Pulled my rocker covers today to inspect for rot. Unfortunately I found significant rust on both jack points and the driver’s side long has a good size rust hole. I’m going to cut and patch the bad spots in the longs, but I’m trying to avoid a complete resto right now and I don’t want to get into exterior bodywork. The rear fenders are in pretty good shape but they seem to block access to the top flange of the jack point plate. Does anyone know if the jack points can be replaced correctly without cutting out a lower portion of the rear fender?

You'll probably have to cut a section off the lower part of the fender. I'll guess that to fix the rust you haven't found yet, you'll have to do that anyway

It is possible to replace the points without cutting the fender. It’s not easy but doable. You could also cut for access in the door jamb and leave the outer fender alone.

With that being said you have quite a bit of rust on your drivers side that will require more than a jackpoint. There’s always more rust hiding.

I’ve done it by cutting out the lower couple of inches of the door jam. Many times there is rust there anyway where the door jam is welded to the door sill. I remember welding part of it from the rear fender well. My welding helmet wouldn’t fit in the opening so I put a #10 glass in my goggles and mig welded away. Needless to say I sunburned the hell out of my face and had wicked goggle eyes! Live and learn. I was a much younger man back then.

Charlie

Uh, what what do you intend to weld to? Can’t weld to rust.

Candidate for complete longitudinal replacement. The fact the driver side is this bad is concerning since the passenger side is what usually goes first. Passenger side looks slightly better but looks are deceiving. These cars rot from inside out.

I’ve replaced without cutting the fender but I’m doing the complete wheelhouse from the inside and a complete longitudinal replacement. See the link in signature block if you’re interested. Page 13.

Yeah.... I'm afraid you are beyond being able to sneak in there without cutting the fender. I had the same hope when I started my own repair, but nope.

Yes you can.
But you can only do 3 rosettes on the top.
You need a special scuba style welding mask.
And a 18 or 25 inch belt sander.

You'll need the belt sander to "dig" out the top spot welds first.
No cutting. Cutting out the door jam is easier, but then you have to paint. $$

Just out of curiosity. Do people leave the jackpoints off? Or are they structural?

cut the fender and repaint...

welcome to the typical 914

this is the reason that pulling the rockers off is mandatory before any purchase... period

it can be an expensive repair (many thousands for paint) and should have been factored into the sale price.

brant

NEVER cut the exterior sheet metal!!!!!!!!

WE access under the rocker and remove the engine for the inner fender well.

This is disappointing- we have all been there. I urge you to please do the research for a solid repair and then bite the bullet and fix both sides correctly. Do it right and never mess with it again. I would also encourage you to repair it to stock or better- replacing the jack points and perhaps installing a chassis brace kit from Maddog or someone else.

The alternative would be to just sell it as is or find a clean tub to swap your parts to if the car is otherwise in great condition. If not, sell and find a nice, clean, running car to start with w/little rust.

Unfortunately a lot of people have bought 914s, (not saying this is the case here) that have been all shined up on the outside and maybe even had a fresh coat of paint, maybe the car was represented as "restored" and they take people at their word only to later find out they were deceived and the car is on life support with terminal cancer. It never ceases to amaze me what some people consider "restored" to be.

Good luck and we all wish you the best.

The jackpoints themselves aren’t structural, but the longs they attach to are. IMHO your car isn’t safe to drive until the longs are properly repaired. It looks like you’ve got quite a bit of rust to cut out and replace. If you decide to fix it, make sure you brace the car before you start cutting and welding.

Mandatory reading for anyone doing rust repair on a 914:
http://www.914world.com/bbs2/index.php?showtopic=16748

I understand, but why place them back if they aren't structural and are a big reason for rust.

They aren't causing the rust ...

They are not structural to the car, they are structural to supporting the jack point to the car structure. Not something you want to fail while changing a flat.

I 2nd this statement.
they are a symptom, not the cause

Thanks. Didn't know that. That's how I learn

Just a slight amendment to this. They should have a small drain hole at the bottom. If that gets clogged, it can contribute to rust. Many replacement pyramids don't have the drain holes so they should be drilled so water doesn't get trapped inside.

I can't remember where I purchsed mine but they don't have drain holes drilled. You need to drill them yourself.

Also agree with RJames above, that you want to evaluate if car is safe to drive. In my case, the passenger side seat belt anchor was pretty much rusted away and would not have withstood actual impact use. Occupant would have kissed windshield.

Yeah, but for some 914s the sale price would have to be negative.

Just a statement in general about the photo
If you got a car like this and you new what needed to be done then ok ... If you pulled the rockers and
Found ! Rust on a 914 .... You should have never got the car .... See where im going with this

Thanks to all for the responses and opinions (never seems to be a shortage of those on this site ). Honestly, I fully expected to find some hidden rust on the car when I bought it and I don't regret purchasing the car at all. Actually, the more I take it apart, the happier I am with it. It has the specs I was looking for, is totally accident free, decently-solid hell hole, numbers-matching and in excellent shape overall (especially for living it's whole life in upstate NY, where you can practically count the number of nice driving days out of the year on one hand and the ratio of road salt to snow is about 1:1). Truth be told, this is the second 914 that I've owned. I bought my first ('72 1.7), back in 1999 for $1300 and it was a rusty mess, but I drove it anyway and loved every minute of it. Foolishly, I sold the car to make room in my then tiny, one-car garage, for my other restoration project at the time, my wife's '72 VW bug. Now that car was REALLY rusty.

My only real frustration about discovering this rust is that it messes with my plans for actually getting to drive the car. Since finding the car, my plan has been to get it to a driveable state quickly and then drive it for a year or two while I planned for a longer-term, nut-and-bolt restoration in the future. But thanks to this discovery (and to all you 914-worlders for getting in my head and messing with my conscience ), I feel compelled to re-evaluate the plan and possibly embark on a more thorough restoration first.

So, in spirit of this re-evaluation, I dug a little deeper into the car last night. Interior stripped, doors off and lots more close inspection of the areas adjacent to the rusty discovery. I will get the borescope out soon to look inside the longs, but initial inspections seem to show that the rust is fairly well contained to the jack points and the immediate portions of the longs that they attach to. Here are a few more pictures. Oh, and notice the two big holes in the firewall? Those were the mount points for the shoulder straps from a cheesy 5-point harness that the PO installed. I don't think that there is a weaker point on the car to attach those to!

Everything else looks really good... Seeing the yellow Ziebart plug in the door jamb is probably the reason the rust is so contained. Rust shown the outside was maybe from crud collecting around the jack-point and maybe not from the inside out... hopefully.

What about the passenger side?

simpler advice - never buy a 914 (or 911 et al) without putting a jack in there & trying to lift the car - you will quickly enuf see if it is an "i'll pass" deal

Check the passenger side rear suspension console. When it starts to fail, the rear passenger tire will start to lean into the car at the top. You can check it's condition with a flashlight in front of the rear wheel, looking up towards the trailing arm mount.

I can always appreciate someone willing to save another one!

So, this happened this week... going full restoration mode now...
Thank you SirAndy, been using this thread as my bible and inspiration
http://www.914world.com/bbs2/index.php?showtopic=16748

Way to dig in!

Yes sir! Good job. It's clear that you made the right decision AND that you managed to catch it before it got really gnarly.

Welcome to the resto club.

Thanks!

By "club" you really mean, "bunch of crazy people who obsess over weird things and are way out of touch with the real world"

But, does this club come with any special perks? Like discounts on cutting wheels and spot-weld cutters? Maybe a free tetanus shot once a month for all the exposure to jagged, rusty metal?

Glad to see you are going to save it, you won't regret it. These cars are super fun to drive as it seems you know from your first one.

I love Michelko's restoration thread.

It really helped me to learn how to do this and I picked Adriatic blue for my car because of his thread.

One thing I would throw out is there are more replacement panels available now than there were when Michelko did his restoration in 2004. This is mostly thanks to Restoration Design making new dies for additional parts. I think michelko made a lot of patch panels himself because he enjoyed doing it and it fit his situation at time.

So you may be able to just buy replacements rather than making patches yourself. When I restore another 914 I will try to buy all the replacement panels I can to save loads of time and increase the quality of the build. I dream of picking up a 220 spot welder to attach all these panels to save more time avoid grinding and be more OEM.

Just a thought.

John

I went back and re-read michelko's thread for the first time in 7-8 years and I see he did get replacement panels for a lot of parts. There are more available now, but most of them are for areas he did not need to fix, like the front floor trunk.

Maybe my comment was off base, wouldn't be the first or last time.

Well stated.

Heck . . . .just a few days ago I peeked out of the garage and I learned there is some sort of lockdown going on for something or another.

World's gone Zombie apocalypse has started.



Whatever. . . . back to work.

That is exactly what he means As for perks, the only one I got was a frequent customer card at the clinic for drilling crap out of my eyes despite wearing approved safety glasses and even in one case, a full face shield. I finally got a shield that curves under below the chin to stop crap from flying in from the bottom. Stay safe!

Hard to tell, but it looks like the jack stands you are using don't use safety pins. Highly recommend getting safer stands if that's the case.

Nice progress! Great to see you digging in to repair it properly.

Peeled back some more of the outer long so I could get the heater tube out. Had to quit for the day because I destroyed the last of my HF spot-weld cutters and Amazon hasn’t delivered the rotobroaches that I ordered yet. Most of the inner long seems salvageable except for the section rearward of the seatbelt mount. Amazing how little of this shows through on the exterior of these pieces. These cars really do rust from the inside out. Still trying to decide how many repair panels to buy from RD since I will only need small sections of each piece.

Scrolling through YouTube this morning and found this inspiration...
https://youtu.be/sjNYZs0Km4c
This is the exact paint scheme I am thinking. I love the look of the color-matched valences and rocker covers.

Yup, that hidden rust at the seat belt anchor could be a real killer.

Wish more people were aware of the lurking danger.

Nice job getting it deconstructed as quickly as you have.

I’ve been chipping away at this project over the past couple of weeks and have made some progress on the passenger side repairs. As with any project like this, there has been considerable scope growth... one thing I am now considering is the addition of a inner long stiffener kit from Mad Dog Motorsports. I figure, since I’m here, now is the right time to do this... the question I have for all of you is, when should I install the stiffeners? Right now, I am just about ready to close up the passenger side long with the new inner rocker panel from RD. Before I do this, I want to coat the inside of the long with something for rust prevention. If I weld on a longitudinal stiffener after I coat the inside, some of the coating will burn off, but if I install the stiffener before I close up the long, I’m worried about warpage. Which is the lesser of the two evils? Anyone have any thoughts?

Yep, you pretty much summed everything up in just a few words (wife has been telling me the same for 30+ years). Best wishes and onward!

Finally got the passenger side long closed up and new jack point welded in. Alignment with the jack hole in the rocker cover isn’t perfect, but close enough for me.

Question, does anyone have a picture of the ends of the rocker covers where they attach to the fenders. The replacement cover that I got from RD has a notch in the flange at either end. Not sure what I need to add there to mate up with the holes in the fenders.

Got the sill triangles installed today. Had the same fitment issue with the threshold sills and the sill triangles that bbrock did. Thanks to his well-documented posts, I modified my sill triangles in the same fashion.

Also discovered a small rust hole hiding beneath some bondo in the section of rear fender that I cut out for access to the jack points. Figured it would be easier to fix this now before I reinstalled this section on the car.

Passenger side is almost complete. Then I get to do this all over again on the driver’s side!

nice work Lilchopshop, compliments. One day i start after reading and learning from all contributing 914 Guys here, Pelikan 914 forum and YouTube, thanks.

Some more progress over the last few weeks... passenger side rust repair is complete. Driver’s side work has begun. Also received the chassis stiffening kit from mad dog motorsports.

I have avoided this so far but I know it is coming at some stage for my car.
Thank you for all the clear photos of yr work; inspiring to see and help novices like myself understand the jigsaw and how it goes back together!

Great project and great progress. Recent update?