The '76 - doing it right this time, Finishing the interior Options

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In 2009 I bought this '76 from The LeMay Museum. It had been donated to the museum by one of their members. They in turn decided to sell it and use the proceeds towards other projects they had in their inventory. Google them and you'll see it would not have been a good fit.
Upon delivery I discovered there were areas where rust had staked it's claim. The sail panels had, as I now know, the usual rust; the battery tray and the area immediately behind it plus a small area on top of the long beneath; and finally a few spots along the front rain channel.
To say I was distraught would be an understatement. Thirteen years and 2 more 914's later I know it was a good deal. Did I mention I paid $1600 for it delivered. The longs were solid as was the rest of the car. I removed the wiring mess for the car alarm & CB radio then reconnected all the wires to their original terminals. Next I replaced the Fuel Pump relay, added gas. After a turn of the key it coughed, farted and started. That's pretty much the Reader's Digest version but little more was done than that.
I hadn't worked on any cars since I was a teen and none of those needed rust repair. However, after building an airplane years earlier, I had some experience with aluminum and fiberglass. Do you see where this is going?
I thought it time that I go back and do a proper repair job on the old girl. Don't get me wrong. I thought that the aluminum angle patch pieces on the rain channel, the fiberglass in the Hell Hole and Bondo on the sail panels was "good enough"! Looking back, I didn't know Shit from Apple Butter.
It has remained as such but Since both of my Subaru conversions are basically finished, sans a paint job on the '73, I decided to go back and correct my "Get're done" repairs. I bought the rail repair pieces from 914rubber which in turn gave me an excuse to buy a metal shrinker/stretcher.
Bore yourself if you will, as there are more interesting and detailed metal restorations going on here, but I thought I'd better post these improvements for the next owner.

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2 of 4 and I just noticed I need to resize my camera so bear with me. The next update will have more pics per post.

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Continuing down the Rabbit Hole I began the attack on the rust area in the Hell Hole today. After dropping the drive train I removed the fiberglass and wire brushed a few places. Most of the fiberglass came out in one piece with allot of effort. What remained was chiseled or wire brushed out. There were no surprises since I'd taken pics of the carnage 13 years ago. In the next week or so I'll be welding in some patch pieces to correct my previous abomination. BTW. those areas I'd previously cut out were heavily pitted but not rusted through. So the metal at the edge of those cut out areas is pretty stout. I will square them up later to ease the task of replacing metal. Then I realized I'd never pulled back the deadening material on either side of the firewall. As long as I'm making metal repairs I needed to take a look. Not that I really wanted to but.... So I removed the sponge (the material on the engine side) and was elated. Other than the remnants of adhesive it is in fantastic condition. As is the lower firewall. Dirty as an 8 term Senator and just as solid. I'll post pics of the repairs in coming days/weeks. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/biggrin.gif)

The area needing help:







The opposing side; clean as a whistle:



The upper firewall with adhesive yet to be removed.





And the lower firewall dirty but solid:





And the NOS battery tray I've been rat holing for the past 18 months that put me on the "Road to Redemption".