Think I’m going to have to cross mine off the VIN registry.

Fuck, I love this car.

Corrosion already starting everywhere the water made it up to. Going to hose it down with fresh water and spray some WD-40 wherever I can. Looking for any tips on how to preserve as much as possible.

Click to view attachment

That sucks.

Some good information here:
https://jalopnik.com/how-to-keep-your-car-r...lood-1800475164

Bummer ......Fix it . “No need to leave so soon” It happened to me with a vw bug . Pulled spark plugs cranked out the water from cylinders replaced voltage regulator and a few more bits but it did fire up and
Drove it for another 8 years before it was stolen ...

Pull it all apart and clean, clean, clean.

can you get the shell dipped and e-coated before the corrosion starts?
If insurance will total it, you can buy it back and have a great starting point that way.

Not sure what happened. Fresh water or salt?

Assuming salt based on location. Not really a bid deal for the chassis. Body has drain holes to clear the water. If salt, I'd actually flush the longs intentionally with fresh water before the salt water gets the corrosion they shipped with accelerated. Once flushed with fresh water use the various holes in the longs, and front/rear structure to force in air to dry internally. If not sure where I'm talking about I can post pictures.

Get the carpets and interior out to dry and prevent them from rusting floorpan. Be careful pulling door panels, the press board will be very weak if still moist.

The wiring is your biggest concern. Water wicks into the strands and gets deep in the insulation. Salt water is the worst case for corrostion.

Wiring -- may be easier to source a donor harness and swap if the corrosion in the wiring can't be contained so well with salt water exposure. Won't be immediate death, but, slowly electrical gremlins will creep in over time as corrosion spreads and resistance grows.

No need to get crazy dipping it. Lots of flood damaged salvage cars running around out there with owners that have no idea that is what they bought. At least you know what you have and can take proactive measure.

True enough. But how many of the flood damaged cars had zero rust protection like our cars?

Take it apart to just a shell - $$$
Dip - $$$
E-coat - $$$
Paint - $$$
Build it all back up - $$$

When I worked at the shop, we sent out 911’s to dip and e-coat. That was about $3k for each step. It was $1.5k to ship the chassis each way. Then bodywork and paint. $15k. So you’re at ~$24k just for the chassis. Just food for thought.

Ditto, ditto, ditto. This is what beer was invented for.

Good point, but, I live in the midwest where road salt took a heavy toll on these cars and other non rust proofed vintage iron. In most cases its a very slow death as they rot from the inside out. Not like it will disolve itself in just a few years.

A good flush with fresh water and a solid drying with forced air will be much better than leaving the salt residue in there and will slow things way down. If you want insurance get some Ospho in there, flush that, and then coat your self internally with something like Eastwood Frame paint / neutralizer and the death will be even slower.

As Mark states, the dipping route really isn't all that cost effective. Would be OK if you're going for ultimate longevity and/or some sort of concours rebuild.

Check out a product called Rust Check, we use it a lot in eastern Canada, great product and it creeps into all those cannot get to places. I get my vehicles done annually as the amount of salt used on the roads here would shock you. My teener goes away before the salt comes out and stays in the garage until we have had a few good rains in the spring that washes the salt away.

Ian Stott
Moncton
Canada

Weren't you getting ready to rebuild the engine anyway?
For now, just get the upholstery out and make sure everything is thoroughly dried.

Got the interior pulled out today. Going to do a fresh water hose down tomorrow and flush the oil and trans fluid. Wiring harness definitely toasted. Would like to drill some drain holes in the longs and flush that as well.

Please let me know if you have any suggestions for an aerosol rust inhibitor that’s easy to find in large quantities for cheap.

Right now the plan is to have it shipped to PMB so it can dry out in the desert.

WD40 ?

Yeah that’s the plan right now unless Walmart has something more effective.

I bought a gallon of it a while ago and put some in a plastic spray bottle. Much cheaper and less waste than aerosol cans.

I have what I think is a mid year chassis wire harness. If you think you need it, I’ll send it to you. No charge.

I have been involved with raising a couple sunken float planes in my diving career. the A+P's were very concerned about getting the engine running RIGHT AWAY. other than that it was just flush, flush, clean, clean and put back in service.
Good luck
Randy

I wonder if it would be useful to put in the garage with a few dehumidifiers set on high when you are not working on it. Also i bought a bunch of torch cut scrap steel for a project I am working on. In order to get most of the slag and crud off the parts I power washed with plain water on a hot sunny day. Then lay the pieces in the sun which dries them out real fast and no rust formed. Best of luck.

Open up everything, remove anything that holds moisture.
Home Depot sells straight Phosphoric Acid, dilute to around 20% and spray like crazy, use a mask. It leaves a white zinc phosphate powder that can keep bare metal rust free for years, especially if you don't wipe it down.
Blow air through closed cavities to dry the spray in some phosphoric and also you can use Eastwood internal frame coating. Just drown any closed chamber.
Fluid film can be used on a lot of the parts or surfaces.
You can also use some epoxy paint after the acid if you clean it with a non aqueous pre paint cleaner.
These are just a few products available.
Many electronic items can be opened and cleaned.
Never surrender

This happened to my car about 10 years ago. All the other cars in the area got towed out. I pulled all four spark plugs blew the water out, fired it up and drove it around for three days full of mud because my truck was unreachable due to flood..
looking at the water level on your door that’s about the same levels 914 to begin the float. Matt
Pull everything apart and clean it with water.

@troth

I would caution against drilling drain holes. The raw edge of the drilled holes is more likely to be the start of a corrosion point than what you already have.

The longs already have drains in them. Just make sure they are clear and not coved up with undercoat.

Same for rear suspension conslole, there are drains at the bottom. Make sure they aren't covered up.

Look up in the engine compartment toward the rear of the trunk divider - there are already ventilation holes for moisture to escape though and/or force air into to force dry.

Same up under the gas tank. Pull that out. There are small "frame" sections there with ventilation holes.

Pull the door thresholds anyway to get the carpets out, each of those retention screws is a hole in the longitudinaly. Also the longitudinals have tar type mastic covering 2 eliptical holes on the inner surface. Pull those if you wish to get more ventilation.

Bottom line, I don't think you need more new holes IMO.

I’m in the “drill access holes, clean, treat for rust, and paint “ side of the discussion. I think you can clean it out and mitigate/arrest any corrosion. All that said, it is a time sensitive problem and dealing with it asap is a good idea. Get an undercoating kit and a case of Eastwood’s Internal Frame Coating

I’m just wrapping up a resto-mod on a chassis that was dipped and going forward I’d never have a 914 chassis dipped again, although it came to me completely stripped. There’s just so much involved.

It’s easy to throw out “get it dipped and e-coated”, but show me a thread where someone has done it to a 914. When you say that do you realize how much additional painting and seam sealing has to be done, let alone redoing all that in a way that replicates a factory application? I’ll only mention the problems with “Faraday effect” and all the closed up box sections in a 914

An older thread: Corrosion treatment

I’d add that a decent endoscope will help assess your situation, and having the chassis on a rotisserie is a huge benefit.

its almost winter = rain and snow, in Utah..pmb is great but Utah has weather..lived it for 5 years now..from PNW

if not salt water there is still hope. 'shame after all of these years getting flooded

Did you call you insurance company and make a claim? If they total it out you can buy it back for a low dollar amount. Get lots of pictures. This is why we have insurance.



Bob B

Changed oil on the engine and trans yesterday. Lots of water in both. Spark plugs came out easy and I was able to turn the engine over by hand. Good amount of water splashed out. It started to rain so I shot some WD40 in the cylinders and put the plugs back in. I’d like to flush the oil one more time, fill the cylinders with oil, and get everything hosed off ASAP, but trying to deal with too much at once right now.

Been raining every since so can’t get any more work done. Spent time cleaning up the apartment. We woke up the night of the storm with water on the floor. Ended up with about 2 inches inside. Didn’t get past the baseboard, but it’s getting inspected tomorrow to see if it’s habitable. Been staying with upstairs neighbors in the meantime.

Thank god for beer, even if it’s warm.

At least I came out better than these guys...

Click to view attachment

It’s one thing to see pictures of this shit on the news, but to climb out your kitchen window at 4 am into knee deep water with 100+ mph winds is something else. Definitely learned my lesson and hope others can learn from it to take this shit seriously.

I would not go much further if it is water damaged ,end or story sorry .

Fluid film

Yea, I laughed at this one, never knew!

@porschetub
You're far too pessimistic. I'm a sucker for projects. Never surrender to rust. It's got a six in it!

I'd take it if it arrived on my door step.

If your going to drill access holes, how about just spraying in a water based rust inhibater everywhere. And let it dry for a year before any undercoating or sealing is being done..My 2 cent., Best, Mark

I've thought about this quite a bit over the past few days. I'd still do what I suggest, but with one change. I'd take out the interior and carpets, door panels, back pad, etc. Then flush it all out really good with fresh water, shop vac it dry. Then make a plastic room around the car, put a dehumidifier in the room set on max dry, open the doors hood and deck lid, and let it go like that for about a month. After that I'd do the corrosion treatment on it. Just my .02 This really sucks though.

You could also add a few bags of charcoal to the "drying room" that would absorb moisture too.

Well mostly, I personally still wouldn't drill more access holes but either way, its a fair bit better than not flushing it with fresh water. The main reason I'm not for drilling more holes is that the water is going to have to come out in the form of water vapor as it dries. IMHO there were sufficient ventilation holes placed in the structure as part of the design to allow for water incursion, draining, and evaporative drying.

Either way, thre really is no "right" answer. The main thing is to get the salt waster flushed as well as possible.

I know you must have way more presssing issues than trying to save the car but better to do more sooner than put it off, especially w.r.t. the engine. Sooner that is flushed, and started to get heat into it to drive out any residual water, the better.