Now there is about 1/2" of free play in the spring length. Looks like the rear perch still nicely locates the spring, so for now I will not wire that end.

Back on the car.

Before I lowered the car, I did a first attempt to create a bit more tire clearance inside the right fender. I think I moved it about 1/8".

After that, I lowered the car, did another bounce and roll session, and measured. The rear end of the rocker seam is now about 1/4" higher than the front. I think this is pretty good for now.

"Default" camber is also close enough, fronts -0.1 L and +0.5 R (and easily adjusted), rears -0.6 L and 0.0 R.

Next step is to roughly set the toe and then camber.

That's sitting pretty Bob.

Beautiful

Awesome work Bob

Recent granddaughter updates?



also, good looking and thorough work

Thanks, guys. Getting closer.

Meanwhile, grand daughter is coming up on 3 months. Her new thing is laughing, especially at fart sounds. No idea where she gets that.

Time to put the engine lid together. Letters in the right order (I hope).

Turns out if you flip the grille over, the letters can fall out.

New press-fit retainers.

Pretty easy to push on the letter studs. The sticky stuff keeps the letters from sliding.

New rubber welting material. That goes between the leading edge of the grille and the lid.

Salvaged speed nuts.

Enough to hold the grille onto the lid.

New edge covering pieces.

Pressed onto the edges (sides and rear).

Engine lid ready for installation. But one more thing...

I want to mount my nifty 914 World badge, but the stud spacing is not quite right for the grille mesh. I have to think about this.

Bob your work is fantastic as usual. I don’t know if you going for authenticity on the engine cover or just doing what looks good to you. I found this pic on World showing approximately the “factory” correct spacing.
I know you just put a lot of hours in this but thought you might want to know if you didn’t already.
Cheers!!

Link: http://www.914world.com/bbs2/index.php?showtopic=57029

@bkrantz

very interesting read following your rear suspension set up.

remember doing that a couple of years ago.
not sure what springs you are running.
think they can make a difference to things.

og factory settings for the spring perch are suprisingly far up the shock absorber!

not that anyone should necessarily be seeking to do that.
but is an interesting base line and what you find is the car does sit suprisingly high in stock set up. not everyone's cup of tea.

i changed from the original boges to a bilstein set up as part of suspension rebuild.
we had the og rear boges with the perches in original position as reference.
non adjustable back in the day.
pretty sure i have softest springs. still using originals. a 74 1.8. could not find any paint dots but springs were coated in old original undercoat. but it has original front and rear sway bars so think spring set up would have been soft with the sway bars to compensate and to give a comfort tuned ride?

the spring perch on the rear was 180mm up from the bottom!
surprising distance.
once on the ground again dead set match for how it always was.

we worked away from that to level the front and once we had it level we went back to the factory manual and checked against their measurements.

found ourselves right at the limits of the 5 mm up or down they speced.
taking on board ian karr's comments about the original nose up attitude that USA market cars seemed to have been set to, i think the factory went to the upper +5mm of the front dimensions they give to get the nose up setting.
we found going to the -5mm seemed to be level front to back with rear spring perches as per original. ie 90mm - 5mm = 85mm we achieved 85mm on that A-B dimension.

its surprisingly high off the ground at around 190mm to the underside of the sill panel seam. but in fact thats the way it always was on mine, stock standard.

there is one more esoteric dimension hidden away in things. its in the glove box manual.
its the min clearance of car. 130mm. its to the u/s of the low pressure flaps at the front of the engine bay. we checked against that and found we matched that too with all our settings.

those factory dimensions in the manual work very easily and get the car level within their tolerances - but only if you have the reference dimension on the rear shocks for the lower spring perch and i'm guessing only if using the original factory springs.

if you want it lower i guess you work the perch down on the rear springs and keep setting it level. and use the upper value of A-B = 90+5 mm they give you on the front. that should be the way it works because A is fixed (your wheel c/l) but you keep making B smaller as you lower the car.


photos of car in 89 and 21. rear is the same its always been (but with way better shocks) and i have levelled the front. back then it had the nose up USA understeer stance.

a lot of people take their cars lower i realise. but this is what the factory benchline looks like merely for reference.

Click to view attachment
Click to view attachment
Click to view attachment

Thanks much, Dion. I initially laid the letters out like that, but then decided to make room for badges in both corners. That requires squeezing the letters a bit closer.

Thanks for all the info. Interesting to see how varied people approach ride height.

I have 914 Rubber 100 lb springs and new Bilstein shocks. Right now my preference is lower than stock but not "slammed".

As I understand, one limit with stock suspension is to keep the front A-arms from going beyond horizontal. I think my current setting of 5° should do that.

yes, i think my spring rate would be half yours.
original springs.
far as i can work out the range for those was 50lb to 60lb for 1 -3 green dot range.
would not mind betting mine are softest but was hard to know. not much of a difference really in those standard springs and were pretty soft on the 4s.

i think the spring strength make a difference when you set these things up.
sinks down more once you sit the car back down.

nice work you are doing on your car and its always interesting to see how someone goes about setting one up on its suspension. esp with different spring strength set ups.

Just a short time to play in the garage today, but enough to install the engine lid and do an initial adjustment. I tried it as far forward as the mounting bracket slots would allow, but the leading edge of the lid rubbed a bit on the firewall. So I shifted it back.

Looks OK.

BTW, for now I do not plan to install the rain tray and drains. I have "rain hats" for the air filters.

Hi, everyone. I'm back home from teaching my field geology course in central Utah. Great students and great rocks, but just a bit too much wind. Once I get their reports graded I can get back to more 914 work.

While I was gone, I received another elastic strap to try for a relay board cover hold down. This is a Voile 20". And it comes in lots of colors.

https://www.amazon.com/dp/B08Z4D67QG?ref=pp...etails&th=1

The fit is just right, and it should hold--and look a bit "custom".

Let's try this again. A few days ago I got home from teaching in a remote area for a week, and got ready to spend some quality time in my garage. Then I woke up with COVID. Fortunately, so far I have been lucky with a mild case, and today feel much better.

I figured I was up to some small tasks, starting with confirming the shift rod adjustment. I can get all 6 gears, and the fore-aft position of the knob seems good.

So I can put the console back together again, including a new dark red heat lever knob.

Then I made a temporary mount for my O2 sensor gauge, with a rubber wedge and adhesive velcro.

Mount on the back of the gauge, with stand-off space for the cable plug.

I mounted the gauge inside the center arm rest, along with the control box for my hidden audio system. No radio showing in the dashboard. the USB plug port is for the audio system.

Then I did another round of side window adjustment. The left side is pretty good front and rear.

But the right side still gives me trouble. When I have the front high enough to seal...

The rear is too high and too far back, and the glass hits the weatherstripping and will not close.

I fooled a bit more, and got the rear to close, even if the fit is tight.

And the front is OK.

Maybe this car will not go out in the rain.

Getting closer.

A got the door cards from the guest room. These are almost the last parts inside my house--only the trunk lid and the windshield frame remain.

Time to sort out the original hardware--and time to order a few pieces (and get rid of some interesting PO hardware).

Best way to describe this effort and the resulting car is "work of art" Really nice.

Not sure if you intend to drive this car or just look at it, either way - Bravo.

BOB,
sure hope you continue to feel better. The car is coming along very nicely. Hope you can get the passenger door fine tuned to your satisfaction. Looking better every day.

Speedy recovery, car is looking fantastic.

We recently had covid go through the family, hopefully you will not spread it too much and recover quickly.

Also, great looking ride

You mean like drive it outdoors? But thanks.

Getting more door parts ready. The strange little L-shape plug if for the underside of the passenger door arm rest.