Super impressive work.

Hey thanks! I’m trying to keep up slow and steady progress.

Yep, you're like the skinny girl who's always bitching about how fat she is.

Your progress looks pretty fast...

Especially in the back yard, in the dirt, under a tent!

Bet you're not working on it today!

It's cold up here in Granbury and it's going to be stupid cold for the next couple of days...

My current 2400 sq ft shop has central heat and air!

I'm warm and TOASTY right now.

(Had to get a little dig in there as your progress rate is humbling to me.)


So, stop pissing off the fat (slow) ones with your comments.

It looks like you could finish up major metal restoration in under a year.

That's freaking fast for a single guy in less-than-ideal conditions...

Ha! Speed is relative, I guess.

Super job that you’re doing on this car. Being new to fixing 914s, your thread is really helpful to me. Great job with fabrication of all the patches and great photo documentation of it all.
What’s your favored tool for grinding welds? My air grinder with 3” 3m sanding disk is way too slow.

Tim

This might surprise you, Tim. If I have access, I always use a 4 1/2" Milwaukee angle grinder (corded) with a 60 grit flap disk to get it close and then finish it with a 18"x1/2" finger sander. My pneumatic 2" angle die grinder is used in hard[er] to reach places - for sure. For example, I plan to use the 2" grinder on the welds in the front part of the drivers side longitudinal where I can't get the Milwaukee into. This is coming up next.
Anyone working outside or in an unheated garage is on-hold till the weather breaks.

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Fred
Thanks. I also like the flap wheel on my electric angle grinder when I have access. What brand is your air die grinder, mine is air thirsty and low on torque.
Tim

I don't remember the brand at the moment but it's about 8 years old. The one thing I did do was remove the air regulator off my compressor. That made things a lot better for me with my angle grinder. I do have a regulator that I can quick-attach to any item as needed (i.e. my paint gun).

Fred
I found a couple of add-on's for my angle grinder that are going to maximize my use of the angle grinder. One is shaft extenders and the other is a Roloc arbor adapter. The shaft extenders allow me to get into tighter spots and even use the flap disk upside down. The shaft extensions are on Amazon for short money.
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The roloc adapter is a steel piece with 5/8"-11 female to 1/4"-20 male that fits the roloc arbor, I found it on eBay.
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Tim

Sweet! Where did you find these? I need them!!

Very nice work. I like the way you located the inner suspension receiver with the angle brace. That eliminates a lot of alignment anguish.

Charlie

Charlie,
Thanks! On my last restoration, I had this complicated jig that bolted into the other suspension ear and it was welded against the firewall. I think the key is not to over-think it too much. You just need to weld in something that will give you two things: 1) the angle of the suspension ear; and 2) the exact location of the bolt. With that said, you can't half-ass something that might be knocked off while you're removing the inner console. The interesting thing will be the drivers side that must be replaced, as well. I'll try and reuse the metal I used last time. We are still a couple weeks away from that task - awaiting on better weather down here in central Texas.

Here’s a couple of links

Pomsare Angle Grinder Wrench, Locknut Grinder Spanner Wrench Flange Nut and Extension Shaft, 8PCS Attachments Kit for 5/8-11 Grinder Power Tools Parts https://a.co/d/7cN22Rf

https://www.ebay.com/itm/283301124097?mkcid...&media=COPY

Tim

Drivers Side Longitudinal - Part 5 (2/3/2024): Working to add the stiffener to the inboard side of the longitudinal. This must be done first before finishing up the inside of the longitudinal. Here you can see the stiffener ready to go with the longitudinal prep'd and painted. Both pieces are coated with weld-through primer. Hats off to all those of you that welded this stiffening kit into a car sitting on its wheels with floorboards. I'm lucky to have full access to weld the vertical piece at the horizontal with the car flipped up on the 90. With that said, this job is harder than it looks. It took most of my Saturday to get everything welded-in, sanded, and repainted.

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Great progress! Love your updates, keep going.

Thanks! I have another post coming very soon. Processing images at the moment.

Drivers Side Longitudinal - Part 6 (2/4/2024): After welding in the stiffener on the inboard side, I moved over to repairing a few items in the inside of the longitudinal. There were two areas that had to be addressed here before I could move on: 1) Close the small hole at the front of the longitudinal that was previously used to shoot in rust preventative wax. 2) Reconstruct and weld in reinforcement metal and the new seat belt bolt. Note the arrows.

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1) Hole Repair - I started by cutting and shaping a small patch made out of 18 gauge metal, which I tacked in place. After aligning the patch, I then fully welded it in and finished it all off with some grinding/sanding. I'm not concerned at this point with reconstructing/repairing anything else in the front wheel well at this time. I'll have that "party" some day in the future!

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2) Rear Longitudinal Reinforcement - Unlike the small hole repair, this task was a little more time-consuming. I started by creating the vertical reinforcement using the original part made out of 18 gauge sheet metal. Once sanded and painted the metal was welded into place. Note, I did used a small piece of the original metal to make things a little easier.

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Next up was drilling out a hole for the seatbelt bolt. This was done by drilling a pilot from the other side and then widening the hole using a step bit. Once the hole was finished, it was just a matter of welding in the prep'd bolt "assembly". This is the part sold by Restoration Design, by the way.

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Next was fabricating the lower support piece. This was actually pretty fun to do. My goal was to make it look like the "pressed" stock piece but utilize two or three separate pieces. Since this is an original longitudinal and does not have a flat bottom, it requires the repair piece mimic the shape. My repair here certainly is not perfect but I think it does the job and looks the part.

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After completing the repair work, I was finally able to prep and paint the internals. After a good cleaning using glass cleaner and lint-free disposable wipes, I sprayed in Eastwood's Internal Frame Rail paint followed by CRC's Protective Wax.

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The final photos show some late Sunday afternoon work to rivet in the heater tube clips, weld in the front heater pipe, and re-weld the "reconditioned" inner fender piece, that's lives under the inner rocker panel. Decided to call it a day after that. I will pick it up next time when I get to finish up the longitudinal in part 7.

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Rocker Restoration and Test Fit: (2/7/2024) - Added a few photos showing the reconditioning process for the driver side inner rocker panel. I've never had one that was worth saving before . This took a few cycles removing rust with a phosphorus-based rust remover, a metal brush, and a wire-wheel on a grinder. I even drilled out a few rust spots and then filled the holes using the MiG welder. After a good cleaning, I painted both sides (minus the edges) with some left-over POR15. I'm not a fan but it works well on old metal like this that's not going to show. I hit the edges with weld-through primer. Test fit revealed that the longitudinal needed to be opened a bit to mate properly with the rocker. Going to hold on welding this panel in until the new lower fire-wall panel gets installed next weekend.

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I like this shot.

Rear looks good, perimeter of floor pan looks great!

Pedal mount area and lower edge of front firewall is just GONE!

Really shows just how bad it was.

Thank you for all of the pics!

@technicalninja - glad you like the pics! I'm currently working on removing what remains of the rusty firewall. Once it's replaced, I could potentially install the floor pans at any time. I think I'll wait till the drivers inner suspension console and the engine bay has been finished though. We'll see, I guess.

Lower Firewall - Part 1: (2/11/2024) - It rained all day Saturday and into Sunday morning, so I didn't get a lot of time in the backyard this weekend.

In order to fit the lower firewall replacement panel in one piece, one of the heater pipes must be removed. This is the reason for not closing up the driver side longitudinal at this time. The first step in the process was to cut out the original, rusted-out lower firewall just below the upper backrest panel (name?). With most of the metal gone, I was able to get to the spot welds up underneath the front engine shelf. For the most part, I had easy-access to the small 90 degree strip of metal that remained. The first picture shows the process of me drilling out each weld and them using vise-grips to slowly remove the top edge of the lower firewall. After that, the paint was removed to expose a light coat of surface rust that was removed using some Fast Etch.

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Next, I decided to go ahead and weld in the last of the three stiffeners that goes on the front of the front-lower bulkhead (opposite the lower firewall). As with the other two, there's just a ton of welding you have to do to proper install the panel. The following photos show this progression. Note how the weld-thru occurs on the backside. This is the main reason for doing this step before installing the lower firewall. I will prep and paint the backside before installing the firewall next weekend.

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Lower Firewall - Part 2: (2/17 & 2/18/2024)

Day 1 - Firewall Prep:
I had a full day of it just getting the necessary items transferred over to the new part. You can see how I decided to cut and mount the original shifter recessed piece. Things were pretty rusty so I was continually treating and wire-wheeling the parts to get them ready to be welded. My brazing job was a bit of a failure here (not enough heat) but I plan to redo it once I get the correct welder. Note the arrows on the last image. These are new wire tabs I put in at the top and two heavy duty tabs that were welded in at the bottom for the passenger side e-brake.

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Day 2 - Firewall Install:
Sunday was cold but it warmed to a beautiful day. My plan was to weld this entire panel in in one piece. Well.... No way. This is the 2nd Restoration Design firewall that I've installed and both have had the same two issues: 1) the heater pipe holes are undersized; and 2) the tabs that extend on either side toward the inner fenders are about a 1/2" too short. A little frustrating. Anyways... to deal with the issue, I cut both ends off at the flattest point along the panel. This allowed me to install the middle section and then deal with each end piece separately. The light went flat before I had a chance to grind anything - so more work remains. More photos to come...

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@technicalninja - did you see my air nibbler? Really liked the tool. Thanks for the suggestion!

Yes. I did.

Not real fast and cannot handle thick stuff but you can write your name in cursive with them...

Impressive work here!

Antoine

Thanks Antoine! I certainly appreciate the comments/advice I've been getting from everybody on what I'm trying to do.

I just spent my lunch hour grinding welds. Going to take a few more "lunches" just to get done what I welded in this past weekend. Once my gas welder gets here, I'll be brazing the firewall tubes. My used e-brake tubes arrive tomorrow from Rich at 914 Werkes - can't wait.

Sincerely,
Fred

Lower Firewall - Part 2.5: (2/20 - 2/22/2024)

Finally after several "working lunches" this week, I was able to grind, prep, and primer all the welds along the new lower firewall panel. What a PIA! Most of the welds up under the front engine tray prevent easy access. I've got the tubing area all cleaned up / exposed for brazing this weekend. Note: not pictured here is the drivers side heat tube and both e-brake tubes.

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If the tubes are metal, is there a benefit to brazing instead of welding them? Wondering if the factory brazed because of cost or something different?

Dan,

Not 100% sure the reason. Perhaps the thinner metal of the tube or the risk of the weld penetrating [slightly] into the ID of the tube. However, I think its actually stronger to braze the tubes in this instance. Case in Point: I mig-welded my e-brake tubes on my other 914 and I this is now on my "Redo List" for when the engine comes out for any reason.

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Drivers Side Longitudinal - Part 7 (2/23/2024): With the lower firewall in place, it was time to finally finish up the longitudinal. First up... the rear heat pipe. Just getting the heat pipe pass through the lower firewall required a good bit of work. Once the pipe lined up with my markings, I zapped the tube in place and repainted the area. Next, I reinstalled my restored heater muffler.

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After one last shot of marine wax, the "refurbished" inner rocker was clamped down and welded to the longitudinal. Nothing too exciting to see here but a bunch of welds and whole lot of grinding. More work is required in the area so everything is coated in weld-thru primer. For example, I will return here later to install the lower front door hinge support. Next up, brazing the console/e-brake pipes.

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Lower Firewall - Part 3: (2/24/2024): With my new Bernzomatic Map/Oxy torch kit, I was dead set on brazing in the tubes that were poking through my new lower firewall panel. After a failed attempt at just using MAP gas, I was back again with the added heat available with adding O2 to the mix. After getting the torch flame to the correct spot (I remembered my Dad showing me this as a teenager working on his old cars), I started brazing the pipes in place. Can't say I was very good but I think I got the job done. I was warned that this setup went through a lot of Oxygen. Boy! They weren't kidding! This torch burns through O2 at a prodigious rate! I had to actually source a 2nd bottle from a TSC Saturday afternoon and come in for a 2nd round. I'm happy with the results but there are a few gaps I'd like to add a bit more braze to (i.e. the pass side e-brake tube). Debating if I should get more O2 and braze a little more or just get some JB Weld and jam it into the gaps

@914Werke -> These are the e-brake tubes you sent me. Thank you!

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Final shots of the lower firewall in the evening light in my backyard

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Looking great!

Thanks @East coaster!

It's all about the engine bay at the moment. I can't believe the amount of rust under this paint!

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Drivers Side Rear Inner Console - Part 1: (3/1/2024):

With this excellent pull-off from Rich at @914werke , I set to work removing the frame metal that the console comes wrapped in. This is the kind of wrapping that takes several hours to undo The first set of photos shows how I drilled out all the spot welds. I've found it easier to just use sharp bits with some oil. I typically step up in bit size 2 or 3 times. Having sharp bits makes this work soooo much easier.

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As I get down to the last of the metal that needs to be removed, I get to see the condition of the part. This one is in excellent condition. I guess it should be better on the non-hell hole side of things.

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Since this part is in such good condition, I can just leave the gusset metal in-place, reinforce the console ear (as planned) prior to welding it on the car. I like this since I can properly prepare the internal metal after welding on the reinforcement. This is shown in the last picture. Note: the part is treated with a phosphorous-based etching solution prior to paint. In this instance, I'm using Eastwoods black frame rail paint and weld-through primer. This part isn't completely ready but it's close. My next post will be on the removal of the existing (and damaged) suspension console.

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Knockin it out! Beautiful progress. I’m having flashbacks of my wrestling the console.

@Dion - Thanks! I'm about to take some time off for Spring Break. It would be awesome to get this console in before I leave. We will see

Drivers Side Rear Inner Console - Part 2: (3/18/2024):

Warning: Lots of pictures here

@914Werke - this is your part going in here!

Onward! I began by removing what remained of the old console and worked to get the old paint/rust/dirt pushed back away from the work area. Removing the console without also removing the engine support is a bit tricky. You need multiple size cutting blades to get in and around things. Next, I roughly fitted the part based on my alignment marks. One thing I wanted to do was cut back the gussets far enough to properly weld in the "rail side" of the console. You can see the lines/cuts I made to allow just enough room to get the welder in there.

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Next, cleaned and painted the rail with weld-thru primer. And then did a final alignment of the console using my witness marks as a secondary and my measurements from the center hole in the upper firewall to the hole in the console (28 1/4", I believe). I also checked the "ear to ear" measurement, as well.

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Once satisfied with the console's position, I started welding in some of the plug-welds to secure the part. Note: I barely had enough room to weld inside the gussets. I guess I could have cut back a bit more to make it a little easier. Regardless, everything came together nicely in the end. Pretty happy with results and glad this task is finally done.

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Wow, you must be one of really crazy ones, all the while working outdoors.

Great looking workmanship and chassis rolling jig

One Q? How did you index the innermost suspension ear prior to welding in place.

Thank you for documenting your work, this is very helpful to many

@930cabman ,

From here mainly. My drivers side console had a bent ear from a prior wreck. The diagonal distance to the center hole in the firewall was about 27 inches. I might have tried to save it if it weren't also for the rust holes. My measurements all check out for both [replaced] inner consoles. I'll take some additional measurements later for the outer consoles once I finish with this damn engine bay

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I am (have been) working on a /6 conversion and was soo happy to be out of the engine bay. Seems like it took forever, but worth it and moving downhill from there. I somewhat DAPO'd a couple things along the way, but your project/progress looks great

Thanks!

Wow! IMO, /6 conversions are neither easy or cheap - but worth it in the end. I'm sure you are well aware. Having taken my other 914's 1.8L engine to a 2375, I can say the power is so much fun! Now, having a 911 V6 engine behind me would take it to the next level.

Relax and take a DEEP breath!

It's an H6, not a V6!

I'd change it quick before anyone notices....


Progress looks GREAT!

H6, V6, X6 how does it matter. I do know these little 1/2 century sporting machines are alot of fun and alot of work

LOL! My bad. That’s right. I should have just said 6 cylinder. Our projects will be done before you know it.

I'm just messing with Fred!
Now, your post IS INTERESTING!!!!!
Enquiring minds want to know...

"X" 6 ?

All in good fun, Rick!

Isn't an X6 what happens when you throw a rod in an H6?

Engine Compartment Tasks: (4/13/2024):

Working inside the engine compartment, my goal was to replace the rusted metal on top of the drivers side rail and install the engine tin, which is always problematic. I started by cutting the top metal from the rail where the damage was the worse. There were several rust holes through the sheet metal here and it looked like the surface of the Moon. I was a little nervous about what was in store for me down below. Luckily, the rust was only superficial and cleaned off easily. The patch that was created was taken to the vice-mounted shrinker/stretcher to give a slight curve. This is super easy to do using the 90 degree bent section. In fitting this patch piece into the car, I decided it would be more fun if I were to undersize it to make the welding process more of a challenge. It wasn't pretty but I got it in!

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Another task on the list was removing about an inch of metal skin from the inner fender area to allow the support metal to be welded back in during reassembly.
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Finally, I was able to start fitting the engine tray metal. Since this part never fits right, I decided to cut and install the first section. Just getting this front piece in seemed way harder than it should have been. I was having one of those days, I guess. I've only done this two other times before. You'd think the 3rd time would be easier... NOPE!

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Engine Compartment Tasks part 2: (4/14/2024):

Working in the engine bay, my goal was to somehow modify the first section of the engine shelf (that I had already heavily modified to get in) to properly aligned with the rest of the sections that needed to be welded in to complete the shelf. The problem was that by the time I got the front part of the shelf square with the firewall and flush with the top of the longitudinal frame, I had cut about 1/2 - 3/4 of an inch of metal from the sides that interface around the inner suspension console (see arrows).

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To make this work, I decided to make a relieve cut (arrow) along the 1st section to allow me to pull the engine seal rail out in order to have it match with the 2nd piece's rail section. This, of course, necessitated additional metal to fill in the gap. Here are a few pics of the process.

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Having spent most of the morning on the drivers side, I decided to get cracking on the passenger side and get it done. After test fitting the part here, I determined it only needed to be cut into 2 pieces. Here's a few pics of this side [with the car at 90 degrees]. Forgot to take any additional photos, however, you will see a more completed picture in my next post.

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Great progress and great photos. Will you be removing the /4 mounts?

We are slightly ahead of your project, just a rebuild of my 40IDT 3C carbs is all that stands in the way of her barking.