Smoggy is the one that got me involved with the 914 flow but rather than following through with the build, I pivoted to another 914. Thought this would enable me to immediately participate in the madness without the shame of constantly showing up in an ass dragger. So things have come full circle and smoggy is on the top of the project list. The name comes from it being a 76 and living in California. I got her from my friend @jeffdon with intention of making a track car. Yes, I am stupid enough to buy a 76 knowing I would need to smog but there are crazier thoughts abound. Most notably is swapping in a six from a 78 911 complete with CIS, cats and whatever else is needed to satisfy the man. Just a thought but for now the focus is getting the tub sorted. The car seems structurally sound with some hell hole and lower long needs. Was going to do a 1/4 floor but am now going a full back half. Smoggy has been off the road since the early 90's and stored under a tarp in Oakdale until I took over. Luckily, Jeff's dad would change the tarp yearly and from what I can tell, it survived time well. What's really cool about this project is all the support the local 914 peeps have given me. Chris ( @tygaboy ) and Robert ( @BuddyV ) have been instrumental and now I am confident I can accomplish this build. Most recently, Chris styled me with his rotisserie! Never worked on a car in this manner before. Game changer.. Anyway, I hope to keep this thread updated with progress but don't be surprised if I am inconsistent. Here are some pics to get this going.Click to view attachment Click to view attachment Click to view attachment Click to view attachment Click to view attachment Click to view attachment Click to view attachment Click to view attachment Click to view attachment

Mark - It's gonna be so fun helping you wherever/however/whenever I can! And that's a "Good Karma" rotisserie. Just look what it did for my build!
Smoggy is gonna be one wicked cool car...

Couldn't do it without you Chris! Thanks for everything!

Had to do the rear bumper backdate to drill the rotisserie mounting holes. Great excuse to break out the @ValcoOscar bumper. Man that thing was mangled but came back nice! Oscar also hooked me up with the paint supplies to finish her off when the day comes.

Let's take a small hole and make it bigger. That took a bit to get used to but necessary to get to the crusty inner panel. Nice and clean up the long! Things are looking promising

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Nice Mark. Looking forward to seeing it come along.

.... I have started a box of "smalls" parts for this project. (dash vinyl, speaker grills, etc).

Awesome! Looks like a quick and easy build

Looking forward to watching your progress and especially how that smog thing goes with the swap. Best to you on the project.

Very Cool Rear Bulges....

Just had my 2nd vax, so in a couple weeks I will feel comfortable seeing my folks. Dad will get a kick out of these pictures.

Awesome!! Keep pushing through.

Struggling on the what to do with those. Cut em out and replace with narrow body cuts from a GT conversion? Try to work with what's there and convert round contour on top to a more boxed design that follows the wheel arches, sort of like mini GT flares in the back? Cut all four corners out and go full steel GT wide body? Leave them intact and comfortably stuff the 911's 7's and matching 6's in front. Opinions welcome..

OK, here's mine: You could do the chassis repairs and the 6 conversion then paint all but the exterior. Get the car back on the road with those funky bulges (is my opinion showing? )
Run the 6/7 combo and see if you like how it looks/drives. If you decide to keep it that way, cool! Paint the exterior.
If not, address the flares and paint at that point.
If you want to do the repairs/build once, you'll have to decide.
Me? And knowing a bit about you and what you seem to like and how you use your cars? GT flares, baby!

Steel GT Flares

Those rear flares/bulges are cool. If you want to install GT flares, maybe try to save the bulges and sell them? They make a nice subtle street flare.

I have an amazingly similar flare on my restomod.....
I didn’t want to over-tyre the car with my 2256 Type 4
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Quite similar. Never thought I would see that! Nice paintwork you have there!

Is there any better way to spend the day than helping a buddy work on his 914? I think not!

Here's Mark using the shrinker/stretcher to form a patch for the passenger side outer firewall where it meets the floor.

Sometimes the best intentions get diffused by procrastination. I needed an intervention and before you know it, up the block I hear the baritone rumble of @tygaboy and his amazing 914.

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Out Chris came bearing tools and an arsenal of skill. Smoggy must be stoked! After a short discussion, we started prepping the car to accept the new Restoration Design rear floor. There was some trimming involved which Chris took the helm on. That got me to acceptance that the fresh and not cheap panel need the knife. We then located the floor going through iterations of interpreting fit, checking, refitting, rechecking. Once satisfied, a line was scribed across the original pan where it will meet its Canadian mate and the death wheel was broken out. First Chris took his pass on one side and handed the tool to me. I started going on the other side and guess what, its not as easy to stay on the line as Chris made it seem. After some constructive feedback and several iterations, I got my side fitted.

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A few tek screws later and wouldn't you know it, Smoggy is looking mighty fine!

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Next up was making a lower patch panel for the driver's side inner firewall. Chris graciously lent his shrinker/stretcher. We made a template to create the curve. Some shrink, some stretch, repeat.. Notch out other areas and here is a very close fitting section of metal that will replace the scongy part. Final fitting to take place later.
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All good things must come to an end so with progress in motion, its time to roll on. Thank you Chris for today!
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Awesome stuff!

Nothing like someone showing up to help motivate! Good progress!

Its another day with @tygaboy and smoggy. Today, we (meaning Chris) formed out the internal lower long panel that reinforces the area around the seat belt mount. This is a piece you will never see once closed up but that does not matter to the metal master. Hand formed and without the usual shop at his disposal, we got the panel fitting pretty nice. We also decided to replace the driver's side inner firewall instead of patching pinholes along the bottom. So that meant another RD order. Wait, you can't just order one thing given shipping so the only rational thing to do is to pull the trigger on a set of steel GT flares! Yes, it has been decided
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Looking good Mark! Looking at your project makes me want to jump the gun and order my GT flares also.

Looks like the major surgery is going well

I was missing my regular fix of tygaboy's metal mastery. Thanks for returning him to our regularly scheduled programming.

Smoggy needs a patch for the outer layer of the long, right at the back where the floor panel attaches. I was able to bend up a suitable radius then use the bead roller to duplicate the recess where that floor panel sits.

The fun part was using one hand to gradually release the roller pressure while at the same time guiding the panel with the other hand to create the fade in the depth of that recess as it turns 90 degrees and moves outward to the edge of the panel. I wanted it like the factory shaped it. And hooray, it only took me two versions to get it.

Will anyone ever see it? Nope. But hey, it's for @Markhoward and Smoggy!

Metal mastery

The pieces Chris has shown up with is raising the bar on smoggy in a huge way. This car is going to turn out nice! If it was not for @tygaboy , then it would be so-so. Such an inspiration and I am so lucky to have his hand in this project!

@markhoward hard at work with his killer new Miller 211 mig welder

I have the previous generation of this same machine and can say this new version is REALLY nice. Highly recommended!

Also gotta say, Mark has jumped in with both feet and is doing a great job welding this tedious and critical area. He is careful and has, IMO, the right attitude about level of quality: Always strive for awesome - but don't let "perfect" get in the way of "really good".

The best news of the day was after completing ~75% of the welding on this final, outer patch piece on the long, we flipped the car over, removed all tension/pressure from the door braces and checked the windshield-to-targa bar corners distance. I always get a bit nervous when checking chassis measurements after welding on the longs...

25 1/8"! Right on the money!

Smoggy is coming along nicely.

Great stuff - best of luck!

@tygaboy had a plan to take the 'little guy' to s-car-go on Tuesday for an alignment and corner balance and with me local to them, what better excuse is there to spend the day working on smoggy for free while running a tab over there! The task at hand has to fit Chris' killer hand made lower long patch complete with factory style bead rolled embossing. Nothing like having proper detailing on things that wont be seen on the finished product but hey, we know its there! First off was to start trimming the patch down to fit the car and form a nice flare around where there heater tube comes out. All of this totally freestyle using a sharpie, hand sheers, hammer, and a vice.

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Last go around, Chris made a quick template out of cardboard and returned with that beautiful bead rolled piece. Basically created from memory and no car in sight to reference during the process. When time came to fit it, well..

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the channel where the floor plan sits was slightly off and I mean slightly. Disappointment had set in on Chris. I could tell he had a hard time not heading back home for another cut. It was definitely hard for him to move forward but let me tell you, it was much harder for me given that this is my car and after all, he is getting paid handsomely by means of a sandwich and some water! Taking the high road on this one and am not letting on how I feel..
Back to the program.. lets burn in some metal

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We got most of the welding done but ran out of time. Its so cool when you dress those welds and the old blends with the new. I will be attempting to finish her off without Chris' guidance. Wish me luck..

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A great day in in the garage and what better way to top it off that to find a large box on your porch.

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What could it be??

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Me likee those flares!

Finished welding the outer patch without @tygaboy watching over me. Think its alright. Did not want to dress the vertical stiches with the grinder in fear of taking off too much parent metal. May hit it later with Chris around to guide me

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Wow, that looks great! Really nice work, Mark.
And see? I told you. Not too big a deal, once you've had a bit of practice.

Hit that with some acetone and get a squirt of primer on it: weld-through where the floor and firewall pieces will get spot welded, regular everywhere else.

Again, nice, nice work. You should be proud of that repair.

Looking really good guys!

Great job

Fantastic job guys!!! Keep the progress moving forward!!!!

It seems like I let other things get in the way of smoggy but we are back. Since the last update, the outer lower firewall has been removed. Next up is replacing sconged out metal on the top of the longs and doing some minor patching in the vicinity. Chris ( @tygaboy ) whipped up these nifty patches which should be installed in the coming days. Vacation and two other projects got in the way (toyota pickup engine rebuild and 68 camaro front clip assembly). The pickup is back on the road and I stuck the Camaro in storage to help keep focus on smoggy. Feel free to hassle me if I slack

Great job and keep it coming. Before you know it all that metal work will be in the rear view.

That’s some great metal work going on there! Well done.

Mark - great job on the prep for the hell hole! Nice looking metal in the under-layer.
Time for more

Looks like life got in the way again but we are back on smoggy. A month or so ago, this cap was put in to address a small section of tin foil like metal at the top of the long. Just to be clear, @tygaboy is not loosing his touch. This is my welding.
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Chris and I have a plan to lay in some more metal tomorrow so what better way to get in the mood than to start today. This is first section I have done unsupervised and I have to say, I'm starting to get the hang of it. The welds are a bit proud but have nice penetration on the back side. Hope to report more progress through the weekend.

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=

Looks great, Mark. Nice work!

Good progress on Saturday. Aside from some metal dressing, the hell hole is done. Thanks @tygaboy for all the excellent session! We also started in on fitting the new lower firewall. Cut it in half to enable passing over the heater tubes and discovered the hole was too small. Tried to swage it wider with a tailpipe expander but was not able to get it enlarged enough. The plan is to take to my local muffler shop and have them do it in their machine. For the time being, I am starting in on some light patching on top of the left long. Then its back on the firewall. Feels great to be putting fresh metal back in instead of cutting out crap.

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SMOGGY! Getting there, Mark, getting there.

What, 3 days in a row on Smoggy? Yesterday, I removed questionable metal on top of the left long. Was debating on restricting patch to the flat area, leaving intact the original vertical flange. It looked pretty questionable and after thinking about how the right side had lots of corrosion funk sandwiched between where the outer skin and inner structure meet on outer fenderwell side, I decided go for it and include the flange.

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Found similar crud but luckily, no pinholes at the top of the long.

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Cleaned it out pretty well and will be treating with some rust converter. Hope to get this section complete in the next week.

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Look at that shiny metal... You're going to have these repairs wrapped up in no time!

Got the left vertical patch in today. Sunday, we will sealing off the left long and moving on to the firewall install.

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