Time to un-DAPO the "new" car, Bad things happened to a nice car Options

[BillC]

So, I bought a "new" 914 a few weeks ago (a '73 2.0). When I received it from the shipper, I noticed was the seller was quite artful about his pictures, with what was and what wasn't shown. And, now that I've had a chance to start taking things apart, I have uncovered quite a bit of DAPO-done-damage, and I'm sure there's more hiding somewhere (oh boy! something to look forward too....). Some of the damage appears to have been there for a loooong time.

I've already received a piece from a scrap car to fix this hole:


Once I took the rockers off, I discovered this:

Yes, they hole-sawed through FOUR layers of sheet metal, including the heat duct. Not sure what they were thinking, but there it is.

In the trunk, I found three hole-sawed holes. I think they might have been thinking about mounting the fuel pump in a 75/76 blister, but they never finished the work (and also picked the wrong location).

[BillC]

Time to tackle the hacked-in hole by the foot pedals. Here's what it looked like before I started:


I didn't really want to cut another hole in the car, but there was no way I was going to be able to reform the hacked metal without an access hole on top of the center column. The bit in the top of the hole is the old accelerator cable -- the liner was stuck in the tube and I needed the access hole to get the liner out through the front end of the tube. Once I'm all done with the welding and painting, I'll make a panel to cover the hole, which will be attached with butyl rubber so it can be accessed in the future.


Here's the hole and the patch (what was originally cut loose) after reshaping.


And the patch fitted in place. There's a copper bar behind the patch, to act as a temporary backing plate for the welding.


Patch welded and then ground.



Here's what the clutch tube looked like:


Even though the clutch tube still looks well-attached, I decided I might as weld in a support strap while I had easy access to it. I bent a piece of 3/16" wire into a loop about 5/8" inside diameter. Then, I drilled two holes, above and below the clutch tube, and placed the strap.


Here's the strap welded to the tube support. Not the greatest welding job (access wasn't good, even with the access hole), but it should hold.


On the outside of the center column, you can see where the strap protruded.


So I trimmed the ends of the strap in preparation for welding:


Here's the final result, after welding and grinding: