Well progress has slowed to a crawl. marek, is working on my car when he has time and sadly he has not had too much of that lately although I do hope to have some preogress soon. I have been busy trying to locate parts etc and clean up and restore the bits that are off the car. As soon as any more pictures are ready i will post them here, I have not given up....

Of course, you can't give up, cause rust never sleeps. I understand why your guy has to step away from your car every once in a while. He probably has nightmares everynight that he works on it.

T.C.

Didn't know there were any 914s in the UK! Impressive!

All the best, expat in Vancouver

You are one brave and dedicated person! Those pictures make a grown man cry! I an surprized the car survived the trip across the pond without breaking in 2. That is why I searched for a California car and it still had rust in the battery tray area and both sides of the engine shelf. You deserve a medal!

The carws good when I shipped it over, I drove it everyday for 10 years in snow, rain whatever.

WOW! This is an amazing salvage job! I look forward to more pics when the work picks back up..........bookmarked

...greetings from across the pond.
I must say, that viewing your dedication [to this] is, as they say on this website, a disease. To others not acquainted to the 914, they may feel it is an affliction that is akin to stacking BBs; polishing turds; swimming upstream; pissing against the wind; and/or licking the shit off of a rusty razor blade.
After observing your struggle, I cannot, under any circumstances, bitch, moan or groan about anything I may come across, during my restoration.
You have shown that perseverance, through the direst of situations, will be rewarded. Your 914 will be more meaningful to you and to us as a group, than any other on the road, no matter how perfect.
Your struggle has become our struggle. You have given validation to those that question their choice, and hope to those sitting on the parapet of their restorations with fear of the task ahead.
You have accomplished much more than bringing a car back to life, and we all thank you for that intangible spark that renews us and pushes us forward.
Dave

Hopefully work will now restart, which would be good, anyway the rear inner and outer firewalls are being done now.

Now the other side, note the rotten front steering rack mount also. Still hoping to have a floor in soon.

Veltror, how is your front trunk? I was looking at mine and the front control arm pad is just sitting there with some rusted metal around it. If your's is the same could you show how Marek addresses this as well. There doesn't seem to be any threads that shows how this is repaired. Jeff Hail touches on it, but he has something to weld to. Al.

It's not so bad minor hole on one side, not sure when he is going to get round to it but i will let you know.


Roman

Great project to follow and good luck with its completion. Curious what you have planned for rust prevention ?

Rust prevention, well POR-15 where I can and then all the box sections will be sprayed with Dinitrol

http://www.frost.co.uk/productList.asp?cat...SubCat=Dinitrol

unless anyone can suggest anything else...

Don't do the POR-15, it doesn't work as advertised, i'm afraid.

Their Metal Ready or Ospho will work OK in converting any surface rust.

The wax for sealing the hollow spaces is a good idea.
Andy

Right, I expect that there will be some more updates soon. In the meantime I have started cleaning and putting together some of the parts I have been collecting over the last year or so. Firstly I got these A arms cheaply which have been cleaned and zinced, I plan to powder coat these, I assume they are all the same? I plan to put in my Koni 911 struts into these.

Secondly I started cleaning my headlight motors and assorted gubbins I noticed that one operating arm is steel the other white plastic which one is correct?

Steel = Early model car (up to '74)
Plastic = Late model car ('75/'76)


As for the A-Arms, make sure they are not bend. Post a pic of the underside of the hole where the strut will mount ...

Andy

Right thanks for that Andy i'll go take a picture in a moment.

I also derusted the A trims, everything on this car is rotten.

Paint is good. Zinc chromate is nice, it has zinc in the paint to act as a sacrificial anode to prevent corrosion. Use aircraft grade. Be careful welding over it, the zinc fumes can be dangerous.

My other paint favorite is a self etching primer paint called Dupont Variprime (516S or 615S ???) . It's a 2 part catalyzed paint, sticks great (acid etch), is waterproof so it can sit in the rain, and catalyzes into a nice hard scratch resistant surface.

On top of the Variprime, add regular auto paint on areas that can be sprayed, and add the Dinitrol cavity wax to inside panels that can't receive a color coat, or Dinitrol over the auto paint. One of the Brit car magazines did a test on paints and coatings, and that Dinitrol yellow cavity wax was best. Even stopped rust on the other side of the test panel. I need to find that magazine and the Dinotrol number.

The nice thing with the cavity wax is it forms a hard surface film with a soft underlayer. Scratch the surface film, and the underlayer oozes to heal the scratch.

Right now I'm using the Variprime, and want to get some Dinitrol to put over it.

The A arms do not look bent, what do you think Andy

I am getting pissed off now . Progress has been very slow on the body side of things although I am being promised some good work shortly. Hopefully that will mean floors and replaced throttle tube (don't ask). So despite not being able to walk very much due to ankle problems I thought I had better start doing something with all of the other parts.

So I am currently redoing the dashboard since it is rusty what a surprise, I thought I would start on the suspension. I have some nice sandblasted Koni struts and got some 8641-1039 inserts like Richard has but Jason at Paragon tells me that they won't fit since there were two types. So it looks like I am going to have to get rid of these to fund some others.

Now I also find that using 914-6 rear discs on my 5-stud conversion requires some lathe work to turn down the discs a few mm this si getting me mad, one of the ideas of this project is to have as much bolt in stuff as possible so in the future my son will be able to have my car and not have to remember that there are lots of special bits. All we need now is the Labour party to win the election tomorrow and remain in power....


You can see where the insert necks down two low, what struts will these bloody inserts fit ? So I can describe them to somebody who wants them.

I feel as if

They look good.

As long as the hole is centered between the metal flanges, you're good ...
Andy



I added a pic to illustrate. The hole for the strut should be centered so that the distance marked by the green arrows is the same. If the hole is not centered, the arms are bend.

At last some good news!! Thanks Andy it almost makes the pain in my foot vanish....

I feel your pain on that one, same thing happened to me ... Koni struts and inserts designed for Boge struts no worky. Make sure you order new gland nuts too.

Welding has restarted

the whole front area around the master cylinder was pretty weak and crusty so marek replaced all of that and also the area in in the inner wing. Sometime in the past it had some work done and the throttle tube got burned thru, so that is being fixed also.. rust everywhere, hopefully a floor soon!!!

Glad to see some new progress. Floors are easy compared to what
you have already had fixed.

John

Marek, has got the bit between his teeth now, first he fixed the throttle tube which was u/s rebuilt all the metalwork around the pedal cluster, which was paper thin.

Floors need some fettling but are in place ready to be welded tomorrow. Then the other side and for the first time in a while it will be back on its wheels.
Much more work still to come, fitting of door jamb, refitting of wings and flares.. but its on its way which counts....

Marek I know you will be reading this thank you!!!!


Roman

Good god man. Could you not have just started with a pile of clean sheet metal and just BUILT a new 914?

These guys are gluttons for punishment. What a project. And I thought my was a challenge. Fantastic work

Absolutely does my heart good to see this work. Some day I will be seeing my car go this thorough of a restoration but hopefully not a rustoration. I love this thread; thank you for taking the time to take the pictures and post them for all to enjoy.

Pretty incredible rustoration, your roteserie is the only way to go with so many bottom pieces to replace. Like to see it finished.

Dave

Works continues, floors got welded in on one side, throttle tube was fixed and pedal area remade from scratch. Today the car got turned round and the other side of the floor is going to get welded in. Marek, the genius who is doing this has suddenly got his appetite back fro this project, at around the two year mark.

Anyway here are some pictures from today.

When it rains it pours, after closing it all up we noticed we had been using an incorrect cable to make sure the throttle tube was good, arghhhhhhhhhhhh, had to cut out the floor again weldin a new tube and weld it up again. This is going to send me insane...

Unbelievable.

> You are hereby nominated for 914 Sainthood.

I agree.

-Steve

It is a tremendous amount of labor and to me the repair is overwelming. But it seems to me a good opportunity to clean out all the surface rust was missed on the tunnel and interior. I am not a fan of painting over surface rust with silver por 15. Was it even osphoed? A opinion can be that no moisture will get back inside the tunnel to get under the paint but the rust is really still there waiting on the moisture but it is a coating and looks better than surface rust. I am also not a fan of the flip over using the wheels and the suspension arms to support the weight of the car but I have seen these things before used in europe in small shops. I don't think a unibody and it's suspension was designed to support the weight of the car on the edge of the wheel in this direction.

I love to see inside the different areas of the 914 though and to get a idea of the overlap of the different panels.

Thanks for this thread and I will be glad to see it going again.

Just to make it clear, it was derusted, prepped and painted several times, it is not por15 it was painted with some zinc primared somethign or other that my body man di and then covered in some silver paint as a top coat. I doubt it will rust again, I plan to dinitrol it afterwards. I understand the concerns for flipover but I am kind of limited in what i can do. I did have the car back on its wheels recently and am happy to say it has not twisted, all the measurements still look good. Parts supply is a problem but I have just scored a NOS left rear wing which is good since it was very rotten and the door jamb was crud. Pictures soon.

Roman

Just read this entire thread. My compliments to your body man and you for sticking with it and doing a great job of it. Can't wait to see more.

Look what I bought from Mittelmotor ....

Man!!! You are great at welding!!!! A regular Edd China!! you are!!

It will almost be a shame to fit this NOS wing...

Roman you are a star!! Wish I had known you were going to Mittelmotor, could have picked up some bits for me!! Perhaps we should arrange a bus trip

By the way is there any welding wire left in your part of London........

Well progress has slowed to a crawl because of other commitments of the body guy but all going well things should start to ramp up again in a week or so. In the meantime I found some more treasure, in this case a drivers side i.e. left side NOS window mechanism, fabuloso !!!

Well it has been a while, my bodyman had some work he needed to do on a POS MG Midget, who buys that crap. Anyway he hopes to be able to start spending some time on the 914 now. this is slow, but then again good work has to wait. The floor is now complete as it the area in the front around the pedal cluster. he also finished with the rear firewall. Next he will tackle the holes in the front boot and around the front torsion bar mount although that does not look too serious.

Hopefully the front wings will be reattached before Christmas and in the new year the rear NOS quarter/wing.


Enjoy


Roman

Keep Going Roman. Pretty Cool we both posted updates on our "Rustorations" on the same day.



T.C.

Ive got a parts car that doesnt need this much love...Im gonna fix it now..Nice job guys!Inspiring to say the least.

Not that many parts cars here....

Well i thought I should post an update. Sadly there has been little progress, this is something I am very unhappy about, does not look like I am going to have it ready for this summer which is very annoying indeed.


Anyway on one of my recent visits to see the lack of progress I was shown that the left hand side of the front panel had had a poor accident repair job in the past and my suggested that it would be nice if I could source a repair panel. Well considering that I had never seen one for sale I thought this was a joke. Anyway that evening I had a quick look on German ebay and saw a panel which was complete apart from a piece that somebody had cut off the other side for an identical repair, and it was relatively cheap so a score . All I need know is to have it bloody well fitted.


Roman

Nice!

After what appeared to be eternity work has restarted, took some test fits of the door and rear wing, all looks good, no alignment issues. The door dtriker needs replacing but the repro that i have is good. the inner sailpanel did not fair too well, so it had to be remade, although not obvious in the pictures it is not just flat but does have some shape to it. All going well the LHS should be done this week.

More pics,