Hi all, new to the site and relatively new to aircooled. I acquired a 74 bus with a 74 914 1.8 on a pallet several months ago.

I picked this ‘74 914 up yesterday, missing most interior pieces and a few other bits, but drivetrain is complete.

Underneath is rustier then I’d normally put up with, Is this salvageable? Sacrilege to use for parts?

Edit: retrying images
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Hard to tell, the pics are a bit on the small side, but i'd say the blue one is a parts car.

Rule of thumb, you can only see 10% of the rust that's actually there. And i can see a lot of rust.



PS:

All 914s have rust. You need to look closely at the longitudinal beam under the doors right in front of the rear wheel swing arm pickup.

As far as using it for parts, you won't be the first one to do that.

Good luck.

Anything can be fixed. But looking at the pictures, I'd say you have a parts car.

As someone that has taken on an extensive rustoration, I've sworn an oath to myself that I'd buy a tub from CA next time.

The time and effort it takes to properly restore these unibody structures has gone well beyond my original estimation of what I thought it would take.

You can't weld to rust. In my case, I've ended up purschasing way more donor metal and reproduction metal than I thought I'd have to when I purchased the car.

For me metal work is a hobby I love, but my project has taken way longer than I expected. Coming up on 2 solid years of metal work with almost every weekend going to the madness.

Thanks for the welcome and opinions. I was thinking pats car too, but feel a bit better about it with your input.

I erred on small images, I’ll try the rust again.

The area in red is a huge problem.

Large portion of the floor pan that creates a structural box section that connects the left side longitudinals to the right is missing.

Not only do the floor pan and the seat cross members need to be replaced, you'll end up replacing both the inner and the outer lower bulkhead to repair this.

Ask me how I know. .

See my build thread (in signature block link) if you have any doubt about what you'd be undertaking. My car was better than what you're starting with but it all still needed replacement.

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Welcome to the (madness), world of all things Porsche 914. You will find the folks here are very helpful. However, be careful, it can be addicting quickly. Don't ask.

Depending on your motivation, available time and $$$ anything can be rebuilt, but often times locating a reasonably rust free chassis is the move to take. I would to suggest to strip her down to get a good evaluation of the rust repairs and make your determination at that point.

Best of luck

I’m starting disassembly. It was fun rolling around in the yard.
A friend of a friend has an imperfect ‘76 that should be a much better start.

What you have there is a challenging and potentially very rewarding 3+ year project. If you aren't looking for a challenging 3+ year project, then you have a very nice parts car. It's a win either way.