the garage and proceeded to take it apart.
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Started the inspection process. I wasn't surprised by the rust I could see but was amazed at what was beneath the rust. More rust. The PO added metal everywhere to keep it together.
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This one scared me. Thanks to a few members talking me off a ledge and finding an engine mount. I dug in. Keep in mind I am, well was an amateur welder. I would now say I'm a novice. Recommendation to anyone starting the way I did... Build your own rotisserie. It will give you the practice needed for the welding that will be needed. But also practice in thinner metal. I learned the hard way.


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Since the car had serious structural issues, I decided to tackle that first and get it strong for the rest of the time on the rotisserie. I built my own door braces and was neurotic about checking the measurement everyday sometimes 5 or 6 times a day. I would take off a part of the floor and measure, remove any metal- measure, add metal- measure. I would wake up in the middle of the night thinking of 25 1/8 inches and 52 5/8 inches.

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I bought the inner long and upper from RD and decided not to replace the entire length of the upper. I didn't want to disrupt the integrity of the connection from the upper to the rear shock tower. So made a sleeve for the area that would be but welded.

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It just didn't look sturdy enough to me so I took the extra piece that I cut off of the RD part and after a little modification I made it into a sleeve. The nice thing about this is that it was a perfect fit because the grooves in the RD part matched the grooves on the factory part. It almost clicked into place and the grooved part was then rosette wleded. Again- ameture welder so the word gap is a reminder to leave a gap for the weld penetration.

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Here is the inner long screwed into place while making adjustments with the upper.

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Once this was all welded in and measurements taken like 300 times. I t was rolled out for a much needed bath. My neighbors think I'm crazy.

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I'll add more soon. Now off to the place that allows me to pay for this stuff.

Very nice. That is the way to tackle these cars.

My hats off to you! Best of luck with your build, looks like you are off to a good start.

Nice work! Boy, I could have saved a lot of time on my project had I known I could just rivet metal straps across large voids in my floor pan

Rivets hold planes together, why not cars?

Exactly!! The PO was very creative with repairs. Heres one I really like and might be the reason there were so many screwed up repairs. He must have run out of spring clips. I tend to have a cold one AFTER I finish work on the car.

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Wow, you are a brave man!!!!

Love the backstory, thanks for sharing it with our community.

Classic!!! That one is almost worth leaving alone for provenance.

Country:
Netherlands
Company:
Bavaria Brouwerij
Location:
Lieshout
Catalog codes:
Colnect codes BE-NL-00120
Issued on:
2007
Brand:
Bavaria
Beverage:
Beer
Cap Type:
Crown-cap - Standard size

Thanks for the encouragement guys.

Once I got the longs done and the structure sound I had to find an engine mount. I'm surprised that these aren't reproduced by RD. @peteyd So bought a used one from AA that looked like this...

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After a few hours I had it cleaned up and it looked a lot more respectable.


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The suspension console was nerve racking to make sure it was in the correct place. I took about 10 different measurements before removing the old on. Firewall was so rusty I didn't trust that it was not in original specs hence all the measuring.

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I also added Cary's Super In Laws kit to tie everything together. Hint on this, make a paper template. It will save you hours of cursing. I'll try to find a photo of the completed suspension console or take a new one. Luckily all my measuring paid off and it landed in the correct spot.

Repaired a few smaller holes in areas I was unwilling to buy new parts for. This is the front footwell behind where the tunnel attaches. It's just roughed in when the photo was taken I did some grinding and filled pin holes and its almost not noticeable. It will also be covered with seam sealer for the most part.

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I received a large parts order from RD and a tunnel from Rich at 914 Werke. Tunnel cleaned up real nice. When I saw this sitting next to the car my first thought was"Oh crap what have i done!"

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Before starting to add any of the new parts I completely stripped the paint. It was really nice to see her naked! There was only 2 places that had filler and that will be dealt with when she goes for paint. I used a combination of chemical stripper and mechanical sanding with a little glass bead in the tight area. My goal was to turn her over to my paint guy with bare metal. I did some research on flash rustand found a product called Picklex and man this stuff is amazing. Shes been naked for going on 4 months now with zero rust. It is expensive at $200 a gallon but you don't need much and you mist it on, wait a few minutes and wipe it. The only real precaution is to not use a self etching primer over it. My paint guy is now using it and also loves it.

I'll add more later and bring up to speed to where I'm at now...

That is awesome!

Learn something new every day, i grew up in Germany and i never knew Bavaria was in the Netherlands.

They taught me in school that it was some kind of dark void near the southern end of Germany ...

that is what all my relatives say also, but then they only like things from their region. They live in Stuttgart we get along just fine.

Epic stuff happening here Bpic. Way to go!

Also best of luck with your Dad. This can be a long and frustrating path you are walking down.

I have that piece scanned and am slowly working on the design of it too.

Pete

A couple of years ago I was helping a lady who had ALS. Hated watching her go downhill. But we made the best of it. One tends to focus on doing so when death is near. But, the thing is, we all know it's coming for each of us. So, appreciate everyday, tomorrow is not assured, etc., etc. All the phrases one sees on posters and FB. But it's true. Get that car done ASAP. Give your dad a great ride. Silver lining -- you'll probably have to do it the next day so he'll remember. ENJOY

So true Jfort! Guess I'll always have an excuse to go for a ride. I'm thinking about jobbing some of the work out to speed it up.

Very best wishes for your Dad (and family), please keep us posted!

So a lot has happened since my last post. With the 914 and with life in general. I was able to get to the point of removing the braces and mounted the doors so my body guy could check the gaps. The doors were loose enough that we could bump them around to see what kind of play there was in the gaps. He seemed to think he could make them perfect even if he had to trim a little. After removing the right long from stem to stern and the floorboards and firewalls and being on a rotisserie for a year, what do you think, can it be adjusted out?

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I then was able to get the underside in primer. First I sanded with DA and 80 grit and then hit it with Picklex, BTW this stuff is awesome but time will tell if it lets everything stick.

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Went to Jamaica on business and the hotel I stayed at had an old Singer. This is a replica of the car Katharine Hepburn brought to Jamaica in 1953.

In front of hotel
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Original Car 1953 in Montego Bay with Katharine
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Back from Jamiaca and did the undercoating with 3m rubberized undercoating. This is paintable so the bottom will have color when finished.

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I then seam sealed the rear trunk and will be doing the rest of the seam sealer this weekend. Thanks for the photos everyone. I was getting worried about how it was going to look. I have a Wurth gun and used the SEM seam sealer. I was dreading this but it really isn't that bad and you can certainly get the height of the original build up. I will be shipping the gun to a member here and they will then offewr it someone else after. My hope is that it get used by anyone on 914world that can use it and it just keeps moving for years to come. I don't think its a perfect match but its not to bad.

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I can't believe it looked like this in October 2018 and I have made it this far this fast. Again, I've never done anything like this before but man, I love it! BTW next Wednesday is one year from when I took the first part off of the car.

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That's it for now I'll add more but I'm hoping I'll have color next month.

Oh and as for the title of this thread here's a picture of the guy who wants to go for a ride.

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Inspiration

Way to go Bpic For Dad!

Wonderful! I think that seam sealer looks spot on. I noticed considerable variation in the original texture even within my car. I suspect we obsess a lot more over getting the right texture than the factory did. Great work overall.

Subscribed.

really nice work

Amazing work so far!

Damn good door gaps from what your showing us. Almost every car has some variance and yes they can be adjusted a hair pretty much all directions.

Great motivation, great work, soon to be a great car! That first ride will be priceless.

Love the story as much as the work... your car will have an amazing value... way beyond the dollars. Nice job. Blessings to you and your Dad.

Thanks for the kind words everyone. My Dad was here for dinner last night and after 5 minutes he yelled my name, there was 20 people here, and said " I want to se the car!"

I'll post some new photos later. Did seam sealer and mounted the tub on a cart to be transported to my body guy.

Just saying I have "a body guy" sound weird. Before this project I would have made a bad joke about it.

She's off to paint. I was more nervous trailering the tub than I was cutting into the longs. Can't wait to see her in full color! What color will she be....

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Exciting stuff, excellent progress, you’ve got this covered man! That was a significant amount of work you tackled. Pro! Can’t wait...

You are doing some amazing work here. Thanks for sharing the story and the progress.

Prior to leaving for paint I planned the air conditioning. I hated the dealer add on where they cut a huge hole in the floor and love the GT style front for an oil cooler. So I thought I would combine the two. I had a louvered panel made at a local metal shop and welded that in the floor after careful measurements to make sure I had the correct amount of louvers for the condenser exhaust and room for an inflatable tire. Thanks MB911 for the precut mount it looks great and is an easy install.
I added reinforcement between the suspension mounts and then boxed it in.

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I'll run 2 high cfm fan which my AC guy says will be more than sufficient even in traffic.
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I don't have pics of the box but to get the contour of the front of the car I cut 1/2 inch strips of metal and bent them perfectly to fit the front of the car then used them to trace the contour on a panel. The strips were then welded to the cut panel. There will also be rubber between the box and the car.
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Tabs welded in to secure the bottom of the condenser. These will also have rubber grommets.
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Bent and welded the lid and will be adding 4 spring clasps to secure the top.
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As I get more into the interior I'll post the rest of the AC build.

BPic - I like what you are doing for the AC. Looking forward to seeing some color.

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