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.

[charliew]

Paul good pictures, A couple of suggestions, if you have a die grinder a set of carbide burrs will really help you out when you need to elongate holes in brackets and other things but I bet you would love what they do to the sealer. I never used them for that but I bet they would work, if the sealer sticks to the burr you could alternate cutters and soak them in laquer thinner or whatever removes the sealer. I guess they would also work in a drill.
The other thing is are you going to use a tube rollbar? If you are will you use a plate that welds to the long? Would it not be a good thing to weld the plate to the original long and then cut the Engman long to fit around it and therefore both pieces would be tied together to the plate?
I haven't decided on a rolbar or not but I think I will install some drilled and tapped plates for the future.
Another question, I don't see any door gap braces. Do you not think the door gaps will change while you are doing this procedure?
Oh yeah, David at Restoration Design called and said they were starting to tool up for some more outer long addons so it won't be long to get them. I guess I'll need some new sills and triangles to put back on them. I don't think I can remove the originals without destroying them.
Going great keep at it.
Charliew