So, I bought a "new" 914 a few weeks ago (a '73 2.0). When I received it from the shipper, I noticed was the seller was quite artful about his pictures, with what was and what wasn't shown. And, now that I've had a chance to start taking things apart, I have uncovered quite a bit of DAPO-done-damage, and I'm sure there's more hiding somewhere (oh boy! something to look forward too....). Some of the damage appears to have been there for a loooong time.

I've already received a piece from a scrap car to fix this hole:
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Once I took the rockers off, I discovered this:
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Yes, they hole-sawed through FOUR layers of sheet metal, including the heat duct. Not sure what they were thinking, but there it is.

In the trunk, I found three hole-sawed holes. I think they might have been thinking about mounting the fuel pump in a 75/76 blister, but they never finished the work (and also picked the wrong location).
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Front mounted oil cooler or AC?
Look for holes at the feet of the passenger side.

Possibly, but no holes inside on the passenger side. If that's what they were doing, then they gave up before finishing.


But wait! There's more:

They did front-mount the fuel pump. However, for whatever reason, they decided to run the wiring for the pump through the passenger compartment. And, they drilled a hole in the firewall above the EFI computer to do it (notice, no grommet).
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The wire runs between the passenger seat and the longitudinal, and then up into the front trunk through the grommet for the heat air tube and then down under the tank to the pump. Once I get a chance to pull the tank, I'll be able to see how that is mounted.

But, so far, the "best" has to be the hole they hacked into the center tunnel, near the pedals.
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My guess is that they were changing the cables, and wanted easier access to the tunnel. So they took an air chisel and hacked their way in. And they left the piece they cut loose.

Here's the hole without the hacked piece.
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I cut it off with a pair of snips. I'll take a look at welding the piece back in, so at least I still have the piece, even though it needs to be reshaped.

And, in the archaeology department, here's a couple of interesting things I found:

According to the maintenance records, the first owner of the car was a woman. It looks like she wore a lot of bobbi pins, since here's what I found on the driver's side and in the center console:
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Also, when I first pulled the floor mats, I saw a bit of brown on the front firewall. I just assumed someone had made a replacement floorboard out of particle board. However, once I got the front carpet out, I discovered it was actually a molded piece of hard urethane foam.
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Has anyone seen this before? It's new to me, previous car didn't have one.

And, is a floorboard supposed to go over this? Or, is this the floorboard?

It turns out that the car may have it's original spare tire.
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It's a bias-ply Continental in 165R15, and still looks pretty nice on the top side (inside).

It doesn't hold air anymore, so I'm going to replace it with a new tire at some point. However, if some CW would like the tire for a concours display, just pay shipping and I'll send it to you after I get it replaced.

The foam is factory correct for an early car. It's smaller than the later cars. A piece of carpet is fitted over it.

According to the Karmann production number, this car was made on 5 March 1973. My previous 914 was built in the last week of April 1973. This car has the foam wedge, but my previous car had a wooden floorboard and no foam.

Did these two cars fall across a running change? Or, did someone replace the foam wedge on my previous car with a wood board?

They were trying to weld/secure the broken clutch tube.

Do a search here on how to fix this correctly and make sure it is done well before you close that back up.

Trying to "Un-DAPO" the car.



I am still working on that myself!!!!


I still want to know why they cut a hole behind the door latch.

I think your previous car might have been modified. All the cars I've bought (about 20) either had foam or nothing. I thought it was some sort of compressed sawdust with a binder.

It is definitely molded, compressed sawdust coated with shellac on the outside. I took the one for the 4.0L and carved out grooves for the DME wiring. Man what a mess! Once the outer layer was gone, that stuff went everywhere. By the time I got done, I was yellow with sawdust.

Hmmm, good point. I'll definitely have to check that. It might also explain why they removed the clutch pedal stop from the driver's floor board. If that is the case, then they didn't fix it, since there's no sign of welding or other repair anywhere near the cable tube.


I believe the hole was cut to remove rust, so a new piece could be welded in. However, while the DAPO(s) could obviously operate drill bits, a hole saw and a cut-off wheel, I haven't found any signs of them doing any actual welding on the car. And trust me, this car is going to need a lot of welding to fix the DAPO damage. Fortunately, not as much welding as would normally be expected to fix rust, so that's a little relief.

I hope they disclosed all of those issues prior to the sale. Or, in the alternative, I hope you got a great deal.

Here is my potential original from a 1972 I just picked up.

http://www.914world.com/bbs2/index.php?act...t&id=746212

I also have an Opel that I think I may have been the dumb arse prior owner of.

No, and no.

In the seller's defense, I don't think he knew about all the problems, since he seemed more like someone who would take the car somewhere rather than work on it himself.

And, I got a reasonable deal on the car, but not a great one. If I had known about all of these issues, I would have pushed harder for a lower price. Once the car is fixed, it should be a good car. I think I'll live with the funky paint job for a while, before I worry about getting it repainted.

So, continuing down the list of discoveries:

There was a mess of wires hanging down under the dash. Most of it is for the aftermarket radio, but there was one wire connected to a toggle switch under the dash.
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One end of the switch was connected to ground. I dug into the dash and discovered the other end was spliced into the tach wire from the coil. So, it appears to be a shade-tree anti-theft device, grounding the coil to kill the ignition. However, that might also explain why the tach doesn't work.

Here are a couple more pics of how the fuel pump wire ran through the passenger compartment:
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Speaking of holes in the firewall, I found this lovely on the driver's side:
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It wasn't connected to anything, but may have been a remote trunk release. Although, other than the hole in the firewall, I didn't find any other holes related to it.
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The fuel pump wire hole and the pull handle hole are the largest holes drilled in the firewall, but there are at least 10 other holes of various sizes drill in it.

Under the car, I discovered that the original vinyl fuel hoses are still in the center tunnel. However, they did splice in new hoses between the firewall and the engine compartment (stock vinyl hoses in the engine compartment, too).
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And, of course, none of the heating parts are connected. They did install new stainless heat exchangers and a muffler. However, they are for a 1.7, not a 2.0. But, they did not replace the muffler hanger with the correct one. Instead, they drilled new holes to move it upward and then created home-made adapter brackets to connect it to the muffler.
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It turns out that the stainless heat exchangers are in really nice shape. Any chance anyone might want to trade these for some nice 2.0 exchangers? I'll eventually post pics in a "trade" post on the for-sale board, after I get a chance to wash them off.


Tomorrow, the plan is to drain the fuel, drop the engine and pull the tank (if there's time). Who knows what fun is lurking under the tank?

The 1.7/1.8 SS heat exchangers have the same tube sizes as the 2.0. so no need to replace them. If you're anal about the muffler bracket you can easily find a 1.7/1.8 version.
have fun with the other fixes.

Yeah, I know the tubes are the same size, and that the 1.7 exchangers will work just fine. However, I am kinda anal about making the car "right". And, I'd rather reinstall the exchangers just once if I can, rather than put these in for now and change them later on.

So, we got the engine and fuel tank out yesterday. And, the DAPOs didn't disappoint.

On the engine, where the Decel Valve should be, I found this:
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Yup, that's a fuel pressure regulator on a home-made mounting bracket. It does look similar to a decel valve, but they're just not quite the same thing. Plus, they didn't bother connecting or plugging the vacuum line that connects to the decel valve, so there's the source of the high idle.

In the front, they did mount the fuel pump and filter under the tank. However, they did it by using a sheet metal screw to attach a hose clamp and then clamped the pump, with a little bit of old hose for noise dampening.
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Not really a great mount, but probably the least "DAPO" thing they did to the car.

The previous owner did mention that the car seemed to lose power at higher speeds. I think I may have found out why:
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Apparently that crimp isn't enough to stop the car from running, but came very close. Also explains why it took so long to drain the fuel tank.

For what it's worth, i really like the color!

Thanks! So do I.

Well, it's finally time to put up or shut up. Up 'til now, I've been complaining about what has been done to the car over the years, now it's time to actually do something about it.

Sunday, we pulled the engine and trans from the car. Monday, I spent time removing more stuff from the car. Yesterday, I pushed the engine-less car out of the garage and hosed out as much dirt as I could from the frunk, the gas tank area and under the rear trunk. No pictures of any of this, figured it was kinda boring and yesterday was quite soggy.

Today is the start of the metal repairs. I started with the holes in the divider panel between the gas tank and the frunk. Here's what it looked like to start:
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To start, I cut out the "web" between the holes, to make one large hole, which seemed easier to patch than 3 smaller holes.
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Then, I put a piece of cardboard behind the hole and used a pencil to outline out a patch. I cut out the cardboard, traced it on a piece of sheet metal and then cut out the piece of metal. Here's a pic of the patch tacked in place.
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Then I got to work, welding and grinding. Here are a couple of pics of the patch installed and cleaned up (outside and inside):
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And, with a coat of primer:
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It seemed appropriate to use the primer that I won at Octeenerfest three years ago:
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This situation seems particularly frustrating....especially on what look like some otherwise pretty solid longs. Did they really have to go through 4 frigg'n layers? It's really hard to imagine what the intended result was supposed to be.

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My guess is AC lines. My car had similar butchery from AC install

When I started reading this I did not know what a "DAPO" was ... but each time I saw it i got a better idea , now I know . LOL
My buddy and I have talked about making a book PO FU ... but that may be a better name .
We need a DAPO thread

Yes, very frustrating. They went through three layers of structural metal and the heating duct. The worst part is that I have to cut big holes in the three structural layers to get to the heat duct and then rebuild things on my way out.


No idea. Someone else had previously suggested oil cooler lines. Could have been either, or something else entirely. Whatever it was supposed to be, they didn't complete it -- other than the frunk divider, there are no other holes where you'd expect AC or oil cooler lines to be run (at least, that I have found).


I learned about "DAPO"s on this forum, too. Very fitting acronym.

If someone starts a thread, I'll be nominating the picture that Craigers picked out.

Made more progress today.

Removed the rear window and the engine deck lid. Found another thing that needs to be fixed -- apparently they stripped out the nut for the deck lid mount, so they drilled it out and dropped a bolt in from above. Was originally thinking of just putting a helicoil in to fix the welded nut, but it may have been drilled out too large for that, will measure tomorrow.

Welded up the holes in the firewall, Also wirebrushed the rusty areas on the firewall and the window mounting area. Treated the rust with Loctite Rust Converter, which will get primered and painted after it dries.
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Also, the touch-up paint finally arrived from Paintscratch.com (we're having UPS problems). So, I touched up the frunk and gas tank areas. Looking much better:
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Not sure what your front sway bar setup is but I don't see any reinforcement plate on the inner wall, is it mounted on the wheel well side? Or was the factory installed sway bar didn't have the added plate?

It's a factory-installed sway bar, so no added plate on the inside. The mounting plates are spot-welded on the outside with multiple spots.

It doesn't seem like I accomplished much today, but it took all day to do it.

I installed a new retractable antenna. Had to leave the old antenna base grommet, since the area of affected paint is larger than the new base.
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Then, I removed the windshield wiper assembly. I cleaned up and treated the rust around the wiper post holes. Then, I disassembled the wiper assembly and cleaned and greased the posts.
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Hopefully, tomorrow I'll be able to paint around the post holes and then Sunday I'll be able to reinstall the wiper assembly.

I also installed new hoses for the window washers, while I have easy access under the cowl. At some point, I'll install an electric pump for the washer.

Well, I didn't make as much progress as hoped this weekend.

I went to reinstall the window wiper mechanism, and ended up breaking the 47-year-old rubber isolator mount. <sigh> So, time to order another part and wait for it to arrive. Hello, 914Rubber....

In the meantime, I fixed the control cables for the heating & ventilation system. Don't know why, but some of the cables were connected to the wrong locations.

And, I fixed the stripped nut in the decklid mount. Since (I hope) everyone likes pictures, I took a bunch of this process. Of course, it took as long to take all the pics as it did to perform the actual repair.

First step is to drill out the bad threads. Fortunately, the DAPO didn't over-drill the hole, it was just about the right size.
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Then, I tapped the hole with the helicoil tap:
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Then, to make sure the helicoil won't come out, I added some red loctite.
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Next step was to install the helicoil insert. Here's a pic of the install tool, with the insert about halfway installed:
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Final step was to break off the driving tang. The full kit comes with this special "breaker" tool (aka, a piece of steel rod), but it can be done with a screwdriver if you just buy the basic kit.
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All done. This won't come out without destroying the mount.
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Very nice. You are making great progress and tackling things one at a time will keep you from getting over loaded.

If you ever sell the car think what the next owner will call you

Well, among other things, I am trying to avoid being lumped into the same category of (future) previous owners.

The guy who bought my previous 914 seemed very happy with it, and that includes having it shipped to a well-known 914 shop for a thorough inspection prior to receiving the car.

Sad to see the misfortune of some cars. I hope my 2nd 914 never shows up here. I'd be curious as to the cost of the car Bill, if it was a high dollar car or not.

LOL note to self: don't sell a car to anyone on 914world

Let's be honest - over the course of 40+ years, lots of these cars have had work done on them by people that that should have at least learned to work on a lawnmower before undertaking repairs on an automobile.

Congratuations @BillC for taking the time and effort to fix it with a sense of quality and workmanship that was often lacking in the orignal reapirs we find on these cars.

The order with the rubber isolator finally came, so I installed the wiper motor and wipers.
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The hardest part of the installation is the nut for the other end of the isolator. It hides under the dash, and is very difficult to reach with the dash in place. Fortunately, if you take out the ashtray mount (two phillips screws and push forward to unclip), you can just barely get access with a 1/4" drive deep socket (10mm) and a universal joint. The red circle shows the inside nut.
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Today I worked on reinstalling the fresh air box. With a new top gasket and intake screen (came on '74 and later 914s), it was every bit the royal pain that they said it was. But, here is the box installed:
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Because it was such a pain to get the two bolts installed, I had to get creative. I got the driver-side bolt in okay, but couldn't get the box high enough to get the passenger-side bolt in. So, I decided to make a "mini jack" with a tall socket and a brake pad spreader.
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This got it up high enough to get the last bolt in.

Then, I connected the cable to the fan box. This was almost as big a pain as installing the box itself. No pics, since I had to do the job basically by feel.

Then, the hoses were reinstalled. First the paper hoses to the ventilation system and then the drain hoses. One of the old hoses broke, so I had to get new hoses (from AA). Unfortunately, they don't quite match the old ones, so I'll order some from 914Rubber, next time I place an order.
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Time to tackle the hacked-in hole by the foot pedals. Here's what it looked like before I started:
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I didn't really want to cut another hole in the car, but there was no way I was going to be able to reform the hacked metal without an access hole on top of the center column. The bit in the top of the hole is the old accelerator cable -- the liner was stuck in the tube and I needed the access hole to get the liner out through the front end of the tube. Once I'm all done with the welding and painting, I'll make a panel to cover the hole, which will be attached with butyl rubber so it can be accessed in the future.
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Here's the hole and the patch (what was originally cut loose) after reshaping.
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And the patch fitted in place. There's a copper bar behind the patch, to act as a temporary backing plate for the welding.
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Patch welded and then ground.
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Here's what the clutch tube looked like:
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Even though the clutch tube still looks well-attached, I decided I might as weld in a support strap while I had easy access to it. I bent a piece of 3/16" wire into a loop about 5/8" inside diameter. Then, I drilled two holes, above and below the clutch tube, and placed the strap.
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Here's the strap welded to the tube support. Not the greatest welding job (access wasn't good, even with the access hole), but it should hold.
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On the outside of the center column, you can see where the strap protruded.
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So I trimmed the ends of the strap in preparation for welding:
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Here's the final result, after welding and grinding:
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Good idea on the Wire support.

Like the wire support execution.

My donor tunnel came with two threaded rod hooks made and had nuts external to the tunnel to pull them tight. Rather unelegant but functional.

I like your solution since it won't be visible of leave a wart on the side of the tunnel. Nice Job.

Out of caution you might want to make sure that the weld penetration hasn't entered the clutch tube which would cause the cable to hang up later on when trying to feed it though. Check now if you're not sure. Better to find out now rather than later when access is limited again.

Thanks, but it's basically the same idea as the cable clamp Clay Perrine suggested way-back-when, just without the nuts.


Excellent suggestion -- already tested it and no impingement inside the tube.

Betty and I installed the cable clamp in her car back when we were first married, over 30 years ago. We didn't have the money, time or location to tear the tunnel apart and fix it right. It is still on the car, but the car is in the body shop now so I am going to have them fix it right when the rest of the body work is done.

And now, let's go after this lovely bunch of holes:
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First step is to cut access holes in the outer three layers:
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I found this little surprise inside the first layer. You can just see it in the bottom of the hole in the above picture. It's one of the bits that was hole cut -- it fell inside and was left there. Unfortunately, it's useless as a patch, so it goes in the scrap bin.
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Second layer access:
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The cut pieces for the first two layers will be saved and welded back in later.

Then, the third layer.
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Once I got a little further into making the patch for the innermost hole, I realized I needed to make the third layer hole a little larger. I'll just make a larger patch later.

Now it's time to make a patch for the innermost layer, the heat duct tube. This is the masking tape method. First, put masking tape over the hole:
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Then, use an x-acto knife and cut out the tape over the hole:
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Remove the cut piece and place it on a piece of sheet metal:
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Then, cut out the piece of sheet metal, and you have your patch:
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Since this patch goes on a tube, I found a socket that's about the same diameter as the tube and shaped the patch over the socket.
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The lovely bunch of holes, continued:

Here's the first patch in place. The screw is used as a handle to place the patch. After the patch is tacked in place, the screw will be removed and the hole welded over.
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And all welded up:
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I'm not going to bother grinding down the welds inside the hole. No one will see them once this is all done, and they will add a little strength.

I use the masking tape method to make all of the patches to replace missing metal. I'll spare you the repeated steps and just show each major step completed.

Here's the third layer patch completed:
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The first part of the second layer patch -- re-attaching the piece that was cut out for access:
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And the finish of the second layer patch:
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That's enough for tonight. I'll tackle the outer layer patches tomorrow.

Like the screw as a handle. Still had to have been fun trying to place tacks in that tight space!

Maybe shoot some Eastwood Internal frame coating or something similar into that outer reinfocement to lock down the rust progression while access is easy?

Photo's like this always make me laugh. No such thing as rust free 914's. You just can't see it . . . . yet. It's always lurking inside these sorts of cavities.

Nice work...!