I bought a five lug set up today from a local guy off craigslist. The front is a Boge set up with 3" spacing and M-calipers. I already have a pair so I will most likely be selling these off in the near future.

It's the rears that got my attention. The hubs are originally five lug, not four lug redrilled for five. The guy who sold them to me took them off a 914 he parted out a long time ago and has been storing them ever since for an eventual five lug conversion. He sold them as he has too many projects as is.

Unfortunately, I'm going to be gone for a few days and won't get a chance to dig into these until next weekend. I'm wondering if I may have acquired a set up with 914/6 stub axles.

By the way, anyone have a suggestion on how to remove the big castle nut with the suspension off the car?

Front...

Let me guess, the guy lives in Columbia City, out by St Helens.
I emailed him last night and asked how much he wanted$$. He replied $300.
I said I will take them. He replied Okay they are yours.
He says he can deliver to OC on way to work. Okay, sounds good.
Then I get an email today that the five lug is gone, for $500.
I guess money talks.

Yah... I made him an offer today (actually less than $500) and he took it. Sorry Craig... didn't know...

Yeah, No blame to you. You didn't know.

A decent impact wrench worked for me.

Man, I was way too slow...

So, Bryan... your other struts are 3" as well? I've got a pair of "A" calipers/hubs/rotors, and need some 3.5" struts.

Yup, I'll use an impact wrench on them, but with no car on the other end of the axle, what do I use to keep the axle from turning? My wife recommended I find a couple of strong men to hold it.

3.0" struts only here, no 3.5"... I'm sure there is a set of 3.5" struts out there with your name on them...

My experience was that I was lifting the entire back end of the car off the ground to break those bastards loose. I would take a torch and heat them up a lot then hit them with the impact to bust them loose. a couple days soaking of liquid wrench could help too.

As for being factory six all you have to do is look at the solid rotor to realize that is not the case. However, I am confused as to why they are 5 lug calipers (non vented) but have no extra holes on the rotors. (early 911 rotors working with the 914 hubs?)

great buy.

I'm sure there is... I'll look harder when I have more money

Looks like you scored big on this setup.

914/6 had solid rotors in the rear. What's the price on those 3" front struts? PM me.

Dremel and hammer and chisel, buy a new nut.

Ken

Couple of things:

Nut = Acetylene cherry red and then have a go at it. You may want to use that one solid rotor we see in the picture and, by first removing the backing plate, put it in a vise. You'll have to crank down on it but, if you can get that nut hot enough it will probably spin. All this depends on the proper air wrench as well. They're not created equal.

What is it? = I'd check the front end first for clues. The spline count will probably be 911 for sure however, check the torsion bar thickness. You may have the 17mm 914-6 bars. That would be a clue.

Rears would be easy enough to tell. Hubs should have a 901 part number on them. CV's would be 914 sized CV's. Real -6 stub axles have a cast finish on them. Search a thread by Reid on the subject (Lavanaut) from last month.

The left rear arm would have an extra tab for the heater flapper cable. This is just a simple tab maybe 1" wide by 1.5" tall with a single small sheet metal screw hole in it that a vinyl/cloth strap was looped through to hold that cable on 6's. Bear in mind, these control arms were used on all early 914's so it's nothing unique however, with 901.xxx.xxx.xx hubs, factory stub axles and this tab, you probably have a set off a six...

...now; where that car he stripped?

The caliper in the background is a -4 caliper.

Whats the spline count on the axles?

The front hub looks to be hubcentric which would be later.

If you cant get em off, you can always ask your local wrench to remove them.



Hey Craig cant get all the deals.

I had to spend some today to see what I've got... I took Eric's advice with the disk-in-the-vice technique and heat. My impact wrench loosened the axle nut without too much trouble. I was pretty surprised.

I tapped the stub axle and out came.... what I believe is a 914/6 stub axle! 28 splines, sure looks like one, but I've only seen them in pictures! Can anyone confirm?

Another..

On the front, I measured the torsion bar diameter at 18.0mm with 29 splines. I believe this matches up to a stock 914/4 (stock diameter 17.9mm) bar.

Once I got a hold of a decent impact wrench I just held the drive shaft by hand and the nut came off, sounds like you had similar luck.

If you have a 914/6 rear end, sweet find for sure.

nice score.

you should have known better craig. what are ya? NEW!!? i'll be surpised if the other parts will be avail.

k

Something on those stub axles doesn't look factory. The nubs to be more specific. I could be wrong...

could they be 108 ?

this more interesting than the Dationa 500

The mittlemotor stubs I sold, seemed to have a thicker flange where it
mates with the cv joint, that was my impression of them.

They also could be 911 pieces added to the trailing arms, if not real /6.

Well bought!

Perhaps this solves one of the greatest Porsche mysteries ever... what really happened to the special pair of prototype stub axles meant for Ferdinand Porsche's 914-8. 38 years later, it is a mystery no more...

There are no markings on them. I haven't yet taken them off the CVs, won't be able to do that until next weekend. I'm using a picture of 914/6 stubs from Pelican parts (attached) for comparison.

Here's a picture Andy posted in Reid's thread:



Looks like they could be the real deal.

Excellent! Nice find Bryan

I wonder on the set as I bought & sold a 75 I think years ago. It had a complete 5-lug setup on it. I wonder if you could special order one that way. The car was pretty unimpressive besides. I wouldn't have thought someone made the swap . I know the car made the rounds as I sold it to Craig who later sold it to someone up in Portland. Guy told me they were real 6 rears on it? Car was a 75 though? One o fthe cars I sold I should have hung onto

Not that I know of.

28 splines, yep, you're golden! Nice find. Looks like those things have taken some abuse, I wonder if this is cause for concern? "I" wonder, others here will just know.

Click to view attachment

I don't think so... the grooves are equal on both stubs and and look like they're "supposed" to be there. Strange though, as they are absent in the pictures of other 914/6 stubs... I noticed that too...

I've begun to disassemble the rear trailing arms. I drove out the hubs with a metal pipe and hammer, and then removed the stubs from the CVs. I had to figure out how to hold the axles to loosen the CV bolts with the axles removed from the car. I ended up bolting the already removed hubs to the disks, then clamping the disks in a vice, then fitting the stub inside the hub, which worked just fine.

All I can say is what a dirty, greasy, disgusting mess this is.

Tonight I removed the bearings from the trailing arms. In order to do this atraumatically, I made a homemade bearing puller for about $10 and a trip to Ace Hardware.

Bearing cap and removal... Did I mention what a dirty mess this is?

Bearing cap removed..

My homemade tool in action!

And the result! Held the big bolt with a Vice Grip, turned the nut, and the bearing came out like buttah!

Bearing removed...

Question... the inside of the trailing arm looks as though it has a plastic sleeve in there... am I seeing this correctly? The reason I ask is that I was planning on bringing both trailing arms to the local metal cleaner and have the grease and grime taken care of before I have them powdercoated. However, if these are dipped, the plastic will melt. Anyone know for sure? There's just too much grease in there still for me to get a good look.

I also need to call my local powdercoater and ask him how dirty a piece he'll accept. I know media blasting can clean parts up, but these are really dirty...

There is no plastic in there. Just grease... and dirt.

Did all of the bearing come out? Isn't there suppose to be a cover over the balls?

Please post the specs of the items needed to fab this bearing puller?


Gud yob mon...

Yup, thanks guys. This morning I stuck a magnet onto it, you are right, it's all metal. Off to the metal cleaner these go for a bath.

Thanks Jeff. I used an 8" x 3/4 " bolt and appropriate nut. Of course, different threaded pieces could work. The important parts are: 1) Black piece, which is a "3" fitting cleanout adapter" from the plumbing section of the hardware store. The small end has a 3" ID and just shy of 3.5" OD. The large end (which rest on the trailing arm) has an ID of 3.5" and an OD of 4". 2) 2" diameter washer which mates with the bearing. 3) 3.5" large washer which rests on top of the black plumbing piece.

I added a couple extra washers on top of the large washer as you can see from the pics. This really wasn't necessary. Only needed if the nut is too small for the hole in the large washer.

Also, If I really wanted to get fancy and avoid holding the threads with a Vice grip, I could have added two additional nuts and cinched them tight to one another, then held one with a wrench to avoid gnarling up the threads.

Yup, it's there, it all came out. Hard to see with all the dirt and grease...

Thanks Bryan! That saves me some time...

Looking at the splines, there are two different approaches used to make them.

The ones in your find are machined using a circular cutter that travels longitudinally along the lenght of the spline area. That type of machining would produce the characteristic "V" at the end of the groove (see red arrow).

How would you do it in 1970's? Hans in the machine shop would attach to a mill and enables him to rotate the axle stub around the shaft axis in an increment of 360 degrees divided by the number of splines. Once the axle is held at the first groove positon positioned, Hans moves the bed into the axle to create a circular slot like a keyway, then Hans makes the bed travel longitudinally to cut the slot.
Then Hans cranks the axle stub away from the cutter, and moves the bed back to the start position. He then rotates the axle by one spline amount and resarts the process. Remember, the whole time he is cranking this thing back and forth by hand to make the splines..... Or, maybe a rotary indexing tooling.

For the production splines, you produce the square end in the groove (see blue arrows). To do this, you might use a rotary approach where a really hard spline tool is made that resembles a gear is both pressed into the axle (unhardened state) and and rotated around the axle shaft to produce the splines. Or, a linear broach could also make the square ends to the grooves.

Prolly a few more processes but the point is, they may be a handmade very low volume part.


Ken

Ken, Thanks - Very interesting information...

- Bryan

So what's the secret to removing the rubber bushings from the trailing arms? I heated up the metal around the bushing today, hoping to be able to pull it out in one piece. Yeah, right... Instead, it was bit, bit, by tiny bit of rubber. Is there a trick to it?

I use a simple press. It would probably pay for itself with this job. It's one of those things you can't go wrong with at HF for $99 bucks.

Step 1: Set the shelf to the proper height. Heat the shaft and press it through the fist bushing. You can see the bushing melt like butter as the hot shaft goes through it (settle down Slits).

Step 2: Take a large screwdriver to the "inside" of the now exposed bushing and pry up. You should have to do this 3x before the bushing pops out.

Step 3: Lower the shelf one notch, heat the shaft again and press it back through to it's original position.

Step 4: Raise the shelf one notch, heat the shaft and press it the remaining way through until it pops out.

Step 5: Repeat step 2.

Hope that helps but... if you don't have a press or don't intend on getting one, maybe take these notes to a friend or shop that has one.

Others will weigh in and tell you to burn them out and stink up your garage.