You know the holes in the interior that are hidden
under the seats and have backing plates under
the car? What are these for? The seat belts are
attached on the center tunnel hole. Same type
hole though.
Thanks,
Mark S.
'70 914-6

additional seat-belts for the 3 passanger.
was an option, you could get a 3rd seat inbetween the 2
normal seats, and those holes were for the seat-belts.
kinda like the "emergency" seat in a 911 ...

Andy

Damn Andy, you win the tech quiz for today! I wuz havin trouble figuring out where the pic wuz shot..
Geoff

Thanks, makes sense.
Mark S.
'70 914-6

n e one have a pic of what this third seat looks like? where do you put you legs? how do you keep from getting castrated by the shift knob? and.....most of all....in front hood, on fender, it says weight capacity is 500 lbs...so how does this tie into the final design?

Back in the days when we took a lot more chances and didn't know any better (I didn't even wear belts regularly until the state said "you will") I had a new '70 914 and a 2 year-old daughter. The cushion that fits in the plastic tray was the third seat. She sat there and was buckled in with a center lap belt bolted into the aforementioned holes. She is now near 35, expecting my first grandchild next month and she has a child seat that looks like it would save the kid from anything short of a nuclear blast. Good thing too, that's MY granddaughter!

Mice! Its for the mice to get in and out of the car when its stored for the winter. That way, the mice won't crawl up into your heating system, air boxes, etc., where they die or build nests and cause real problems plugging things up. Those wily German engineers think of everything.

Andy,

Did I tell you this, or did you know this from living in Germany ?? I was pretty surprised you knew the answer.


B

haha, no, did this one without your help Brad ..

i had seen the holes before, not knowing what they were good for,
but at the wramble in reno lascht year, the guy with the M471 had the original
german "Fahrzeugbrief" and in there it mentioned the 3rd (emergency) seat.
after that, i just did some research on the web ...


Andy

jim, do you throw darts at a board w/ pictures on it to help you decide which car to drive on any given day? how did the breather box setup work for you? things have bogged down for me.

I think this is the 3rd seat. It came with my 74.

pic 2

Interesting. I looked right by the tunnel. inside seat mount, next to the firewall. Right? No holes for me. Did all cars have them? (obviously not). BTW, very nice prep work.

Rhodyguy,
It is getting easier to decide. I have sold the signal orange car and the tangerine '71 under it is soon on the block. No decision then since the phoenix red car in foreground has no engine in it yet (will soon). The breather is part of that project. Found a nice looking aluminum billet version at a VW parts place. I have a hot rod six (not shown) which will soon be only option I hope.
Four 914's is too many, two about right. Now if I can only stay off the internet classifieds!

I thought I was bad with 3. Plus multiple parts cars at the farm.....

they have black plastic covers on them. mine were also partially covered by the tar-mat sticky stuff ...

I have found:

Only the early tubs have the holes (pre 73) Could be wrong, but this is what I have noticed.

B

My guess is that the feds decided a third seat was not too safe by '73. Afterall, that is when we got door beams and bumperettes on the front .

My first 914 (a '72) had the holes. Heck, it even had the belts! Regarding the "capacity 500 pounds" comment... 180# driver + (2x115# females)=410#. That still leaves 90#'s for fuel, or approximately 15 gallons. It's all good.

So do I hold the record? When I was young and stupid three friends and me took my 914 to a ballgame - Yeah, four of us in a 914. Used 2nd and 4th a lot.

-Ben M.

A friend of mine was a cheerleader in HS. Another one of the cheerleaders owned a 914. They used to go to games, six cheerleaders, all in the one 914. Three across, three up on the Targa bar.

I have no idea how they survived and why they never got pulled over!

--DD

gotta love high school- cheerleaders are stupid, didn't you get the memo?

Nope. No plastic covers and my car was prepped as meticulous as the one is the pic. And, it is a '73. No holes. I had a '72 with the center seat. Useless. I don't remember the extra belts if they were there.

i guess my car came with the "room for one more babe" option then
i like that ...

btw. she's a early 70s child, you can see the hole (has a thread in it) on top ...

Back in high school I had a 71 vette that often had 4 in it... ok 2 in it and 2 on it. We'd take the back window out and the t-tops off. They'd sit on the trunk, put their legs through the window opening and hang on. Every once in a while I wonder how we never lost anyone due to our stupidity.

I'm amazed I didnt die from riding around in the back of pickup trucks after my Friday night High School football games in Texas. Life was pretty easy back then.


B

Many 914's I have seen have additional holes in the floor under the seats... Seems to be related to the climate the car has spent most of its life in?

I believe that's called lightened for racing.

Just replace your floorpan with chicken wire.

Mine doesn't have any extra seat-belt holes, but it does have these holes under the seats

How thick of sheet metal should i patch this up with? I know it's going to take a LOT of cutting.



-Matt

get a original floorpan piece. i got mine from Rich Bontempi (http://www.highperformancehouse.com/). depending on the size you'll pay between $50 - $100 bucks, but it'll fit perfectly ...

Andy

Thanks Andy. I've got a lot of other metalwork (rust removal) to do to the car, so I'll probably order all the pieces I need at one time in a few weeks. I think I'm going to do pelican's chassis stiffening kit at the same time as the other welding. I'll post before and after pics when I do it.

-Matt

Matt,

You need to pull ALL the tar paper off the floorboards. I'm betting you will find more if you havent already.

Looks like a decent car.

B

That picture was taken just after I pulled the car home from TN before winter. The interior has been totally removed now and let me tell you, there IS more. A lot more. It's mostly just under the seats though. It's fine up front. I also found a great deal of rust under the vinyl on the sail panels, but a little fiberglass bondo should take care of that. For you guys that don't have vinyl, what does the joint of the two different pieces of sheet metal look like on the back of the sail panels? Mine looks like it was tack-welded on both sides of the car, but I believe it to be original. The reason I ask is that I'd rather just smooth that all out and paint the sail panels body color. It's a good project I guess.

-Matt

yepp, i like the look.

here's the best close-up i have ...


and the complete car before i took it apart ...

Ok, from the bottom picture I see that they put chrome trim on the back of the sail panel. That's the seam I was wondering about. My chrome was all bent up and it got even more bent up when I removed it. I think I'll try to smooth out that seam too.

-Matt

Matt,

That seam is very important to the strength of the targa bar. They spot welded all the way up it. Dont cut it off.


B

Sounds like a good plan. I know I've seen some 914s without the trim pieces on there though. Is there some sort of targa bar kit produced to replace all trim and vinyl with fiberglass or do I have to make one myself?

-Matt

You may have seen the pieces painted body color or blacked out, but most of them look hideous without it. Some of the body kits out there replace that area or cover it. You should be able to find some used trim pieces that you can black out or paint body color.

I think you may be on to something about making a fiberglass replacement.


B

I would really like to see some nice smooth fiberglass curves around that. But, the only problem with that is that I SUCK at fiberglass work. The good thing is that you can always cut it down and start over. I'm hoping this car makes for a good learning platform. We shall see.

-Matt