This is my new pride and joy. Well, it's not very new but I had to have it once I saw it. I first saw it on Craigs List down in Az. It was sold before I could even reach for the phone. I figured it was long gone. As luck would have it Budman decided to flip it and this baby now sits in my garage. It needs some serious love, but what 914 doesn't.

I'm pealing apart that bent passenger front corner. It's tweaked pretty good but the damage doesn't go that far back.

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As you can see from the picture above the front A arm mount is bent up about 1 1/2". Here's what it looks like from the inside after I pealed some stuff apart.

Now it looks much better with most of the bent stuff removed.

At first I figured I'd be cutting and pasting in a new inner fender. When it's all apart I can see there actually isn't any major damage to it. A dent here or there but all the damage was to the headlight bucket and the front A arm mount. You can see in the picture how it's tweaked up a bit.

Here's a little better picture of the damaged area.

Once I get it up on the stands I can get a lot deeper into it. I plan to make a jig from the complete front clip I have. That way I can be sure I get it back together straight. I also have a fairly clean passenger front corner to get the needed parts.

Any of you 914 body repair experts feel free to pipe in with some advice. The plan right now is to fab up a long piece of steel with the passenger suspension mounting points incorporated. When I get everything loosened up I was going to tweak it back into place, bolt in the jig and then weld everything up. Any other ideas?

I was hoping an expert would step up. I'm still wondering if I should cut and paste or bend and massage. I suppose I'll bend and massage first. If that doesn't work out I can always cut and paste. I got a little more work done today. This weekend I'm hoping to have the jig fabbed up and I'll start to put it back together.

What the heck, another picture.

My advice, for the $.02 it is worth, would be to do a "cut-n-past" as you call it.
Recently, I had a similar issue, and rather than spend the time and agony trying
to straighen and pray that everything lined up, I just put a whole new front finder/front panel section on the car. I took the finder and finder well off the doner
car in one piece, with the cut along the floor section. This way, I was able to keep
the complete headlight bucket in place. Could not be more pleased with the end
result. Everything lined up perfect. Based on the front clips you have in the picture, if I were you, I would use as much of those in complete sections as possible. Just depends on how much time you have to put into getting it correct. Good luck.

Finally got some time to work on it today. I finished up fabbing the jig and pulled the front suspension off the car.

Here's the jig bolted up to the green car. As you can see there is some major gappage on the passenger side.

I like the jig! Looks like you have plenty of donor parts to do things right.

I wish that the passenger side was the only problem. Unfortunately, the drivers front A-arm mount was pushed over a bit. It looks like I dig in this one a little deeper to straighten it out.

I have a spare driver's side front suspension mount set, both
the front and rear mounts. They look in fine shape. You can have
them for free if you need them.

There is actually a picture of them at the end of my "starting a 1973
restoration" thread.

John

Thanks for the offer John. My mounts are actually in great shape. Unfortunately, the front is about 3/16 too far to the left. It looks like when it was hit, the floor of the front trunk was moved over a bit. I'll have to drill out the spotwelds of the floor and then line it up to the jig. Then I'll weld it back up straight. I'm thankful that the rear mounts of the front suspension are straight. The jig lined up perfect to them. If they were jazzed up I'd be looking for a bench. Without 2 good reference points my jig is useless.

Thanks for the comments on the jig. I measured up all the mounting holes and they all line up square. I didn't spend much time making it fancy. It's kinda ugly looking but it works. It got me back into the swing of welding too. It's been awhile.

Looks like you are doing a good job. Nice welds on the jig by the way.

You should have done your pulls before removing the front panel. Even with the damage as it was, the connecting panels would help bring the remote damage that traveled around the box back in line. Think about the uni-body as a box shaped bird cage. If you pull on one corner the other corner move. If you cut the bird cage and repete the pull only the section your working moves. Not the worse think in your case as the damage looks minor. It just makes it a little harder to get both right and left pick up points to move as one and not spread apart from one an other. Make a cross bar to maintain the space between your front right and left suspension pick up points. Bolt it in when you pull the chassis.
You need a way to do a down pull. You could drill some holes in your concrete floor and install 1/2 anchor bolts. Then make a bolt on bracket for the pickup points. Then attach chains to the bolts and brackets in a circle shape. This is called a Vector pull. Build a spreader like a turn buckle (or if you have a port-o-power use that) and install it between the looped chain. Then use the turn buckle to take the slack out of the chain. you will likely need 4 bolts in your floor. This will hold the chassis to the floor. Use the same method on the high corner only use the turn buckle to spread the chain til the corner starts coming down. Use a wood block and a BFH to relieve the stress. You will probably notice you will need to add stands to stop the chassis from doing what you don't want it to do. You may also notice once the right corner starts coming down the left corn may start to move over.

Nice fixture BTW. Stay at it. You'll get it. I've done lots and lots of uni-body repairs. I even had a Cellette. You just have to think about how to reverse the impact. And don't go crazy with a BFH Light hits. use Wood blocking to span a larger area when using the BFH.

Thanks for the tips Rick. I was hoping an experienced body work type guy would pipe in. I don't have much unibody experience. I used to work on cars and trucks of the 40's and 50's. A big hammer and torch was about all I needed. I should have tried the jig before I pealed stuff apart. I think your right in thinking that the drivers side mount will slide into place when I pull down the passenger corner. I'll rig up a way to do the pull this weekend.

Your my hero Rick. I took your advice and rigged up a way to pull the suspension mount down. It still needs to go a bit lower but it's working out great. Here's some pictures of the plates I made up to make the pulls.

Here's a before picture.

Here's an after.

Nice work. Leave the pressure on it and use a block of wood and a BFH and carefully tap on the points that showed stress. Don't over do it. It will help relieve reverse the damage.

With some good advice and a BFH I finally got the front end straight. The driver side front mount slid right into place when the passenger side was where it needed to be. I'm going to leave the fixture bolted up while I replace the fender, headlight bucket and the front panel. That way it will all stay straight.

The front trunk floor needed some work too. I got that real close. It still needs a little love with a hammer and dolly block but it's almost there.

Here's the after pic.

Nice work. I'm sure you noticed you needed to over pull some because of spring back. Another one saved!

For the last week I haven't seen much progress. I was busy taking apart my donor front quarter for parts. I wish they were in better shape but they'll work. I'll have to do some rust repair and fill some holes. In this picture I installed the headlight bucket and tacked on the front panel. As I stepped back to admire my work I just about freaked. It looked like the passenger side was still tweaked. Here's a pic.

My wife then reminded me that the garage floor is sloped towards the drain. There was some hope for me yet. I broke out my level and crossed my fingers as I jacked up the driver side.

Thankfully it all worked out. My sloped floor almost gave me a heart attack. With the car level it's all good.

Here's a shot of the headlight bucket. I'll cut out the rusted stuff and replace it.

very nice job

Thanks Joseph. I got a little more done today. I'm finding out that the drivers side had some prior damage too. Now that I've got the passenger side lined up nice I'm not liking how the drivers side fits.

You can see it alot better in this picture. The front panel must have been hit and pushed down on the drivers side. Looks like I'm in need of a drivers side front panel. Does anyone sell replacement panels for the front?

A couple more pics of what I got done today.

The winter was way too long. I got back to work on the 914. I didn't like how the headlight bucket sat up about 3/16 high on the passenger side. I also didn't like the rust in the hood seal area. I found out that the inner fender was still a bit tweaked. I installed the bucket to the inner fender first and got what you see in the picture above. I drilled that out. Pieced together another bucket with good parts and started over. This time I started with the front panel and then worked the inner fender to match the bucket. I much happier with the result.

I also installed my new Getty FG hood. It's sweet. At first I thought it was too flimsy. After opening and closing it about 150 times I found out it'll hold up quite well.

After I got the passenger side squared away I need to clean up the drivers side. It was hit and pulled out at some time in its life. Someone also installed the wrong bucket. You can see how the drivers side bucket is an inch shorter.

I also started removing the fender. I was bummed that the replacement I have has some bondo around the blinker. I don't know yet if I'll fix that one or try and find a cleaner one.

Check out the nasty hood lines around the drivers side vs the cleaned up passenger side. I have some work to do there.

Budman these are the parts I'm looking for.

Maybe one of the west coast guys has a complete good fender. The problem with parts from up here in the rust belt is that the fenders all rust at the lowest point next to the door and up next to the plastic seam strip at the cowl line. It's hard to get a part you dont end up repairing. Then there's a wad of seam sealer packed up inside the fender to the cowl. Even harder to separate the fender from the cowl without damaging your donor part. If yours is good at the door and cowl line you should try to find a way to section it.

I fully understand the thought process with regard to changing the whole piece. Specially with the inner wheel house concern. I think your thinking by splicing the fender in the middle of the wheel opening it's possible to end up with a crooked or miss matched wheel opening. Your right, but if you made a card board templet for the cut line and matched the vertical cut from a donor car to your car you would still be good.

I will take a photo of my idea for you and post it here later today.

OK, I ran out really fast and did this quick. I think there are photos here on the world site of a fender section McMark did this way. As I recall it turned out nice and helps avoid a fit problem when you've had a damaged wheel house.

First find a print shop that makes those big desk top calendars we all used to have until we plopped a lap top on it and decided we didn't need it any more. They will have tag board. (the card board backing for the calendars) This is the best stuff for making patterns.

I didn't fully trim the piece and match it as I suggested but you get the idea. Take good measurements and be sure to take your time when cutting and trimming.

Thanks for the input Rick. Budman (Chris) is out in Az and seems to trip over good cars every other week. He's got one now that I'm trying to get the parts off of. I threw the pics of what I needed up here cause it was easy and I'm lazy.

I like your template idea. My problem is that the fender is wavy between that inner support bulkhead type deal behind the tire and the door pillar. The door pillar was even moved a bit. The bottom is right but when that front corner came up it pushed the top of the window and door pillar down. I don't know if your picking up what I'm trying to say. In short it changed the angle at the bottom of the door pillar where it meets the long. The passenger door closes ok but you can tell it's not quite right. The striker lifts the door up a pinch where it needs to be when it closes.

My plan was to remove the fender and then straighten the pillar out by gently lifting the bottom corner of the door to fix the angle. I suppose I can still do that but not cut the entire fender out. I was thinking that straightening the wavy fender by the door would be a pain with little working room to swing the hammer. From what your saying it's a pain to weld in a complete fender.

Oh, I get it. I was thinking you were just working the inner panel at the gas tank bulkhead not back as far as the cowl pillar. That's a tougher pull. We need a Cellette bench up here in this area of the country with the 914 fixtures. Post a picture of the cowl damage if you can.

Someplace here on the site I think we have chassis measurements. I've never had good luck with the search function but try it.

How does the drivers door fit? If that fits and works properly, take measurements and use it to gauge what is going on with the passenger side.

How does the targa top fit? Is it pushed back on the passenger side?

I thought I had a better photo of this tool but you need one of these. On a 914 you can pull or spread the cowl by cranking this puller/spreader in or out.

This is my M3 I bought wrecked during repairs.

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Here is a photo of the door gap and wrinkled panel over the wheel. The gap at the top of the door was over an inch wide.

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Here it is after I pulled it and worked out the wrinkle in the quarter panel. Most guys would have thrown the panel away but BMW's have serial numbers on all the body panels and I wanted to retain the original sheet metal.

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If you can't find a tool to borrow locally let me know.

Drivers door is perfect and closes smooth as butter. Targa top is cockeyed a bit because the window pillar is jazzed. Passenger door closes and gaps are fine but you can tell that the striker has to lift the door up a pinch to fit right. I want it to close as smooth as the drivers side. I'll post pics tonight. The cowl looks fine too. IIRC the front fender to door gap isn't bad either. The only hint that it isn't right is the targa top fit and when you close the door it needs a little extra on it to latch.

Do you have anymore pictures of that tool? That looks like just what I need. I can fab up something to work similar if I can see what it looks like.

Jmill -

Any interest in loaning or selling that front suspension mount jig you made? Looks great! My 914 was hit in the driver's side front fender at some point and the mounts are definitely tweaked. I have a whole donor floor section with the mounts, but I think I can use the existing passenger side mounts as a starting point. Your jig would make it possible, I don't have a good car to build one off of. Let me know, no rush.

Thanks,

Chris

Yep, just what I thought. I'll get a photo of my spreader. Yes, you can make one with all thread and a piece of tubing. Mine has right and left hand threads so both ends retract or expand But you can get by with one end moving.

Don't move the windsheild post. The cowl is tipped back slightly. Push the cowl back with a spreader. Put the tool at the base of the door latch pillar and extend it to the top of the cowl in line with the dash. This will in turn lift the back of the door and move the top of the windsheild pillar out slightly.

Again, move a little, check it, move a little, check it.

Just for grins, remove the weather seal on the body of both right and left sides. Take a measurement from the base of the pinch weld flange at the latch post to the pinch weld flange next to the upper dash on both the right and left sides. I bet there's 3mm difference. This will continue on up to the top of the windsheild frame. (three thicknesses of a dime) The could show 5mm (five thicknesses of a dime) difference if you go from the lower latch pillar to the top of the winsheild frame.

I took a bunch of pics and really looked at the door. I closed it really slow looking it all over. It seems like the door pillar is fine but the window post is bent down. When I close the door the wing window post of the door hits the window post which pushes the door down and then the striker has to lift it back up. Here's some pics.

More pics.