I only recently learned about it. Zinc is such nasty stuff when tig welding. One day I googled “weld through primer tig welding” and boom, I discovered magical things lol!

Finally a step forward. Acid etch primer applied:
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Evening all! Thanks Andy for bringing the forum back to life!

I came up with an answer to 50yr old undercoating that doesn’t involve gallons of mineral spirits or dozens of rags. A steam pressure washer! This little monster just saved me weeks or scraping and scrubbing! I just wish I’d thought of buying one sooner!

Didn’t get any proper before shots because I was full effort to get this done in a cold afternoon. But here’s a before shot when I was sorting my fuel pump wiring:
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Couple more:Click to view attachment

My cleaning job dislodged enough rust from the weep hole in the jack plates that I decided I need to have a look. Glad I did. This thing was as nasty on the inside as barbra streisand lol!
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I did get lucky however and the top half of the jack plate still had most of its coating on and only superficial rust. The misery of this bottom half is certainly due to the mud nests that were inside for who knows how long.

Done right and will stop the hidden tin worm from continued feasting behind the jack pyramid.

Thanks brother, that means a lot coming from you. I can definitely see how so many restorations go wrong when people run out of patience, time, or money.

i see you are keeping up with the copper weld through primer.
vastly improving on the flawed original.

nice view from the driveway.
trees? what are they? its bitumen and bluestone around my inner city bunker.

Deciduous lol… it’s a nice little spot in southern maryland. Flood plain in front of me and old govt land behind me = no neighbors looking in my windows

you have got the perfect pad.

i wouldn't mind pulling out of the driveway to that view. trees!

i am over the city at the moment.
dickhead dan really wrecked the joint.

i am designing a factory flat pack pavilion and looking for a bit of dirt to park it on.
the shed to go with the house for the cars will be bigger than the house.

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i've already restored the chair that goes in it so i can sit and watch tv.
#1 mies van der rohe barcelona chair made under license in aus in 1968.
i picked it up for for peanuts about 20 years ago and fixed it up.
no one knew what it was!
its not as good as your f. a. porsche designed dining suite - that is pretty red hot.
or maybe it is?
it sure leaves the usa manufactured mies barcelona chairs for dead.
i won't discuss chinese copies.
its stainless steel, not chrome. and i cannot detect the welds in the cross members.
@JeffBowlsby might be interested. he is an architect?
the chair is engraved by the guy who built it.
it is actually a mistake chair. they welded the lower cross member on upside down.
one of a set of 4. the first one was wrong.
they used to be in the department of treasury here in melbourne.

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one mies chair.
one 914.
one shed. 2 french cars always broken down with a german car threatening to break down.
and a factory built flat pack passive house standard triple glazed glass pad and i am done.

just need some trees. and an internet connection to some blokes who know where to get bits for an L jet.

Nice Barcelona, and the foam core takes me back a few years. We have not figured out an elegant rainwater recapture solution here.

This pushes my buttons in several levels:

https://www.dwell.com/home/mid-century-mode...vation-192b588f

Wow! You guys are really speaking my design language here!

I sketched this guy many years ago when I was considering buying and old city lot. I envisioned the first floor being all shop space with 2nd floor living and 3rd floor bedrooms… but then I moved to MD and lived in a few multi floor houses and decided I hate it lol. I’m a single floor guy.

Oh and Happy new year wonki!

ah yes @JeffBowlsby .

whats not to like about the translation of mid century singular homes the Case Study program did into mass market homes by Streng Brothers and others. there were also the Eichler Homes? back when being progressive meant being progressive!

All the case study architects were my heroes when i was first an architecture student. i was going against the flow - michael graves was at the height of his powers. Later when i was a grad student i got to meet Craig Elwood but thats another story.

just do blunt rainwater storage systems here though flying downpipes are my speciality.
i stack everything on circular concrete tanks. pv cells. heat exchangers. etc.
half the tank is for fire fighting with the country houses.
most architects try to hide the rainwater tanks. why bother is my philosophy. the lunar module is my inspiration when it comes to buildings these days. far as i am concerned the earth is an alien planet. or soon will be.

happy new year.

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love a raking window jamb.

like you i hate stairs.
i did one of those multi storey town houses years ago for my business partner.
right across the lane from the bunker.
its got a lot of stairs.
and the longest piece of glass you could get in australia. 7 meters.
real fun getting it in 4 storeys above the ground.
half the building was already there. we added some more and went to town.
we put the living room on the top floor to grab the view. it has a small lift.
its got a real weird room right up on the roof. his son lives in that room. calls it the attic.

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happy new year.
its already 23 here.

What are your plans for the bent jack reciever ?,mine had the same issue and the top just peeled off when I tried the jack but was lucky as the sill cover was removed and I have a jack stand handy.
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On another note I'am using sill spacers so the crap just drops out the gap they make,no build up of road crap as I proved ,got them from Stoddard a while back,part 914-559-127-10 and called a distance washer,cheers.

@porschetub

yikes.

i confess i carry around a scissor jack with my car.
i hadn't thought about the jack receiver failing like that but.
my distrust is of the VW jack itself.
i once had my squareback fall of the jack when i was changing the tyre.
i was young. i was way the F#$k in the flinders ranges in the outback miles from anyone. an aboriginal ranger drove past me after a couple of hours and pulled a scissor jack out of his toyota and we managed to get the car back up and change the wheel.
cracked a couple of beers out of my esky with him.
never trusted the VW jack again.

@porschetub

I’ve never used them and hadn’t planned on replacing them, but I suppose now is the time!

Maybe I’ll cut the top and weld in a double thick top plate?

its a stress failure at the edge of the fold in the tube.
that says to me VW engineers got that one wrong at the start.
can only take so many loadings?

reinforce it with a U tube wrapping over from top if its possible to get a section to suit.
just a plate on top will not be adequate.

is this kind of jack receiver failure common to older 914s?

its thirty years since i have looked at mine but i don't recall any distortions back then.
and they have had had ZERO use during my ownership of the car.
looking at those i am glad i have always looked at the jack suspiciously.



EDIT
or the receiver tube demands the jack is absolutely perpendicular.
any slight angle of the jack point loads the end of the tube and peels it open?
how many occasions do you have where changing a tyre you cannot get the jack exactly vertical. which is how my squareback slid of the jack.

@wonkipop a small lift as in just big enough for one car? Ha!

he is a motorcycle nut like you. no need for a lift.

the lift is for the missus - just big enough for the groceries. you still have to walk up all the stairs.

his garage is too low for a lift. we actually squeezed a semi storey in above the garage.
there is a small independent apartment at ground level that wraps over the garage - he used to rent and now the other son lives in it.

an aprilia lives in the garage next to a non-descript VW passat station wagon. he could talk motor cycle sh#t with you until the cows come home. he used to have a ducatti when we first did the building. so far he hasn't managed to kill himself but he has burned his license a few times. almost impossible not to with the way he rides.

promise not to "hijack" the thread further.
but i know you are a design and chair "perv" @Van B with your F A Porsche breakfast table and chairs.
and i can see where @JeffBowlsby 's tastes are, namely the right stuff.
california once ruled the world (but not anymore).
i put it down to aerospace industries and the skunk works before sillycone valley took over.

here are a couple of other interesting ones i have.
ray and charles eames chairs.
(out of WW2 plywood splint technology for wounded soldiers and straight into post war high end west coast suburbia).

the ones that have with chrome legs are the USA herman miller "originals".
the black painted leg version is the made under license in australia "copy" from the late 50s. the late Harry Seidler, a famous australian modernist took out the license for local manufacture. they are slightly adjusted - or as Harry would say "improved" for australia. the shells are slightly smaller for smaller australian bodies (backsides) back then (though these days australians have taken over the title of the worlds most obese population - sorry Winsconsin). and the legs are slightly taller. this had something to do with preferred ht of australian dining tables in the late 50s, early 60s believe it or not. or thats the story.

most interesting part is they were made in sydney by the same company that was going to do the full bore/out of this world plywood interior for the Sydney Opera House before Jorn Utzon met his fate at the hands of that most unique breed of human beings,
the Australian Politician. Utzon left before that interior could be manufactured and installed and the whole plan was kyboshed, leaving the Opera House to receive a tacky interior by some third rate hacks from the public works department in sydney who took over the task of "finishing" that masterpiece.

A little later around 77/78 that same plywood company started building skateboard decks for Tony Alva, the famous californian swimming pool skater. these were beautiful plywood skateboard decks, the first high performance skateboard decks. I had a contact in sydney when i was a kid and we used to get the blank decks out the back door before they received their famous SCRATCH graphics and shipped back to the USA. we got em cheap, like we could actually afford them as kids. i still have one somewhere on my shelves.

i found the harry seidler eames chairs on the side of the road broken on a hard rubbish day in one of our posh suburbs back in the late 70s and threw them in my girlfriend's hi-lux ute.
then restored them. still have them. designed a table to go with them a bit later on when i had some money briefly in life.

a bit like the jack receivers on 914s, the rubber shock pads which are glue bonded to the plywood shells always fail on the eames chairs. back in the 80s i managed to score a box full of shock pads from a guy connected with the original manufacturer in sydney.
i routinely have to replace the shock pads about once a decade.

a bit like 914 maintenance. you are always dealing with a slightly flawed but nevertheless magnificent design.

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Never knew the connection to proper skateboard decks, pretty cool!

was all down to the currency exchange rate back then.
AUD had a fixed value pegged to the USD.
$1.50 AUD = $1.00 USD.
tony alva knew how to make a dollar.
cheaper than getting them made in the USA.
there was no question of quality.
australia had high standards = to USA manufacturing standards.
different world. china was still rice paddies and chairman mao.

but thats also why there are copies and licensing of all those things like chairs etc back in that era.

to import an eames chair from the USA direct would have made it unaffordable.
exchange rate to begin with - then hit with a 100% import duty and then a 50% sales tax on top of that. cumulative.

was still around when i bought my 914 in.
i avoided the customs duty - i had owned the car in the USA as a resident for more than 12 months. still got slugged the sales tax but i did a bit of invoicing magic on that one to reduce it slightly. still hurt the hip pocket to do it back then.

i have a special plate on the car rivetted on next to the VIN tag in the front trunk.
its a personal import plate. means the car is excempt from the australian design rules.
technically "non compliant" but permitted.

Found some ugliness in the back edge of the trunk that needed to be cleaned up. So, I thought I’d show off how easy the steam power washer dispenses with ziebart by way of a little before and after shot:

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From there all you need is some acetone and a rag to remove the leftover residue.

not too bad.

a little bit of that went on in my rear trunk.
i did a bit of touch up rust converting 30 years ago - seemed to paralyse it.
think foam pad under carpet traps condensation?
not a problem in aus in second half of cars existence - don't have cold enough conditions.

have never wanted to attack mine aggressively.
still got a cute little stamp and piece of half century old paper tag there.

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good idea to rip into yours and get that zeibart off - kill it stone dead.
we have steam pressure washer at the workshop.
they come in handy.
though i have to be careful with it as it will actually tear paint off if you get it too close to the surface being cleaned.

I think these issues were driven by tail light gaskets being 50yrs old and showing daylight between the housing and the panel.

I’m starting to like this lead free tinning to fill in rust pits that don’t rise to the level of panel replacement:
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Well Sh!t:
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I saw a repair order in the records to “repair and repaint parking damage”. I guess I just found it.

it is 50 years old! bound to collect some battle scars.
tricky one. do you fix now. the old expanding scenario problem.
faced similar dilemmas with falcon ute.
we did not want to "over-restore" since it was going to keep on being a work vehicle.
where do you draw the line. followed by wringing of wrists.

i guess you could tap it out a bit better and knock the bog out if its too deep.
and do a restricted repaint on that rear panel between the tail lights if you want to hit out at it now. otherwise its the slippery slope to a full strip and total repaint.

given your original intention is just to hit those inner areas and grab the rust by the neck now and then enjoy driving again, best thing to do is hold off for the full repaint whenever you schedule that down the track!?

The color is off anyway, it’s missing that light green hue that you can see under certain light. So, I won’t bother with a localized repaint.

Basically I’m on the fence at the moment. I suppose I need to see how easily I could source some glasurit 22 line single stage paint.

given you are a perfectionist.
(as proven by the cold start discussions)

you might need to hold back.
or otherwise you will have a bare body shell on jack stands.

could be good but will take a bit of time to plough through.

Got a little more progress this weekend. Could’ve been more, but I didn’t like how the restoration design jack pads fit. They didn’t have enough curve and were slightly aft tilted. So I cut off the originals cleaned them up and fitted to the new plates.

I also decided to reinforce the eye since the old ones are clearly prone to tearing out if looked at with more than a stern glance lol.. i bought some bushings from tractor supply and welded them on each side to build up the thickness. I also tig welded the ground edge with some high tensile rod to make up for the lack of meat on that section. In all, I’m pleased with this improvement.

might have to copy you.
i look at those so called jack donuts on mine with great suspicion.
what is the licensing fee for the update?

Ha! A four pack of bushing washers cost me about $4 at the local farm supply store. You’ll at least be lucky enough to find them in metric!

I know this is absolutely stupid, but I don’t care lol. I probably won’t ever use the jack points, but if I do, I will have total confidence. A little but of hammering, cutting, beveling, a mega difficult tig weld, and presto! Super strong jack points better than new!

@porschetub thanks for the cautionary tale!

Keeping this public journal going:

The jack points are finally sorted and extra beefy! Man when you add up the steps, it really hits home how involved some of these repairs are.
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From there I moved on to the rear sway bar. The pre fab mounts that Chris was kind enough to throw in with the rear sway bar he sold me were a no go. Spacing was off on the bolts enough that the clamp wouldn’t mount. And the leg was too tall. So, new nuts and a wide leg stance were the chosen fix.
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Then it was just a matter of getting it all aligned and welded on… without too many sparks down the shirt!
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Very pleased overall. But some ziebart kept melting from inside that box section and tried to ruin my welds. Not that I was going for internet famous or anything, but I still wanted to be sure of good tie in and no porosity.

Ok, so I’m working on adapting my stock 996 front sway bar to the 914. My reasons are varied, some rational, some sentimental, but mostly for the fun of it.

That said, I’d like some critical feedback from those of you who check in on this thread before I start welding.

To start off, here is how I have it mounted to the cross member supports:
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Many things to annotate here. First, I chose to use the support bolt location because it will give the greatest strength against any twisting on the support bar vs welding on an extension to get the original bracket position. On the 996, the mounts are on the outside of the collar, I also thought moving them inboard a bit might soften the bar up a little bit. But on the other hand, I’m not sure it won’t induce bowing on the sway bar and thus, binding.

Next, here’s a preview on the link mount arrangement:
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These are volvo sway bar links, but fit great and will make for an easy mount tab on the far end of the control arm for maximum leverage.

While checking clearances, the one limit I’ve found is that when airborne, I will only get one full wheel turn left or right before the tie rod end hits the sway bar shoulder. So, as long as I have one of the front wheels on the ground, I should be good. And, I think it looks like the turbo tie rod ends are a little slimmer… not sure I’ll get full lock at full travel. But, alternatively, I can always avoid jumps!

@Superhawk996 @StarBear @wonkipop @emerygt350

well well well.
thats quite a different approach.

i just have the schtandhardt faktory svay bar that goes through the fuel tank area.
with its absurdly long and small diam drop links!

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i see yours will work quite a bit differently.
very short drop link.
i think i can understand the benefits of that but am not a suspension expert.
you would well outqualify me on that front.

i can see how the set up i have keeps me and the steering wheel out of trouble on that front, if the impossible ever happened and the 1.8 got enough suds up to lift off.
i can also fore see a situation where you would get airborne.

I could swap the link to the inside of the sway bar end and be about the same place as the OE bar, but I want more leverage on this stiffer bar. I’m pretty sure sway bar links are mostly strained under tension which is why a 10mm rod is plenty.

yes its always tricky trying to get my head around the physics of how the forces are working. (in relation to drop links). separating cause and effect in my brain. i always feel that compression must somehow be involved. but i guess it isn't. or the forces are axial and the rod is sufficient. i have been known to do very thin steel columns in some of my buildings and am always amazed at what my engineer will have the nerve to get down to, so long as the loads are purely axial (in either direction). the back links make a lot more sense to me. however your observation regarding air force short combat take offs and climb outs related to sway bar interference possibly highlights the porsche design a little better?


i understand if you go too far on stiffness of sway bar you can end up lifting the inside wheel. i'll leave that for the experts like @Superhawk996 !
i know my RS Clio (fwd) happily lifts its rear wheel all the time if you give it a bit of good cornering action.
its got one hell of a sway bar across the rear (as well as the front). but its designed to lift that wheel and transfer all the weight to the outer wheel to stop lurid oversteer.

but i see that what you are after is a particular sort of feel and performance handling enhancement that is beyond the old showroom set up which was actually really an excuse to soften the spring rates for comfort and then dial back some anti-lean characteristics - at least when it came to the rear bar. thats probably downselling it a bit but......, its not particularly aggressive as a set up - the stock sway bars.

Personally, I’d never accept the tie rod hitting the anti roll bar under any circumstance. Having a tie rod get hung up even momentarily could become catastrophic.


There will be dynamic deflections that haven’t been accounted for.

1) the bar walking side to side even with stopper collars in place at the bushings.

2) Deflection of the bar as it winds up with the outside wheel moving into compression and the inside wheel moving toward rebound.

3) Deflections imparted on the suspension from lateral load.

If a sanctioning body like SCCA were to find something like that interference during a tech inspection, I don’t think it would pass tech.

Superhawk, thanks.

1.) Forgot to mention that collars are on order

2.) Compression doesn’t have a clearance issue, but I agree on full rebound.
- I’m lowering the bar mount and measuring the installed size of the turbo tie rod to see if that get me full clearance.

3.) The drop link joints will absorb those with no binding and no interference short of failure.

Basically, copy all on the need for full clearance even at the limit of movement. I’ll see what adjustments I can make.

yeah, get rid of the steering interference.
i enjoy your posts and inquiring mind.
it would be a shame to have it fall victim to an ejector seat malfunction.

i don't know enough about suspension.
nor the theory. perhaps i should since i benefit from driving some good equipment.

however my RS Clio has a rock solid front end.
admittedly its front wheel drive.
but its all incredibly solid.
sub frame. sway bar with no drop links. and in the super duper versions it had a giant front strut external reservoir shock that was like a solid pole.
so impressive that harry of harry's garage and OCTANE fame was driving one as a camera car chasing ferraris and lambos up the alps and was surprised that he could glue himself to their arses. they got away from him on the straights but he was right there again in the corners. drivers of lambos etc were equally surprised they couldn't shake him.

he immediately bought the car. the camera car. and still has it.
so.....i'm not sure about what that means for mid engine cars.
but there might be something to what you are doing.
i'd have to process it.

Yep; way beyond my wheelhouse (pun intended).
I have the original setup on mine, but I never go over 60 and most often more around 35 touring around town.
Best wishes!

I know reading books has gone out of vogue but I’m always going to recommend the Fred Puhn “how to make your car handle” book.

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In keeping with the times - this is a pretty good website:
https://suspensionsecrets.co.uk/