WOW, my "solid" car aint so solid, but now it is solid!, It is off jack stands!!! Options

[wayne1234]

Well, I decided to look into the new car more that I got from a member on here. there was a trunk floor repair that left a little to be desired. I tried using flux cored mig welding and didnt have much luck, so yesterday I got a tank and some gas @ $200 (ouch) and I was doing some survey work on the front trunk. Let me say I was way too excited to get my car and I looked underneath and saw a couple of rust throughts on the passenger side near the rear but the "longs" where I spent most of my 5 minutes looking was solid. and I though no big deal just a couple of pan spots. and under the new battery tray looked solid from the engine compartment. well under the battery tray "hell hole" was described as" not perfect". there is a piece of metal screwed over the bad stuff. making it appear solid. Then the big suprise, there has been por15 used on the motor mount I thought it looked real rough and when i pushed on it with my finger oops a hole. some poking with a screw driver resulted in the hole you see. the I looked further back at the arm that goes to the rear suspension and it is also por15 with a odd look . more poking and you guessed it a hole. I guess some one thinks por15 is structural. NOT,,, Well I dont mind documenting this because I will fix it right. but hopefully my eagerness to finally get my 914 will make someone else take a second look at the car they are looking at. Mine look great in photo's and even pretty good in person. but it had a dark secret. Now the Real question on the motor mount and (trailing arm mount?) guess that's what its called. what should I paint the back of the metal with and what gauge should I use, should I make drain holes so It wont hold water in the future? Im gonna try to do all this welding with the motor in the car. I fear I will never get the car back together if I take out the motor. Thanks for all your input. Wayne

[highways]

It's good you're motivated to save her. There are alot of other things though that you could also consider diving into though to really make the car nice again. Dropping the engine with 2 jacks and the wheels off isn't hard at all (pelicanparts has the how to article). Then you could start doing stuff like getting the engine tin and other parts powder coated all nice. Get all the bolts and hardware zinc plated. Make room so you can really go to town attacking one rust area after another. You have alot of welding ahead of you to make that car right. MIG welder with variable wire speed and variable voltage, at the low settings, is really the only way to go. I did some hell hole repairs, and suspension console replacement on mine. Then I rebuilt all the suspension (all the original rubber bushings will be compressed and shot). Got some rebuilt brake calipers from Eric Shay- you don't want to be driving with 35 year old brakes. 5 lug upgrade parts from various world members. Now I have a solid car and completely rebuilt suspension. Popped the original engine back in with 115k miles and the car runs great as my daily driver. Haven't done paint yet... but I'll get to it. I've put about $4500 into it and spent about 9 months doing it at a pretty leasurely pace. Could've done it a little cheaper if I wasn't replacing mirrors, glass, various details here and there and ofcourse the 5 lug upgrade. But it's worth it.

Judging by your rust situation, you're going to want to examine the suspension console ears, longitudinals behind the rocker panels, jack points, interior floor boards (scrapping out the tar), seat mount brackets, clutch tube firewall bracket, ect. Like some other members said... your rust situation looks heavy. Good rule of thumb is that for every bit of rust you can see... there's 60% more hidden under the paint extending out from what you see. Getting the car apart is the only way to truly evaluate what you're up against and decide if you should shop for a rust free tub instead. Your car probably has nice parts... use them on a solid tub!

Here's a portion of my project: http://www.914world.com/bbs2/index.php?sho...54896&st=40

If I was doing it again... I would pay to get the whole thing walnut shell blasted and start fresh. And I wouldn't mess with a tub that's much rustier than mine was.