Peter's Progress Options

[pjf]

Hi All. I've been around for awhile and even made a few posts but I finally got around to starting this restoration thread. My only claim to fame I would say is I was the guy who loaned Willam Harris some beat up steel wheels to finish his paint job. Still don't know why he returned them in favor of his pristine Fuchs.... Anyway, more years back than I'd care to admit I got the idea to restore a 914 and convert it to electric. I've worked on cars on an off and even graduated from the Somerville High Adult Ed Welding Night Course so I figured I'd go for it. A fairly ignorant Ebay winning bid later and I found myself the owner of a 76 from Texas. When the owner said that the right side door had a "latch problem" and the door wouldn't open I figured simple door repair, right? This was before discovering 914World and all the great information here. Things like don't buy 914s that have doors that don't open and don’t get POR-15 on your hootus. The thread by Michelko particularly inspired me to tackle the right side long. You guys are great and I want to thank everyone for their very helpful posts. (I got a “rebate” from the seller by the way).

Anyway here’s the car stripped down. As you can see space is no problem.

[pjf]

Here's a shot that gives you an idea of how much I had to cut away to get to good metal on the right side long. The jackpost area is gone as well as part of the inner wheelhouse to its left. A good part of the bottom edge was shot as well. Under the oval cutout on the right you can see that the bottom edge is OK but its the inside wall under the oval cutout that has to be replaced. In the picture is a patch piece I welded in but it distorted the bottom edge and I wasn't happy with the way it came out. I ended up cutting off all off the bottom edge that wasn't attached to original inner wall metal.