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]

Then another epiphany hits me. I should be welding on the Engman inner reinforcement piece before I open up the long. That way it will be as strong as possible to resist any warping due to the welds. The hardest part of putting in one of these I've found is preparing the area to accept the piece. In particular there is seam sealer in the corners (especially the front bottom) that is really stubborn. It prevents the piece from mating up well with the inner long. I tried an air chisel, wood chisel and hammer, even pryed at it with a screwdriver. The stuff is just soft enough to stick in place. In a moment of desperation I grabbed my drill with the spot weld cutter still in it and voila! It ground out the crap in no time and was small enough to fully reach into the corner.