'73 2.0, a yellow storage unit find Options

[arne]

Well, as I posted at the end of my intro thread ( http://www.914world.com/bbs2/index.php?sho...=303932&hl= ), I bought my 914 over the weekend. We've all heard of barn and garage finds, this car was found in a large storage unit.

Details - '73 2.0, 4732924138, yellow. Appears to me to be Saturn or Chrome yellow, but I never looked at the paint plate to say for sure. Will confirm that and correct later. Confirmed, L13M, Saturn or Chrome Yellow. Odometer shows just over 72k miles, seller claims that is correct, but I haven't gone through the paper trail to verify. The car does look like that could be accurate. I am the fourth owner.

Rust seems limited to the battery tray, passenger floor and right sail panel (where water obviously got trapped behind the vinyl). The hell hole looks solid at this point. None of the rust appears to be holes yet. Definitely some work to do there.

The car was said to run when it was parked in the unit, other people not involved in the sale confirmed that it drove in under its own power. Been sitting for 6 years or so. After it got in, the seller began very rudimentary prep for restoring it, but life got in the way. So about all that was done was to pull all the lenses off.

I'm waiting for a flatbed to gather it up now, should have it in my garage later today. Here are a couple of pictures to show the beginning.

[arne]

As you may have guessed from my previous post, I've been going through the brakes this week. I disassembled and cleaned out the front calipers myself, and replaced the rears with a fresh pair from PMB. The master cylinder seems ok so far, and all the flex hoses are braided stainless installed by the PO. I figured I'd try to reuse the existing pads and rotors if I could get good pedal feel.

Today, I took the car for its first real test drive. And the brakes aren't going to cut it this way. The pedal is soft and has a lot of travel. I believe this is because whoever worked on the front calipers last didn't pay any attention to the piston orientation, which caused uneven wear on the pads. Now that I have the pistons oriented properly, the pads aren't contacting the rotor surface properly, and there is a lot of flex in the pads and rotors. No way to fix that without new pads and rotors, at least up front. Which also means new bearings and races. I'd hoped not to have to go this far, this early. But the brakes have to be right, no shortcuts.

Beyond the brakes, the car ran quite well. A bit smelly, I'm going to have to address the oil leaks soon after I get the brakes handled. The transmission shifts well, but seems a bit on the noisy side. The odometer doesn't work, I suspect the little plastic gear has broken. The suspension seemed very harsh and bouncy. I now think that all four dampers are seized, no real suspension travel is happening. That will also need to be addressed sooner than later.

But for now, real progress has been made.