Murray,

I agree with you completely. Plan to do it right the first time while keeping it
period correct.

Thanks...John

IMHO, just like a 914/6 it comes down to the VIN number. If you've got a proven race history, then I think as long as you rebuild it with the original bodywork, original paint scheme, etc you can't go wrong. There is obviously a lot of value and beauty in a 'survivor', but some cars just aren't in good enough condition to fill that role. For those cars that aren't 'survivors' a restoration is a reasonable solution.

I think you're doing great stuff here, and I can't wait to see the project evolve.

Another thought,...get and collect every possable(historical) period photograph you can...of the car...Photograph all the original sponsors art work , decals, and lettering on the body panels...photograph the restoration. clean and reuse the major bits and pieces..(example)..The fuel cell can be rebuilt as new. I look forward to watching you restoration progress. .....Murray.

This car is more of a preservation not a true restoration. Which is probably the right thing to do.

If the car had won races or a championship, or was piloted by a notable driver, I would say the only choice would be to do a precise restoration to its former condition as raced.
In this case I think the restoration only needs to be period correct and accurate from an external visual perspective.

A preservation would be to repair/retain as many original components as possible without alteration. I don't see doing it this way as adding value to this car. No one remembers the car except as an also ran.

John, I'm glad your at work on this , can't wait til I see it again.

I wish I could have kept it, but I don't have the Mad Skills that you have, so it is in the right place. I think my friend over in New Smynra still has the Gotti's that I used to have that I know came off a different IMSA 914-6

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And yes, the Jewelry store was a sponsor. John has a bunch of pictures ( & Logbook) of the car in period ( Would always like more)

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Glenn,

Very nice that you have Hendricks' old car. He started racing it when I was a teenager tagging along with my parents at PCA events. I remember when Ray brought that car to a Pocono driver's ed event to shake it down.

Scott

If you have trouble with the sway bar, I may have one, I also have a set of era Correct wide Centerlines..
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Thanks Byron. The bar is kind of rusty, I will post some pictures and see if people
think it is still usable. The arms and ends are good, just the bar.

I think I saw that yellow car on craigslist. I missed those wheels, it looked like
there were few good parts on that car.

I have some period gottis but they are maybe too flashy looking.

John

I have used those wheels on a few rollers over the years, go back to when I was going to back date another 911 I had but not correct for my 71 Toad Hall ..

I was glad to see it go, as I was ready to have a top welded on (I had an extra) and start looking for 73 RSR body parts..

John, those Gotti's you have are more street related and a lot of Corvette owners used them. The "Correct" Racing Gotti's are those that I posted earlier

T.C.

Here is the Gottis that my IMSA car came with
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Those are the wheels I remember from that car

Starting on IMSA 914/6 number 2 (in the background) this winter, hoping to race it in the spring.
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The wooden stand will probably get you through the build. I built a wooden dolly for my 911 project just to move it in, out, in and across the garage while the jig was being assembled. Broke the minute before I slid the car onto the jig, but that was only because of the casters.

Keep working. It can't be that hot down there now.

u

Sorry, OT, TC is there a thread on that bus. I have had a bus, buses, in the family since 1966. Still have some. I would like a much longer look at that one.

Al, I grabbed that picture some time ago, I think the thread might have been on Pelican, back when the stories started popping up about the "Race Taxi", this was a similar build.

John were the fenders all fiberglass or fiberglass on steel?

Glenn,

They are pure fiberglass. They just left 2-3 inches around the edges to glue the
fiberglass to. All the fenders had been damaged and patched with layers of glass
and bondo.

I think we have the same Gottis. Mine have center caps and are painted
differently than yours but they are the same otherwise.

I was thinking of ditching the center caps because you are not allowed to run
them in races now and I am guessing it was the same back then. I was also
going to repaint them in a frosted silver color. Maybe I should paint the centers
gold tone like yours.

What is the history of your other IMSA 914-6?

John

Pedal area is well ventilated. This provides needed driver cooling in long races.

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Can't wait to fix this. Been jonsing for some real welding.



Plus I can actually work under a roof. What luxury.

You can see in the background the first patch on this car that welded on
yesterday.

John

Been ordering a lot of parts lately. I got these reinforced rear control arms with
911 e-brake set up from Eric Shea a while back. They include Chris Foley's
e-brake cable extensions. They are just beautiful to look at.

I also got a set of Koni adjustable rear shocks with coil over perches.

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The front struts also contain Koni adjustables, which are pretty shot. They
compress but don't spring back. I am thinking of having them rebuilt, I saw
a thread on here from someone about it, I think it was Eric Shea.

John

You can just mount new fiberglass now and save the originals
The gold centers would look nice and period correct.
The 2nd IMSA car ran in 1979 and 1980, DNF in 24 Hour of Daytona in 1980
(Photo by Jan Hettler)

Actually those arms look exactly like the arms on the H&H bar on my car. My bar is 19mm, but they also came in 21mm. I still have the old data sheets and installation instructions. I have the H&H non-adjustable 16mm bar on the rear. These are pretty basic sway bar kits, not like the spiffy Tarret and Smart Racing bars.

John,
I went with a smaller fuel cell even though it is not the original, I do not need 22 gallons in a race and I was able to move it back 6" and lower it 4"

first picture 22 gallon fuel cell
second picture 12 gallon fuel cell
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Glenn,

I am doing the same thing, getting a 10 gallon fuel cell and adding more bracing
to the front of the car. I am sticking with dual fuel pumps in the same location
as before with dual relays controlled from switches in the cockpit.

I am keeping all the original fiberglass fenders and buying new ones.

Got new restoration design floors, including the special they are doing now on
the rear floor, reinforcing tracks, and seat mounts. A great deal, I ordered 2
sets (1 for the red car). I think it took less than a week between ordering and
having them on my front door.

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Just gotta flip the car and weld these puppies in.

John

Never mind, I talked to my friend John, and he sold the wheels to someone in Australia.

Did you get a motor yet? My above friend John is now working for Brumos and can't do anything that competes, so he shut down his Porsche Parts business. He is selling everything. He wants to sell everything in one chunk, but get a hold of him, you never know. He goes by "9Werks" here on this board. Send him a pm and tell him I gave you the info. He is up in New Smyrna

T.C.

T.C.

I have a 2.5 motor in the works.

I think the Gottis I have were also used in IMSA racing. I saw a similar set
with no tires on ebay for $2000. I scored getting these for $500 with new tires.

I am thinking of an early 911 for my next project. I have a friend who wants
the red 914 and wants to restore it. We'll see because I'd like to get rid of it
and make room for a new car...

John

Flip Your 914 the CSOB - Redux

Front suspension mount points are toast so I could not rock this car on my 914
rocker. I had to flip it a different way to replace the floor pans. The car has a
solid roll cage in it which gave me an idea.

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I wasn't sure the garage was wide enough to allow for a roll over. Some careful
calculations followed. Car is 150 CM high times pi (mmm pie!) um carry the two,
think about 69, oh f*ck it! Just push it over and see what happens!!!

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Just to make it look dramatic. Car is actually quite stable this way.

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Catch it with an ATV jack. My wife actually helped with the whole thing.

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Gently lower the car down. Did not dent the side at all.

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Best East Coast 914 Choppers glare.

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Now the old floors can come out.

John

Let's open this tin can!

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MMM, tasty!

A little cleanup, a few spot welds to drill out and I will make MUSR 2015.

John

You are a Mad Dog !

I mean that in a good way

Hope you can get it rolled back over when you're done!

Great post and great project! Best of luck!

Konrad

You nutcase!

> You are a Mad Dog !

Its been mentioned before.

Drilled out the spot welds and removed the old floors. Had some help from Sean
and his friend Mike, which saved a lot of time.

Removed all the rusty tubes. The clutch tube is still in good shape. Will put a new
accelerator cable tube back in and weld up all the holes. Will reinforce the clutch
tube while I am in here.

Started cleaning the dash area which has lots of holes, rust and damage.

Much easier to get to this with the car upside down.

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After the floors, still have to fix the hell hole, front trunk, and front fascia.

John

Damn, kudos for rolling the car in your garage...

Still have some work ahead I see..... but looking good!!

Thanks Randall. The whole front of the car is rusted out or I could have used a
more traditional rotisserie. This was the only way I could figure out to get access
to the floors.

I am loving following your build. You are taking it to a level we don't usually
see on here.

John

Thank's! but I'm following this one! Can't wait to see how you're going to fix up the nose. Mine has a front plate that needs to be replaced as well...showing some evidence of previous damage....something I cannot accept.....

keep up the good work and the creative chassis rollers.. loving it!!

Test fitting the new floors.

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You can see how rotten the front of the car is.

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Floors are mostly welded in!

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John

Here is the replacement piece that Terry (914xprs) cut off a parts car for me. He
had it to me less than a week after I talked to him about it, including shipping.
A good guy to work with.

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It had a cut out for an air conditioner, which does not matter to me because I am
putting in a front oil cooler anyway. It will be fun surgically replacing the old stuff
with this. Terry also sent me a new headlight bucket to replace one which was
shot.

I will need to build some kind of jig to preserve the suspension mounting point
positions when I remove the front floor. I wanted to replace the floors first to
have something solid to weld the jig to.

John

Ask Hontec if you can borrow his.

That thought had occurred to me.



I may actually have to use metal to build this jig so it does not warp.

I spent a lot of time derusting, treating, and etching primering the innards of the
tunnel. I also welded in a new accelerator tube before closing it up. These guys
loved to drill big holes everywhere so I have been welding up the ones I will not
need. Fortunately, I have the same size hole saw they used so I can make
patches for their holes easily.

John

No problem, although the trip might be somewhat challenging....

John,

I am curious how the car suffered so much rust damage. Was it left in the open after its racing carrer ended? Salt climate? I always imagine old race cars stored in garages or warehouses, but the IMSA racer must have been somewhere wet.

But, great project and great thread. Good luck and keep it going.

Eventually it was stored in a barn, but the front end must have been wet at some
Point for a long time. All the nooks and crannies were full of leaves and snail shells.
I must have found 100 snail shells in the car. When I opened up the longs to fix
A rust hole they were full of leaves.

The back end of the car is in good shape for a 914.

John

When I found it was in a Barn (really) with some other rusty cars ( Ferrari, Alfa, Renault). The guy was a real car guy and former racer, so I think he just had a thing for cool old cars that just happened to be rusty.

Prior to that it was in Miami ( lots of salt air) and didn't look like anything had happened since it last came off the track. I think it must have been stored outside, maybe under a carport.

The more that I see of it, the more I wish I had kept, but John has the skills to weld that I don't have

T.C.

Built a jig out of scrap tubing to locate the front suspension points.

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The jig is welded to the longs and floor pans. It is reinforced with some angle
iron to keep it from bending vertically.

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I measured the suspension location points and they look like they are pretty
good. The jig was built using plates bolted to the suspension points. I left
the front cross member in because it does a good job of maintaining the
relative locations of 4 of the suspension points.

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I welded the plates connecting to the suspension points last to minimize
any of the other welding warping it and moving their locations.

John

It is not pretty but I think it will do the job. It will only be in place about a week
or two.

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Started cutting out the middle of the car up to the new floor pans.

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Cut out the head light bucket that was badly rusted. Started cleaning up the
metal underneath to see what shape it was in.

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The piece Terry (914xprs) sent me is in great shape with just a little surface rust.
He cut it perfectly up to where the replacement floors start.

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The plan is to remove the center of the old car and replace it with the new piece.
I need to trim the car up to the pinch welds and the remove the opposite pieces
from the replacement.

This is major transplant surgery but it will restore the car to good metal in some
critical areas.

John

Doing these huge panels can be so daunting before starting. But it really is satisfying to bring a trashed chassis back from the brink of death, and in retrospect it's never really that big of a job. (Isn't everything easier in retrospect?)

Mark,

Yeah, its easy!

Why don't you fly out this weekend and help me put it in?

Actually, for you, I am sure it would be easy after building the limo...

I must admit I spent a lot of time pondering how much to transplant before figuring
it would be best to do as much as possible in one chunk.

John

John

Are you going to replace parts along the original spotweld seams or are you going to cut up the old chassis to fit in the new part as it is?


Randall