But as usual, one little thing leads to another little thing...and since I was working on locks, I remembered I had a broken door handle to fix. It would appear the PO had broken off the mounting tab, so rather than replacing the base, he improvised a mounting tab...

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A few years ago I won a replacement base from Auto Atlanta, so decided now was the time to fix the handle.

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So it was a fairly easy fix and the price was right...free.... the hardest part was getting the spring that operated the flapper handle put back in....lol. Certainly not a perfect handle, but will work as a spare if needed.

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Shoulder feels alot better so back to some body work. Started by filling the weld line on the front fender. starting to get the right blend for the flares.

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One initial fill and then sanded out...starting to blend.

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Same for the rear fender. First sand with 60 grit, then clean with surface prep...

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The first fill on the rear fender. Mainly filling the weld line.

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Over the top of the arch there are 3 transitions in shape, a convex curve to a concave curve and where the rear portion of the roof support comes in. This area will take an extra lot of work and care to get the lines correct

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The rear portion of the flare after 1st coat of filler.

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Then back to repeat the whole process again. Extending the fill out each time to get the right contour.

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Second coat of filler all sanded out, the hotter it gets the faster this filler is hardening, leaving my working time to spread and shape much shorter. I think this will be the last coat for today.

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Looks great Kevin! Keep up the good work!

Thanks Rob, I just keep chippin away at it, but this heat is killin me.....lol

Okay, so I wasn't going to work on the car since I have to pick my wife up at the airport later today, but 76-914 got me to feeling guilty for not doing anything to on the longest day of the year.....So I decided that something needed to be done.

I decided to fix the PO's butchering of the doors when they did the 1980's speaker in the door install. I had already started the repair, however tody was the perfect opportunity to finish the job.

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Since the repair was kind of a curved shape I decided to do the flat work first and then add in the lip that strengthens the structure. The piece was so small some might wonder...why bother?...because the cutout bothers me....OCD I guess.

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After welding in the lat work, then came the lip. Once it was welded in there was no more flex in that area of the door, I feel much better.....

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After grinding it all down, of course the next thing that bothered me was all the extra carricular holes the PO had left behind, there was a total of 11 extra, that I did not see on the factory picture. Of course some were easy to tell they didn't belong, but htere were a couple that I questioned, so I welded closed the obvious ones.

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Here is a picture after I finished for the day. You can see the two holes I didn't weld shut. They just seemed more purposely placed and better drilled. I will research it more and if I find they don't belong I will go back and they too will be welded closed. Now I feel better about finishing that door and I no longer feel guilty about not working on my 914 on the logest day of the year....lol

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Good work, the fenders are looking great!

Nicely done on the flares!

Like the detail metal work on the doors. Mine was a little cut up for speakers as well. I didn't fix mine, door panel was the fix, cover it up.

Today I was reading through different threads and came across one by MoveQik, regarding tightening our side mirrors. So I got out a pair that I recently purchased from Scott (3Stewarts) here on the World. They are a very clean set of mirrors and the up and down adustment ( adressed in MoveQik's post) was good on both, but the in and out where the mirror meets the base was frozen solid on both mirrors. That being said, I decided to tear them apart and see what I could do to improve the movement.

One thing someone mentioned was breakage of the stud of the mirror when trying to remove the nut in the base, I always recommend spraying everything on these cars with a bit of PB Blaster, before attempting to unbolt fasteners that were installed nearly 50 years ago....

The other problem is finding a socket that will fit the nut (10 mm) and yet still fit into the base of the mirror. I discovered a Craftsman 10 mm, 1/4 in drive, fits right in.

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So after letting the Blaster do its thing for about 15 minutes, I gently tried to unscrew the nut. It took very little torque to remove it, so no broken mirror stud.....
But you can see how corroded the nut is, stud to the mirror was the same way.

I used a brass drift to drive the stud out of the base. Couldn't get a picture since it took one had to hold the mirror base and drift and the other to hit it with a mallet. Be very careful not to let the mirror hit the floor or table top when it comes out of the base.

Inside there are 3 small parts..the nut, a spring and a cone shaped wedge.

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The two most important parts for the in and out movement (or lack thereof) is the cone shaped wedge and the mirror base. These two parts interact directly to create friction to limit the ease of movement of the mirror.

So these parts must be well cleaned.....The cone was easy, light brushing with a soft wire brush and a little bit of carb cleaner. The inside of the mirror base was another story... it was caked with dried on white lithium grease...

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Finding a brush of some kind to fit into the base was difficult, but I finally sttled on a combination bore/breach brush from my AR-10 Rifle which did the job nicely...

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Then I chased the threads of the mounting stud with an M7 X 1.0 die to get the corrosion out of the threads.

With all of the items cleaned this is how they mount, inside the base of course...

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After lubing the indie of the base, and the outside of the wedge with white lithium brease you simply put it back together and tighten the nut to the desired amount of friction that will allow adjustment but eliminate free movement of the mirror at the very high speeds our cars are so capable of.... So, for those of you who have never torn apart you mirrors but are suffereing from inability to to adjust the mirrors in or out (or mirrors that adjust themselves) that is how its done....pretty simple...even for me...lol

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Today was spent seam sealing the external portions of the car where the original sealant was removed to address rust and some areas that I felt needed it to prevent rust infestation in the future.

This is the drivers side door jam to fender joint...I cleaned out the crack in the old sealant and then overcoated it with new 3M Urethane seam sealer.

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The front fender well where it joins the door frame and the rear fenderwell where it also joins the door frame...

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The underside of the door sills where they meet the longs......

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And the floor panel. I also put a layer over the seam where I replaced the rear half of the floor and welded it to the front half. Just wanted to be sure if there are any pin holes I don't get water in there.

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The back side of the drivers side rear fender well where there had been a repair of accident damage.

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Even though the truck floor where it meats the rear wall is sealed from the inside, It still seems to rot at this seam. I figure it is a result of crud getting caught in the seam from the underside so I sealed that seam all the way accross as well and the support for the tow hook...

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Then around the heater air ducts, where the rear floor had been replaced...

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And then accross the rear floor to firewall joint, again in case there any pinholes in the welds.

I'm pretty sure I got all the seams, but if anyone sees one I missed or a spot you think needs attention from your experience please let me know so I can address any others that might need sealing.

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What about sealing around the base and top of the jack point pyramids?
I’m doing this on my weld repairs of my longs.

Also consider that when welding on a new jack tube it is welded from the outside around it’s perimeter. This may leave a seam inside the jack tube where it welds perpendicularly to the base metal. I’m also trying to work a small amount of sealer into this interior seam of the replacement jack tube.

That makes sense, I think as long as I don't seal over the weep hole it would lessen the cahnce of water entering and causing rust there. Have added that to my "to do" list...

Thanks

So I had to drive to Dallas Love Field today to pick up my son and daughter in law. I stopped at the Dallas Porsche Dealership and they sent me to their authorized paint shop and OMG there must have been over 100 cars in different stages of repair and paint. Like 8 paint booths, it was like heaven for high end car ressurection.....

Anyway, enough drooling. I have decided to go with the Porsche Acid Green....It really pops and I think with the metalic color I have for my suspension and engine tin, it will offset beautifully.

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Hey Slacker , that color is gonna be nice, good choice. One thing to think about if you haven't already.. is at the bottom horizontal seam of the firewall make sure you've got the holes drilled for the little black plastic air diverters. If I recall, they're bigger holes than just sheet-metal screw size because of the way they mount.

Yep they are already drilled. Measured those out and drilled them quit awhile back....I think they are hard to see in the pic. I was pretty excited when I was finally able to do a side by side comparison on the colors. Light green, ravenna green and the Acid green....acid green was definitely the hands down winner.....

That is an epic Build! Thanks for sharing

So over the past several days between company and working not allot has been done, however I received some goodies via UPS thanks to Finishing and plating services in Wisconsin.

To start with I got my rear brake calipers back....All plated and ready for re-assembly.

Before and After

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Miscellaneous clear hardware from things such as the suspension consoles

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Misc parts, emergency brake parts, Brake parts, pedal cluster parts and the engine lid latch

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Misc specialized hardware

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The black fasteners from the brake calipers

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And also some seat mount hardware, FI parts, other misc clamps and brake hardware all done in clear zinc

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And then to top things off I got this as well, Thanks Bob (BKrantz) for turning me on to this tool. it is the perfect tool for setting the air gap on the rear brakes

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Freshly replaced parts are inspirational. I hope you had better luck remembering to send all the parts to the plating shop than me.

Yep, that's the ideal tool. I often reach for that when I can't make up my mind about using a wrench or a socket.