Cool project and crazy fab skills. Can't wait to see picts of your continued progress and completion.

Dave

Welcome back Dana!
You accomplished allot in three years!

Awesome! Snoqualmie is a beautiful place, I visit a friend of mine there every year.

There's a cool car show on Aug 16 that runs down the main street as part of their Railroad Days. A very short walk from your new digs.

I was thinking about entering the Anklebiter in the show and rolling it over there, its only about a block from my house!

Do it! You could display it in two pieces...that would be so radical.

I'll have my Merc at a show in Pt. Townsend on the 15th but if you're going to roll out the Anklebiter I'd have to make it back for that. I'm guessing we could get a nice 914 turnout too. Probably get some guys to help you roll it over to the show.

That would be great lets do it!

I'll get the ball rolling. We'll talk about it at breakfast tomorrow along with the Nord Run. PM me your address; I want to contact the show organizers and see if they'll reserve us a spot close to your house.

Now that you're on the wet side of the Cascades you may want to revive this idea.

Got a flat tire on the trailer in Bozeman, it took Budget 7 Hours to send someone to fix it Oh well, on the road again!
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Damitt Budget! You are slowing down progress. Can't you see how many people are on here waiting for updates!

Awesome... good things for a god guy... congrats on everything... good luck with the relocation.

Look forward to more progress.

So have you made it to Snoqualmie yet?

bozeman to the west side is a LOOOOng haul if you do it in 1 day. in a big box truck and pulling a trailer? way not so much fun. then you clear the columbia and the attitude improves. i'm looking forward to this event. bfast first? kinda early?

omg this is perhaps the most interesting thing I've seen on the Internet in years


I remember following ur previous build, which was years ago( this very same car) , and now ur just on the pinnacle point of another amazing building what's even more amazing it's the same car


I've got loads of respect for ur dedication and ur skill full work


Can't wait for u to post more pics

Made it to Seattle! Waited to unpack the best stuff last!
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Still in the whirlwind of the unpacking and new job and newborn thing, managed to grab a couple hours tonight to start to get the shop unpacked, after not seeing this stuff for 3 years every box is a total mystery. This is almost as bad as restarting someone else's restoration project. I have been re-reading the thread to try to remember my train of thought.

In the meantime Marc was nice enough to arrange a nice 914 get together for the Railroad Days Car Show in Snoqualmie, WA on Sunday August 16th. My place is close enough to the show to push the car over so I am entering it! More details HERE

Dana you moved to Wash...I am moving to Utah....I also got a flat ,,but nowhere to pull over because of construction....made it to a gas station burgerking and it took Uhaul 3 hours on juy 4th.....Remember us coming by youre house in Co. ??
Congrats on the new life ..

Ouch! "Moving Adventure" for sure!

your sled.

Where's the dog?

Garage is pretty much unpacked, I still need to give the car a good cleaning, 3 years of Wyoming dust has collected everywhere.

I wanted to thank Mark (mepstein) for donating a couple steering wheels to the cause, steering it to the show should be easy now!

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I had a great weekend with the PNW contingent, it was great to meet everybody. Special thanks to Marc (KELTY360) for setting everything up!

Thanks for the push guys!
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The show was great, definitely motivated me to get back to work on the car!
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I love this car but I have to say... Loose the 901 transmission. That is the weak link.

Marc perfectly captured the average onlookers "what is this?" reaction to the car...
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I agree, although I really have nothing against a nice 901, it pairs really well with the WRX engine. If money were no option I would totally go for a subie tranny, maybe in the future I will bolt on a new rear subframe with IRS too!

WOW!!! Very nice!! But the 901 Transmission ist not good........... Take a 986 Boxster Transmission or a 987 this is very nice!! Good Luck with the Projekt !!!!

I look forward to hearing the straight out of the turbo when this car is up and running. the neighbors? Not so much.

I put the car back up on jack stands. My old chassis instructor used to say a good frame only needs 3!
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I then pulled the seats and doors.
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Then I opened this box and went looking for my Haynes Manual...
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There's a Haynes manual for the Anklebiter? Who knew?

I was looking at a thread from 2010 where you inquired about tube frame 914s and there were lots of pics of complex mazes of tubular structures. Seems like you really simplified the design to bare elements. Obviously, eliminating the shock towers had a huge impact on streamlining the package.

Yep, I once had a supervisor in the Air Force who said to me, when I asked a question, "Look it up, it's in the GD BOOK!!!"

I'm still looking for that book called "GD" going on 30+ years, maybe that's why I have been afraid of manuals ever since;-P

I have been working on prepping the wiring harness for installation, there are some cut wires around the fuse box that I need to replace and repair before swapping in the JWest fuse box.
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There are also some disturbing abnormalities whose purpose is still a mystery to me...
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I am keeping my modifications to a minimum until I get everything up and running, then I will prune unnecessary wires and wrap the harness after I know everything is working. Here I go!

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I am thrilled to see this project getting back on track. As for your skills.....crazy skills dude.

Time to tackle the wiring, this is going to take forever but I want to do it right while the car is apart.

I am relocating the fuse panel and relay board to the area that used to house the blower motor and wipers, first I installed a grommet and fed the harness forward through the firewall.
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I cut away all of the relays that were all over the place and labeled all of the connections, hopefully I can figure out what everything is by the time I resemble the harness. I will make a centralized fuse block to house all of the relays in one place.
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Here is the wad of wiring I cut out.
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And again after organizing everything.
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That is going to be pretty.
Why not the small car harness and be done? Cost?

Welcome to the PNW!!!

Even though I ended up selling my Suby 914 last winter I still remember the painstaking process of wiring my own harness with the Smallcar print out.

I am 30 min away in Redmond and can lend a hand or pop a beer and stare at wires if you need to hear what not to do

My harness came out great in the end with an Engman fuse box and stock Suby ECU.

I am back at it with another Suby powered project, 1965 VW Rally inspired Beetle!

Anywho, welcome to the neighborhood! And congrats on the new baby!!

Cheers!
Nate

I could buy a basic wiring harness, I did that for my Plymouth and it was great, I just want to build this one myself, and the wires are already there, I will cull what I don't need once I figure out what everything is.
We will definitely have to get together Nate! Love the Beetle!

I am drawing up a wiring diagram so I can build a relay and fuse board, so in the meantime I decided to pull the rear end apart one last time to sort the clutch, paint and clean the tranny and suspension and then put it together again for real with properly torqued hardware. I started by pulling the suspension:
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The clutch was getting funky when I drove it last, I have a new disk, but the pressure plate and flywheel have definitely seen some heat and need some love:
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83 bolts later... it is amazing how quickly and easily I can break down this car when the body isn't getting in the way, the clam shell body is going to be awesome for maintenance.

If anybody wants to donate an STI transaxle to the cause now would be the time
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Glad to see you back at the car !

Dane, as all the others have said Congratulations on your Degree, Anklebiter II of course and it goes without saying....the Beast!!!

I had been following your build for some time so it will be great to see you at it again. I am stripping out my wiring harness as well although not even close to what you have gone through.

Hope you guys are enjoying the new house...we live in 100 year old Victorian as well....old houses are great!

Grant

I have been doing a lot of wiring work on the car over the past couple of weeks but there isn't much to see, I have sorted and identified all of the wires that I need to wire my new relay and fuse panel into, and culled any unneeded wires. Now that the wires are under control I will start building the relay/fuse panel soon.
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While I am waiting on clutch components I took the opportunity to clean the transaxle, it will get a fresh coat of Eastwood Alumablast as soon at it is warm enough to spray.
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Interesting - you are sticking with the 901. With your fab skills and the insane nature of this build, I am just wondering why you wouldn't go to a Subi or Boxster trans?

STI six speed? Maybe take advantage of all the boosted power?! Oh, and the more robust case would make for a better stressed member platform?

While entertaining, switching which tranny I use this late in the build would ensure this car never runs again, maybe I upgrade later but I am keeping forward momentum on this project and not looking back. 901 is fine for now, the car only weighs 1500 lbs, it doesn't need a huge tranny.

Sounds good to me if it's good for you- I think most of us want to see your end result as much as you do! Well second thought, you probably want it more...

So I just finished up the new relay and fuse board wiring diagram. I am using most of the stock wiring harness with a few new additions, and running it with modern fuses, relays and micro switches. All lighting will be LED so amp draw is pretty minimal, next step is to fab up the board and wire it for real! Happy New Year Everybody!
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Same to you Dane!

Here's hoping the storms didn't dampen your spirit too much. Let me know if you need something from my sale cache.

Happy New Year!

Dave

Now that the wiring has been diagrammed I have started work on the relay and fuse board. I wasn't really happy with the relay blocks that are out there so I decided to make them myself. I 3D printed a couple mockups and after a couple iterations got something that worked pretty well.

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Here are the final pieces fresh off the printer.

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I bought a fuse block, and laser cut a piece of acrylic as a temporary jig to mount everything for wiring.

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I assembled the board and started running primary power, ignition, and ground wires.

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Why doesn't this standard of innovation surprise me? Superb!

Glad to see you posting Dane. Will The Anklebiter move on it's own power this year?

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What planet are you from? Seriously, every aspect of this car is just incredible.