BUILD-OFF CHALLENGE: New 914 owner...what have I gone and done! Options

[Darren C]

Hi everyone,

I have been looking for a 914 on and off for a couple of years now and late one evening I bid on ebay for a car in Desert Hot Springs CA. A real leap of faith for me as I live in Chichester UK!
My first car was a VW Beetle and I’ve owned quite a few air cooled VWs and always wanted a 914, so now almost 25 years later I finally took the plunge and with sweat on my brow placed a last minute bid on ebay on a car I’d only seen in 4 small photo’s on line.
To my surprise I won the 914.
Problem was it lay 8000 miles away from me here in UK. I got hold of the sellers phone number and gave them a call. The car is a 1974 2.0L one owner from new sold in Palm Springs 914. The seller was the owners daughter. The gentleman passed away several years ago and she’d had it parked up on her driveway for 5 or 6 years. From the description in the listing it had a Salvage title due to sand storm damage on the paintwork. It looked reasonably solid in the few pictures I saw, but very sorry for itself with flat tires and bad paint. It was a gamble, but sometimes these things pay off.
I got the car picked up by a shipping agent and taken to Long Beach for shipping.

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2 months later it arrived in Southampton UK

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Last week I went down to Southampton and collected my new project just in time for Christmas.
I was recommended this site from another 914 owner and it's a great relief to find such a large active community. 914's were never sold in the UK, so all are personal imports and a rare thing to see on our roads.
I’m pleased to now join you guy’s and post my restoration progress in getting this little car back on the road.

Regards
Darren

[Darren C]

Month 9

Thanks for the kind encouragement guy’s and congratulations to the other challengers after the results of the second round voting. I’m really enjoying reading others threads.

Day 243

After a busy day I sped home from work and started on the 914.
With the door damp membranes on, I fitted both door cards that I’d scrubbed and scrubbed, then cleaned numerous times to bring them back to life, I re-glued the basket weave edges, new staples and strengthened the hardboard backing with the wood rot hardener I used on the rear bulkhead previously. Then fitted the armrest and cubby on the drivers door. Winder handle and door handle escutcheon to finish off. I managed to find replacement armrest screw plugs that were missing and fitted those to complete.
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On the passenger door panel I fitted the very nice condition pull handle I got from Ron on US ebay, winder and escutcheon. (Ron if you ever stumble across this thread….many thanks for your help in supplying me with superb condition used parts) The lower false cubby that came off my car is broken around the 3 fixing holes at the base so for now I’m deliberating on a repair or trying to find a good replacement (albeit the searching hasn’t shown any good ones up to now)

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I even lined up each winder handle perfectly with each other when the windows are tight up!

With the door cards on it’s almost done now interior wise, just got to sort out those speaker covers. I currently have 2 broken ones off my car, 2 really bad quality (1 broken) Auto Atlanta ones and a single presentable RH one I got from Ron on US ebay. I also have just had a UK source for more, so hopefully it will sort itself out. I’ve already bought some new 4” speakers to go behind them to compliment the Blaupunkt, so itching to get the job done now!

The biggest challenge is in such a narrow (8 feet wide) garage with 7 feet wide door, is working on the car as when the car is parked centrally I cant open the doors more than 6 inches, so its either push it outside each time (which in UK is not great as it rains 50% of the time, or keep pushing it over to one side or another so I can get a door open 12”. I’ve fitted some foam pads on the garage wall to stop any damage as most times I’m having to push the car door against the garage wall just to open it enough to squeeze in!

Day 244

Today I made good progress and after all the preparation and pain I finally got the new Genuine Windshield fitted single handed (no UK Auto Glass companies would entertain fitting it using the Butyl method) so I stood inside the car reaching over using a set of rented glass suckers.

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With the weather being hot again this afternoon it was ideal to warm everything through and help the Butyl ribbon become more workable. The screen went in a treat and sat neatly on the packing pieces to hold it central in the aperture. After a couple of hours of massage in the heat of the sun I got it sitting nicely down with the butyl compressed to give a wide adhesion and room for the ali trim.
The next thing to do was to mask up the paintwork around the screen to avoid any accidental damage when fitting the surround trim. I then used a small modellers brush to paint the body surround with waxoil under where the trim fits. This in combination with the caulking I put around the plastic clips should stop/restrict any rust forming where water sits. Starting with the lower piece first I carefully fitted the two corners to it and slipped them fully on each end. Having measured and marked the centre I carefully clipped it down working outwards to each corner. When reaching the corner before the final clip, the corner joiner piece was then adjusted to suit the aperture. Lastly before clipping the trim into the last lower clips I slid in the two remaining parts of the surround trim into the lower corners and set how far they slid in (the height) with the top of the aperture. The top link cover piece was slid onto one of the side trims and then the lower corners clipped in and working up the pillar I carefully clipped the rest of the trims in place. The top centre link piece was slid out onto the other trim and set 50/50 in the middle of the car before clipping the surround into the last clips. The masking tape was then carefully removed.

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All that was left to do was fit the recently refurbished rear view mirror. I’d purchased a genuine stick pad from Porsche on the 914 part number so carefully fitted it to the mirror. The adhesive on these sticks better when warmed up, so I left it on the black granite worktop in my conservatory this morning so that it was warmed right through before applying the sticky pad. I used masking tape on the outside of the Windshield to mark the mirror position (measured from my old shield) and cleaned the inside of the glass thoroughly.
The sky had clouded over by now and it had gone black with approaching rain (there’s UK summer for you) so I needed to warm the windscreen to aid the mirror to stick well, so pushed the car back into the garage which was like a small oven after having sun on the roof most of the day. Since there is no power in the garage I couldn’t warm up the screen easily so had to think of another method.

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This hot water bottle did the trick and after 10 minutes the glass was toasty warm, so I fitted the mirror firmly and left the heat to do it’s magic while the bottle cools overnight.

Day 245

This morning my son was due over at 9:30 for more driving lessons so I started very early on the 914. With the screen in, I was itching to fit the wipers, I’d bought new Bosch blades but had yet to sort the arms out. Being a Desert car I can truly say the wiper arms looked like they’d been half sand blasted. They were completely peppered on the underside (facing down to the scuttle) and lightly peppered over the rest of the arm. The only thing to do was to strip off completely the remaining black paint. I did this with numerous coats of paint stripper and a wire detail brush in between until every last bit was off. Next the arms were red scotchbrited to clean them up and key the surface.

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With the sun out this morning I hung them from the washing line and gave them a good few light coats of etch primer, and left them to dry until tomorrow.
My son arrived and we spent most of the day out driving in the Morris Traveller before calling into Mc Donalds for a bite to eat mid afternoon. All went well except a real pain in the ass late 50’s cashier lady at the gas station who refused to let my son fill the car up at the gas pump as she thought he looked under 16.A very heated and loud argument followed as I was NOT impressed. He was driving a car on L plates, yet she wanted proof he was over 16 to use the gas pump. It’s not as if he’d walked in off the street with a can. He’d left his wallet at home so I showed her the cars Title in his name and his certificate of insurance to drive the car as a learner. Because neither had his date of birth she refused to accept them, even though I maintained he needed to be 17 (in UK) to drive and have this insurance. I did cause a bit of a scene I admit; but god help us, why can’t common sense prevail! She totally refused to authorise the gas pump after watching him drive the car in and it was also on CCTV so I called her a few choice names and left in a huff, while others in the queue witnessing the charade had a go at her on my behalf.
Anyway we got home and both took out our frustration with some flatting and polishing with T-cut on the Morris Travellers paintwork. The deal is; for every lesson, we T-cut a panel on the car so hopefully by the time he’s ready for the test the car will look very nice indeed.
This evening I started again on the 914. I’m sort of resigned to having to make good speaker covers out of the collection of damaged ones I have, so started by stripping my old ones down.
The speakers say made in Japan ??? and were held in with 4 small bolts in each corner of a multi-ply card mounting plate. The card plates were all flimsy and the black tissue type speaker paper on the outer side was holed and rotten. I decided to drill out the rivets holding the old speakers so I could use the ply card as a template to make new ones.

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This is where it gets quite interesting…..
The ply card plate looks professionally made and mass produced. The rivets are pan head so need a machine to install. The card is die cut and again needs a machine to manufacture like this.
When the rivets were out the ply card pieces came apart to reveal this…

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Printed card from some old Children’s game set, possibly to teach Japanese children English? The manufacturer must have recycled old toy box card to make the 914 speaker mounts!
Suffice to say I plan on making a much better mounting plate over the next few days to hold my new speakers in place.

Day 246

This morning the etch primer was well and truly dry on the wiper arms so I gave them a couple of coats of satin black and hung them back up in my conservatory and left for work.
At lunchtime I had to go over to the local Volvo dealer and pick up a new ETM for my V70 which failed on me on Saturday morning. I also got the steering wheel for the 914 back, but on close inspection the trimmers hadn’t done a very neat job on the stitching so I rejected it and asked them politely to do it again. I’m getting quite frustrated with trimmers. This was a different one from the knee roll guys and came highly recommended. Unfortunately it looks like an 11 year old stitched it up in their first attempt at needlework. If this was a prank TV show I may have thought it was a wind up. A real pain as they’d had it for a couple of months and its not easy moving the car in and out of the garage and over to one side or another to work on it without a steering wheel. Anyway I’ve made my thoughts known and given them an opportunity to do it right so let’s see what happens.
Anyway after getting home tonight I changed the ETM on the V70 which took 2 minutes to unbolt then 1 hour to get the wiring lead free! The lead runs behind the starter motor but the multi plug on the end is too big to fit around the starter so you have to remove the bloomin starter motor to pull the lead free. Great engineering that is!
As it started to get dark I managed to fit the new blades to the 914 wiper arms then fit the arms to the car. I was puzzled again about the wiper positioning and having purchased genuine Bosch blades I wasn’t happy how the drivers side sat on the screen. The blade didn’t follow the curvature of the glass at its end (near the chassis plate) it stuck out in mid air. After some research it was apparent that the new Bosch blades have evolved over the years to better suit the modern flat screens and therefore don’t bend as much as they used to. In comparison with some blades on my other cars I have from the 70’s the new blades are more “chunky” in comparison to older designs and pivot & flex less. Despite my best efforts, the only way to get the tip to sit better on the 914 screen is to bend the end pivoting section of the new Bosch arms to a slightly greater arc so that it allows the rubber blade to sit closer to the glass.
Using the Haynes manual guide I set the two blades (post 71 year car) to as close as I could to the recommended 20mm gap before it got too dark to see.
Moving into my workshop I started on the passenger false door cubby repair. I used a strip of 1mm stainless steel about 300mm long folded to an angle about 10mm x 15mm. This was placed inside the base of the damaged cubby from the inside and the screw holes marked on it. Removed and drilled with 3 x 6mm holes, I de-burred and roughed up the surface with 80 grit on both the angle and rear of the plastic cubby. Using polyurethane panel adhesive I bonded the angle onto the back of the cubby to give it strength across the base where the screws pass through and also bridge the gap where the broken and missing piece went around the end hole. The cubby was then clamped in my vice and mole gripped with protective packing pieces at each end and left to dry for the morning.

Day 247

Today I carried on with the passenger door cubby repair. The bonding agent on the 4” long angle stainless reinforcement was dry this morning so I cleaned up any excess that had squeezed out. Since the cubby had been damaged before I got the car the pieces were completely missing around the mounting hole.

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With the stainless angle in place I had a good base so taped up the edge and hole to make a trough (mould) and mixed some flexible plastic bumper repair 2 part resin and poured it into the mould and let it dry while I went to work.
This evening when I got home I filed and sanded the resin down to blend in and re drilled the hole.

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The repair was finished off with a light coat (localised only over the repair) plastic bumper texture coat rattle can spray. Not exactly a grain texture, but close enough to hide the repair to the eye.

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Working inside my shed I had no issue with light, so carried on and made two Aluminium speaker mounting plates with hacksaw, drill and file to match the cheap cardboard originals.
With 3mm aluminium sheet there was no need to make the sound obstructing X in the centre, so hopefully they’ll be some better sound from my new upgraded 4” speakers.

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By the time I’d drilled all the holes and cleaned off the burrs it was time to call it a day.

Day 248

Today was an interesting day, I spent most of it having my leg pulled at work. I was unintentionally on the ITN TV 10 o’clock News last night and more people than I’d hoped had seen me. In fact it was a tea spitting out surprise when I happened across it myself last night.
Yesterday was the UK Media launch day for the new Rolls-Royce Dawn, that I have been involved in helping design and put some of the infrastructure in place for manufacture over the last 3 years at work. Last month there was a lot of secret filming with Jodie Kidd and that was all last minute.com to sort it out. I can tell you now as it’s no secret any longer with the cars launch at the Frankfurt Motorshow.
Anyway this is a Porsche thread so I’ll stop there; but if anyone wants to discuss, know more, pm me.
Moving on…
This morning I sanded down the speaker plates to key them and gave them a couple of coats of satin black before leaving for work.
During lunch I had a bit of a run-around looking for some speaker cloth. The plan is to mount the new speakers in the new brackets then cover the face with black speaker cloth before fitting into the housings. My new speakers have little in built tweeters in the centre that are a bit of chrome bling and would stand out a mile looking through the bars of the speaker housing so the material should hide them and do the trick. Anyhow the two places I had enough time to visit were out of stock, but hopefully I have a 3rd in mind tomorrow so will ring ahead this time to save a wasted journey.
This evening when I got home I gave the mounts another coat before starting to make a good set of speaker housings from the damaged ones. Fortunately I have most of the broken bits and enough damaged housings to cut up and make a good set.
I started the same way as the door cubby with bending up some thin stainless sheet. This time though, because I had broken bits I could carefully glue them back together with ABS plastic waste/drain pipe adhesive from the plumb centre. I’d tried a bit on the rear of the housings a few days ago to determine what type of plastic it was and which solvent glue dissolved it or just set on the surface and peeled off. The former I found, was the standard ABS glue for the white plastic household waste pipes. Carefully applying a tiny amount to the pieces I glued them back together and made the missing pieces (like a jigsaw) from the spare damaged housing I have and glued them in too. After about half an hour it was dry enough (but fragile) to use the polyurethane bond to attach stainless re-enforcing plates behind the joins. I’d key sanded the back of all the pieces before gluing together and sanded the stainless to key that, so the housing was ready to bond on the plates already. Cleaning and tidying it up I’ve left them to dry now until tomorrow.

Day 249


Today I spent the day finishing off repairs to the two damaged speaker housings. Much like the door cubby but I discovered they are made of the same plastic as the rear light housings. Since I polished them with Brasso to a fantastic shine I gave the speaker housings a go too. There are multiple repairs where I’ve glued them back together and made new bits to fit in where parts were lost, so a 1200 grit wet and dry was require over the joins before the Brasso.
I’m really pleased how they’ve come out, and challenge anyone to spot the repairs!

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Brasso polish is wonderful on this type of plastic for turning a sows ear into a silk purse.

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With the housings all done now I riveted the new speakers into the newly made mounting plates as per the ones I’d removed. The rivet heads were blacked out with a little paint and left to dry.

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Due to the numerous bits of stainless re-enforcing plates behind the plastic housings, I had to cut out a small relief in one of the speaker plates to give clearance for it to fit (top plate in picture)
At lunchtime today I called ahead and found a supplier with black material in stock to cover the face of the speaker and plate. They cut half a metre off the roll which was the smallest amount they do and asked for 49p I gave them a pound £ and said keep the change.
The plan for tomorrow is to cover the face of the speakers and fit them in the housings ready for assembly at the weekend.

Day 250

Today I fitted the speaker cloth to the new speaker mounts and fitted them both into the housings ready for putting into the car tomorrow. It was a busy day (& week) at work so I was late home tonight and after food shop it was almost 9pm before I could start on the 914, but at least I got an hour in and finished the speakers off.

Day 251

Today was one of those days where everything seemed to fight me.
With a glorious sunny morning I pushed the car outside so that I could open the doors fully and decided to take the knee roll back out.
Since fitting it a couple of weeks ago, I wasn’t happy with the way it now bolted in to the car. The knee roll was sitting ever so low and the stainless trim had a small 2-3mm gap before the basket weave panel. After some thought over the last week I realised the new vinyl used to re-trim folded over and glued behind the knee roll whereas originally it stopped on the edge. With the roll bolted in the new vinyl “return” was sandwiched between the roll and dash which was holding it down 2-3mm; particularly where it was folded over itself and 3 or 4 layers thick.
The only solution was to unbolt it and cut it back.
There was also an issue with the dashcap that was fitted to the dash before fitting the dash back into the car. This when put back in was pushed down ever so slightly on each end above the vent grilles as it squash back in between the windscreen pillar trims. This also pushed the knee roll down and added to the gap along the bottom of the basket weave.
Anyway I spent 4 hours on it this morning, cutting back, trial fitting, taking out again for more fettling and refitting a few times before I was 100% happy with it.
Once back in the stainless trim was close up to the basket weave and I could finally fit the rebuilt speaker grilles and test the Blaupunkt. All good!

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I also fitted the repaired false cubby to the passenger door. Again it fought me for a while trying to get the 3 screws to find the holes in the steel of the door. I had to take it on and off a few times and add a little vertical pressure and use a scriber down the holes to guide it in. I didn’t want to drill any more holes in the door for the screws but after a frustrating half hour I got the first one in. After that the remaining two followed with ease.
All that’s left now is the steering wheel and the interior will be complete.
I also completed another job that's been bugging me over the last few months. The door hinge bolts. Taking them on and off, in and out, had chipped paint off the bolt heads and washers, so I carefully removed them one at a time (to keep the door alignment) and cleaned any chipped paint edges before putting them back in and then repainting them with a modellers brush. Over the course of the day I got two good coats on each bolt.
After a bite to eat I decided as it was such a nice day to wash out the engine bay. Since going into the paintshop, despite being covered it was absolutely full of dust from sanding down the original paint and flatting water mess from the primer, plus general dust from filler off other cars sharing the paintshop. It took a good couple of hours to get it half decent using 3 buckets of water, sponges and numerous detail brushes. Paint & filler dust is really difficult to clear as every time the water dried the white stains returned.
With it eventually clean, I pushed the car back into the garage and placed it on four axle stands.
This was a small milestone in the restoration. I’d wanted to get the wheels refurbished for a long while now but having to have the doors wide open refitting interior I need to be able to keep pushing it in and out of the narrow garage so the wheels had to stay on.
The plan now is to take them into work and get the tyres off at lunchtime so they can have the anodising electrochemically removed for selective polishing.
In the meantime while they are away over the next couple of weeks I hope to clean and refresh under each wheel arch and complete a few remaining mechanical jobs.

Day 252

Today I picked my son up early doors and we had a few hours driving lessons in the Morris Traveller before finishing at noon by taking it to a local Classic car show at Chichester College.
The weather was glorious and 3 Porsche turned up amongst the many cars, 2 x 911SC’s and a 924 turbo, no old school unfortunately so we got our fix looking at some early VW’s.
Mid afternoon we returned home and flatted and polished the orange peel and cellulose fade from the front wing of the traveller (as per our agreement; 1 lesson = 1 panel to make good)
With a gorgeous summer evening at hand I took the Delorean out to blow off some cobwebs and drove my son back to his mums.
Getting back home I started by cleaning under a wheel arch of the 914.
The PO (a one owner car from new) had had the car spray undersealed by Porsche when it was new. This is a black coating and is everywhere under the arches and over the floor pan. Good news to stop it from rusting when new, but a bit of a pain now 41 years later when some of it has flaked off.
There are sections where it falls off in flaky sheets to reveal nice shiny Alaska Blue paint underneath as they must have just sprayed it on without keying the surface.

I have a quandary now.

Do I spend the rest of my days scraping it off with a plastic scraper or do I remove the loose and re apply new all over?

My OCD would like to see mirror polished blue paint under the car, but if I do this I’d be too scared to use and enjoy the car. Since this was a dealer option do I just re coat it all (knowing that the shiny blue paint and good metal is underneath?)


Anyway after a couple of hours with my head inside a wheel arch, looking like I’d been down the mine, I called it a day, and swept up all the loose scrapings with a brush and pan.
As it started to get dark I moved the wheels closest to the garage door ready for loading up in the morning to get the tyres removed.
I thought I’d take a quick picture for the records of the California Desert Sun UV and age degraded tyres.

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And in close up…

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I’m gobsmacked that the shipping company pumped these up with air to load the car almost a year ago and NONE of them have gone down in that time.
Loading on the flat bed truck to take it to the paintshop made me flinch a little when the ratchet straps pulled down on them, but nothing….they just kept on holding air pressure.
Unfortunately I think the Ministry of Transport inspector would have something to say if I kept them on the car. Even if I did like Anthony Hopkins did in “The worlds fastest Indian” movie and filled all the cracks with boot polish, I don’t think it’d be wise to drive on them.

After a search on here.. this evening I found this:

http://www.914world.com/bbs2/index.php? ... try1247057

It took this guy almost a whole YEAR to get all the original spray on black underbody guard off. Great result, mind numbingly boring and I could restore another car in that time. Trouble is, it does look very nice indeed. I think I’m gonna opt for the “restore” the Porsche applied stoneguard; otherwise I’m not gonna meet the Build-Off-Challenge fix the car up in 12 months deadline!

Day 253

Today I took the 5 wheels over to my local tyre fitters at lunchtime and got the tyres taken off. They tried to lecture me on how dangerous the tyres were to drive on! I had a bit of fun telling them I wanted to put them back on the car when my wheels had been refurbished so that I could keep the car original for concours purposes...the chaps face was a real picture!

I've also noticed that one of the gearbox drive shaft seals has started to weep (since draining and filling up the box with fresh oil, they were bone dry before?) I called Porsche Centre and ordered 2 new ones. I'll replace them while the wheels are off & away. Better to find the leaks now than after the cars back on the road. I'm sure in the first few months of it being used they'll be more things show themselves.

Tomorrow I plan to take the wheels down to my friend who runs a wheel refurbishment company to have the rear of the wheels cleaned up. The alloys are part polished then anodised which I intend to replicate but the rear of the wheels are a little scabby so need a bead blast to get a good finish before they can be re-anodised.

This evening I carried on cleaning the paintshop dust from the arches and underside of the car concentrating on the lower bulkhead where all the cables and pipes pass through. I’d previously cleaned and waxoiled this but it was covered in white dust. It also gave me a chance (now the cars reasonably high up on axle stands) to get a better fit on the recently replaced throttle cable ferrule to the tube on the car. I also tidied up the fuel return pipe as it hadn’t gone back in all the clips correctly.
I managed to get 2 hours cleaning in before my LED torch ran out of charge.

Day 254

Today I dropped the wheels off at the wheel specialists and had a long chat about cleaning up the rear of the wheel without touching the outside, or the inner rim inside the tyre.
This was a first for the company who have never had a customer who just wants the inside of a wheel cleaned up!
The wheels are going to be electrochemically stripped of the factory clear anodise, then carefully polished (in all the right places on their faces) before going back to have the clear anodise coating electroplated back on.
The wheel specialist is only cleaning the rear of the wheels because there are some tiny, tiny spots (like freckles) of corrosion in the factory anodise that the electroplate removal wont clean up. The polishers can’t do it either as it will give a too smooth finish on the rears. Gentle bead blasting will leave a more “factory” look and clear out the oxidisation to leave an even finish all over that can then be clear anodised at the end of the face polishing.
I left them in good hands and called in at the motor factors to pick ups some more waxoil on the way back to work.
This evening I spent 3 hours under the rear RH wheel arch washing, scrubbing and cleaning all the dirt out of the ripple stone guard and suspension parts.
I took extra care to clean the inside of the return lip of the wheel arch itself to get every bit of muck out of there. After multiple buckets of water I started to make progress, which last night and early tonight was not in sight. LED torch all charged up I reached in and cleaned all the way behind the door slam panel, up to the base of the roll bar fin, down to the sill and right around to the rear lights. Sitting in a puddle of muddy water in the tight garage I was soaked through up to my waist by the time I got to rinse and wipe it all with a clean cloth.
Finally I started to clean all the splashes off the trailing arm and the shock absorber. I’d placed a carrier bag over the brake disc so it stayed clean (after washing off the paintshop dust last night)
Desperate for a change of scene I started with a plastic scraper to get the underseal off the trailing arm. It looks like they were quite lazy when they applied it, and masked off the bare minimum (if anything at all). It is all over the trailing arm at the pivot mounting. Scraping it off gently revealed nice satin black paint underneath and a white “K” in a circle stamp that the originality guys rave about.
Having taken 3 hours tonight and a couple last night and seen how the underseal was sprayed right inside the arches all over everything and right up to the inside of the door latch panel; to strip it off completely would be a hell of a task.
With my head stuck inside the arch for 3 hours tonight I have decided to keep the coating on the car (after all it is original Porsche), remove the flaky bits, locally re-apply the missing bits and then black it all out with black waxoil. I will however clean it off all the bits it shouldn’t be on, like the suspension etc. I did consider the suggestion of painting body colour over it, but having done this in the past on other cars, it looks bad with stone chips and you can never guarantee its going to adhere or if the old coating flakes off underneath (or you’ve missed a loose bit during prep) it looks bad when it comes away and isn’t easy to touch up. Added to the fact Porsche never body colour painted over it on the 914 (as far as I’m aware), it was either undersealed or left smooth in body colour.
As you can see I’ve talked myself out of scraping it all off to appease my OCD!
Only 3 more arches to wash before I can start on the underseal repairs.

Day 255

“Underneath the arches
I dream my dreams away,
Underneath the arches
On cobble stones I lay,
Every night you'll find me
Tired out and worn,
Happy when the daylight comes creeping
Heralding the dawn.”


This morning an hour before dawn I started on the rear LH arch and got the first scrub/wash complete before needing a bath and leaving for work.
At lunchtime I called in a Porsche Centre and collected the driveshaft oil seals ready for the weekend.
This evening after work I returned to the rear LH arch to continue cleaning.
I managed to get another 3 hours in. I’m pretty knackered tonight having spent 5 hours under the same wheel arch and managing 8 hours at work!
Anyway its starting to look clean under there.
I’m still amazed by the condition of the bodywork on this 41 year old car. Having cleaned mud, dust, spiders webs, leaves, pine needles and lots of fine desert sand from the textured underseal there is no rust anywhere I can see.
Here’s a picture from inside the rear wheel arch looking outwards behind the arch return edge, had this been a European car it would have started to rust within months with such a thin coat of paint and missed completely with the underseal.

(IMG:http://www.914world.com/bbs2/uploads_offsite/i265.photobucket.com-18255-1467144814.21.jpg)

Looking down the arch to the bottom where it meets the longs/sill, it’s absolutely solid here. Unbelievable when you think this is where all the mud and dirt collect on the horizontal ledge. Washing and cleaning it all out I couldn’t fault the car anywhere.

(IMG:http://www.914world.com/bbs2/uploads_offsite/i265.photobucket.com-18255-1467144814.22.jpg)

With the white primer showing through a dusting of blue paint and missed entirely with the underseal (due probably not being able to get in at the right angle to spray it) I will certainly get in there and make sure its coated with maximum black Waxoil to keep it from rusting in our UK climate.
Despite all the hard graft in getting it super clean before applying the waxoil, it’s certainly worth the effort when you’re working on an old car in this superb original condition.
Just the two front arches to clean now.

Day 256

Today I have spent another 4 hours under a 914 wheel arch.
This time I’ve cleaned the LH front.
Getting a bit tired with it now, but only one more to go!

Day 257

Today I finished another 4 hours washing the dirt off from under the last wheel arch (Front RH tonight) Not much to report just a long hard slog this week but finally got there.
The plan tomorrow is to locally repair the flaked off underseal in all arches and while that dries I can get the gearbox driveshaft seals replaced.

Day 258

Today I started to replace the Driveshaft seals on the gearbox. After a bit of a struggle with the CV joint bolts They came out to reveal some very dry molybdenum grease and on further inspection the CV boot rubbers had started to perish at the base of the concertina mouldings. To be fair by the state of the grease they need stripping down cleaning and re-packing with grease, so it’s a good time to replace the boots. (Will order some up on Monday)
To ease access of cleaning (and to do it properly) I removed the castleated nuts and pulled out the hub shafts with the driveshafts. In this way I can get all the crusty old grease out of them and also clean the dirt and sand from inside the large hole in the trailing arms later in the week.
Next I removed the O/S drive flange from the gearbox to access the first lip seal. I cleaned the old grease out of the recess in it and almost cut my finger.

(IMG:http://www.914world.com/bbs2/uploads_offsite/i265.photobucket.com-18255-1467144815.23.jpg)

All around the inside chamfer there was rubbing and burring? I cannot see how this could of happened unless the CV joint had failed/Circlip come off in the past or shims had been required and been lost?
The oddest thing is that there is no visible wear on the CV joint that was attached to it? I inspected the other end of the driveshaft in case someone had taken them out in the past and put them back the otherway around. (inside to outside) but no wear on either end? The only explanation I can think of is that a CV joint may have been replaced in the past.
Despite the wear not getting in the way of anything, I wasn’t keen having the mushroom burrs on the flange because if they broke loose; small bits of metal could get into the CV Joint and ruin it.
I put the flange in my lathe and turned down the burrs so that they were gone.

(IMG:http://www.914world.com/bbs2/uploads_offsite/i265.photobucket.com-18255-1467144815.24.jpg)

This was the easiest way I could think of the get down inside the flange to remove them. I was careful not to machine the “dents” out as this would take too much metal off and could possibly weaken the flange. Just taking off bad burrs would be enough. Finally I gave the outer casting of the flange a coat of thin waxoil to protect it.

(IMG:http://www.914world.com/bbs2/uploads_offsite/i265.photobucket.com-18255-1467144815.25.jpg)

With the drive flange off I had new seals and a new O ring so I took the differential cover off so that I could inspect the bearings, gears and clean out the sump of the gearbox.

(IMG:http://www.914world.com/bbs2/uploads_offsite/i265.photobucket.com-18255-1467144815.26.jpg)

All mechanical parts looked good, but there was a fair bit of sludge in the bottom of the gearbox casing that simply taking out the drain plug wouldn’t remove. I cleaned it all out so that it was spotless before turning my attention to the cover that holds the lip seal.
With this removed it was very simple to drive the lip seal out from behind without risking any damage. Once out I cleaned everything up. I’ve been slowly cleaning the engine, gearbox & suspension. When the car was originally undersealed they sprayed it everywhere and splattered everything. It was even on the outside of this diff cover plate! With it off and on the bench I was able to clean it much easier so took the opportunity and then carefully fitted the new lip seal.
With the gearbox cleaned out and dry I fitted the new O seal and put the cover back on and refitted & adjusted the clutch cable. (Need to get a new gaiter for the cable too)

(IMG:http://www.914world.com/bbs2/uploads_offsite/i265.photobucket.com-18255-1467144816.27.jpg)

Need to get a new dust cover for that clutch cable end.

Finally I refitted the RH drive flange with a tiny application of new gear oil on the seal & shaft and tightened up the bolt.
LH tomorrow.

Day 259

This morning I picked my son up early and we spent the morning with driving lessons.
This afternoon I continued with the 914 and replaced the LH gearbox shaft seal. All parts were cleaned up before reassembly. Curiously there was a tiny but of CV joint rubbing inside the flange but no where near what the RH had.
I also managed to do all the local repairs on all 4 arches where the underseal stone guard had flaked off and I'd removed the loose. I used a mini roller with an emulsion head to replicate the spray/stipple effect to make invisible repairs. This will need a couple of days to dry properly before I can black out the whole arches where the original has gone a bit grey. I plan to dismantle clean and rebuild the CV joints over the next few days while this dries.
When I took the car apart for the respray I found that the clips that hold the thin ali trim strip that goes along the bottom of the roll bar fin vinyl, had a big blob of old caulking on them up inside the wheel arch. Presumably to stop water/spray from the wheel running out under the clip on the outside of the car.
With everything dry and clean I used some new caulking rolled to about the size of a marble to cover the back of the new clips up inside the arch to replicate how I found them.

Day 260

Today I contacted Porsche Centre with a list of part numbers for the CV joints. Boots, circlips, gaskets etc. The boots are available rubber only and x ref to same as 911, but if you want them complete with metal bit on the end (with bolt holes) they are sold separately and still available but £29 each!
Annoyingly the cork gaskets that stop all the grease being thrown out at the flange joints are no longer available I'll just have to make some from gasket material.
This evening I started the god awful messy job of taking the CV joints apart. Early diagnosis is not looking good as Desert Sand has gotten into 3 of the joints and the grease is gritty between your fingers. I fear another phone call tomorrow to price up some new CV joints. To replace 3 and not the 4th is a little stupid so it's going to be another expense that I wasn't counting on. They do look like IRS Beetle CV's to me, and at £50 a pop that's £200. It'll be interesting to see if Porsche still stock them. I've got to be careful here as the Beetle & 911 use 6 bolts and the 914 has 4 plus two dowel/rollpins, so more homework is required.
Hey ho; that's how it goes some days with old cars.

Day 261

This morning before work I started to clean up all 16 CV joint bolts (they were pretty manky with old dried grease, sand and dirt) and left them in a small pot of white spirit before leaving home.
Spoke to Porsche Centre this morning. 914 driveshafts complete are STILL available from Porsche. Ordered two as its cheaper than buying all the genuine parts individually (joints, boots, circlips, dome washers etc). Plus I was planning on getting the shafts blasted and powder coated while they were stripped down, so a small saving there too!
The gaskets are a punt. They’re £1.17 each and Porsche Centre said that if they’re wrong I don’t have to purchase them, so worth a try. No big deal if they wont fit, I can make some up out of gasket sheet. It’s still a bit frustrating that the driveshafts are available but the gaskets required to fit them aren’t. ??
This evening when I got home I continued on the 914 with cleaning up the LH rear trailing arm. The front pivot was splattered with old underseal and the painters had got blue overspray on the outer bracket while painting the car and arch returns. I started by carefully scraping it off to find solid steel and original black paint underneath. I was pleasantly surprised to find the outer pivot Philidas nut was still shiny gold zinc plate underneath the underseal and looks like new now. Hopefully tomorrow when I clean the RH it will be the same.
I was also very surprised by the amount of crud that had accumulated in the arm down the driveshaft hole. It was pretty much packed solid with just enough space for the CV joint to rotate. Almost 3/8” thick all around which covered the whole of the old washing up bowl bottom I was using to catch the dirt when I scraped it all out. Afterwards I cleaned everything yet again with a white spirit soaked rag.
Working on late I had to use the flashlight tonight to finish off. With 3 hours cleaning; the LH trailing arm is now clean and ready for a small touch up of some stone chips that I hope to do this weekend on mass with the other side after some more cleaning.

Day 262

Today I picked up the leather covered Steering Wheel. I’m still not 100% happy with it, but I don’t think I’ll get any further with them now. In all fairness I have got this done in exchange for a favour so no money exchanged hands. The stitching is much better now but for some reason they put two joins (top & bottom) in the leather rather than the one I wanted?
In the scheme of things its better than having a UV sun perished crumbling steering wheel, but I know the two join thing will bug me in my OCD kinda way!

(IMG:http://www.914world.com/bbs2/uploads_offsite/i265.photobucket.com-18255-1467144816.28.jpg)

(IMG:http://www.914world.com/bbs2/uploads_offsite/i265.photobucket.com-18255-1467144816.29.jpg)

This evening I continued cleaning the RH rear trailing arm. Like the LH there was a heavy coating of underseal, sand and old CV joint grease, plus the blue overspray from the painters. (Take a look a few pages back in the thread and you'll see how much blue paint & lacquer was on the end of the trailing arms!)
After another painstaking 3 hours I’d scraped most of it off. You can see a lot of it on the newspaper below. There was of course a fair amount up my nose, in my ears and down the back of my T-shirt from lying under the car.

(IMG:http://www.914world.com/bbs2/uploads_offsite/i265.photobucket.com-18255-1467144816.30.jpg)

I was pleased to find the Philidas nut on this side was a lovely bright gold zinc plate under all the crud.

(IMG:http://www.914world.com/bbs2/uploads_offsite/i265.photobucket.com-18255-1467144817.31.jpg)

Again there’s some tiny chips and tiny rust spots but nothing to shout about. I’ll touch it all in at the weekend when I’ll have sunlight rather than flashlight. They’re really quite good condition and don’t warrant a full repaint.

I also took a picture of a localised underseal repair in the LH rear arch, to help explain what I described a few posts ago. The chipped, flaked and missing underseal has been locally touched in and the texture replicated. By the weekend it’ll have had a whole week to dry properly so that I can black it out along with the whole of the inner arches to return it to the same appearance as the car had when it was new (but a bit tidier and not splattered everywhere like it was).

(IMG:http://www.914world.com/bbs2/uploads_offsite/i265.photobucket.com-18255-1467144817.32.jpg)

Day 263

Today I carried on cleaning the rear trailing arms. I removed the last bits of underseal from the arms and the last bit of grease from right up inside the recess where the CV joint goes. I degreased everything with cellulose thinners and lightly sanded the area’s where a few small spots of rust had started.
Having done this on both arms I concentrated on the RH one this evening and used a scissor jack under the rear 4 point jacking plate and took the weight so that I could relocate the axle stand I’d got under the trailing arm. This allowed me to clean up the last bit that was obscured by the axle stand.
With everything cleaned off, degreased and a wipe with a tack rag I repainted the area’s of the RH trailing arm that had been damaged or rusted. I used an oil & fuel resistant paint and a ¼” modellers brush with very soft bristles so that I could blend in the paint and not create brush marks in it.
Before I knew it, it was 10:30pm and with failing LED light, and mosquitoes making a meal of my legs I called it a day.

Day 264

Today started off like any other day in my life, but would end on a very sobering thought.

Throughout my adult life I have been relentless in my acquisition and restoration of cars. Working all hours god sends in my employment and then working another full day on my cars divided between early mornings and late nights.

On average I sleep between 4 & 5 hours a night.

Something had to give….

This morning I continued under the 914 from dawn (4am until 7am) then left for work.
I was driving home from work alone this evening and at 5:45pm on a back road between work and home and I suddenly without warning (suffered what later was to be diagnosed as a TIA stroke while at the wheel) in seconds I was totally blind, and had no control of my left side.
I had no warning, my vision just turned into a Kaleidoscope of nonsense in technicolour, like heavy rain water running over a pane of oily glass. What the hell???
At first I started to blink, thinking I’d got something in my eye, but within a nanosecond I realised it wasn’t an individual eye, closing each eye in turn the image was the same….in another nano second I realised this was neurological, and I was driving at 50 mph at the time. To say I was instantly sh*t scared at the reality of what was happening was an understatement.
I then realised I couldn’t move my left side properly. I was in a manual/stickshift car and couldn’t press the clutch with a dead left leg.
Time went into slow motion as adrenalin rushed through my system.
Thinking quickly I managed to bring the car to a stop using the grass verge at the side of the road feel through my right hand on the steering wheel. I stalled the engine as my good right leg was on the brake pedal as I fought the car, trying not to dig into the verge, just use it as a guide for positioning the car. I didn’t need to run into any of the trees that were lining the road a few feet in from the grass!
Equally I didn’t want to cross the lanes into any oncoming traffic that might be there.
What seemed an eternity of bouncing off the grass blind was in reality probably just a few seconds.
The car came to a halt and I turned off the ignition.
My first reaction was to feel for my phone to dial 911 (999 in UK).
But I had a smart phone.
Ever tried to dial 911 when you’re blinded by a stroke on a locked smart phone?

I thought I was gonna die there and then at the side of this empty road alone.

I opened the door and fell out the car into the road as I couldn’t stand up, blind and trying to shout for help with slurred speech, it was a bizarre feeling not being able to form words. The only way I can describe it is, like being an observer in your own body.
Having seen Military action and been in 2 wars, I have cheated death 3 times in my life in very hostile environments.

This was an irony, my life couldn’t end like this surely?

Lying alone on that road in a desperate way for what seemed like 30 minutes, I certainly had time to think about life. It’s a very humbling experience.

Fortunately a passing car stopped and the guy got out and came to my aid. He rushed me to the local Hospital ER (A & E in UK) while his friend drove my car to the hospital car park behind.

They carried me in and I was rushed straight into a CT Brain scanner,ECG, where doctors poked prodded and tested me into the night.

At 4am I was moved into the stroke ward and surrounded by end of life patients with their families at their sides, thin curtains did nothing to quieten the difficult conversations that were taking place.

I remained in the Hospital for 3 days where a TIA was diagnosed and recovery was being made.

Being a stubborn old mule, I can only apologise for missing 3 days on this months Build-off Challenge it certainly wasn’t planned.


So that was Month 9

It started off at speed and ended with an emergency stop.

The challenge this month was not with the car, the weather, the tiny garage, vendors or new defects to deal with…..my challenge this month was literally not to die…..

My Consultant tells me I must slow down.
My appetite for cars is killing me. Friends tell me the same, but, well, I am who I am, I’d rather die doing what I love.

Here’s looking forwards to Month 10 and living long enough to finish the build and enjoy this 914!

Thanks for taking time out to read my meandering drivel.