All,

I have a 74 914 roller that has very little rust forward of the firewall, but is badly rusted at the wall due to long-term water leaks from the rear window. The rear edge of the pan has some gaps, the wall has big holes in each corner (insert pointer to prior posting here) and the hell hole is bad - Battery tray is gone, the top of the long has a thin hole, the tin shelf is gone and the inner wall has some small gaps. It looks a lot like the "before" version DNHUNT's project, but the frame rail hole is much smaller. there is also a little rust at the rear edge of the rear trunk.

Anyway, I don't weld, and the local estimage is about $1500 labor to fix and prime it all.

So, the question is: should I try to sell the tub to someone who can fix it? Would anyone want it in this condition? Or should I just get out the sawzall and start selling body parts?

And yes, I know...
Opinions?

I'll try to get better pictures to post soon...

Have you considered attempting the repairs yourself? Even if you went out and rented a welder and bought a cheapo primer gun, I think that you'd still be about 1/3-1/2 of your estimate.

-Rusty

What was your plan with this car when bought it?

It ain't fun to fix it but it is interesting and I certainly am getting some satisfaction. I finished grinding my repair of the passenger inner wheel well this morning and it feels real good. Now when I rap on it, it gives a real solid sound.

Do it if you can. You'll learn a lot.

I've been getting up early to work on it before I go to the office. All in all I'm glad I took on the project.

Dave

The plan when I bought it was to make it a nice daily driver, by doing mostly mechanical repairs.

Its a former CA car, and appeared to have not much rust, until I removed the interior and firewall pad. I knew it needed the battery area.... but the de-rusting project got a lot bigger, as I dug into it...

Its a dilemma, because its mostly a nice car. Maybe I'll look into taking a welding class somewhere...

Joe

I guess another question is do you have the time to
repair this car??? or do you have to have a teener you
can drive? If you have the time & space then I would go
for it. If you truely want one that doesn't require this
type of work, look for another and sell this one.

Whatever you do, good luck.

- Garold

Ill take it, we can fix the other one...

Rich

I do have another '14 to drive. I was looking for a parts car, but found one with much less rust, and an ample assortment of mechanical and electrical things to fix. Just my kind of project.

I do have plenty of outside room to store it "until I find the time to work on it", but "outside" is far from an ideal storage solution in New England.

Thanks everyone for your responses. Maybe I'll keep it for now, and consider doing the work myself in the spring.

Joe

Hey Joe..

If I were you, storing it outside, I would do some overall rust-proofing where you need, and cover it with a nice cover.

When you open it up again, it won't look as bad as what you remember.


M

Joe,
get the trunk out of the parts car...
Learn to cut/weld on the parts car and do the finish work on the other car...

I would have to ask,,,what is the engine? hows the interior??

If you plan on keeping it, get a temporary garage from Walmart. they seem to hold up for about two or three years if you go out and push the snow off every storm.

Keep it dry.
I will be up that way next weekend if you want me to take a look and offer a really stupid uninformed opinion from a junky.

Rich