1975 1.8 Driver Restoration, Driver quality restoration of a 1975 1.8 Options

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I’m a newcomer to the air cooled world. I picked up a 1975 914 1.8 project car last Fall that I’m just now beginning to work on. It seems to be mechanically stock and structurally sound and has ~120K miles on what appears to be the original engine (it doesn’t look to me as if it’s ever been pulled).

I found it on Craiglist in Maine where it was in the hands of a VW bus/bug enthusiast who was the third owner and had decided to focus his energies on a bus restoration instead. It was last registered an on the road in 2017 when the second owner had it. When I bought it it lot drove and came with an assortment of Restoration Design repair panels, several spare doors from earlier cars, some foglight front bumpers, spare seats, etc.. In a first for me when it comes to project cars the electrics all function properly and appear never to have been monkeyed with. Lights, blinkers, engine heater fan, hazards, everything.

Photos below tell the story but the worst of the rust appears to be in the aft section of the LH outer longitudinal. I haven’t pulled the battery and ECU out yet, but from what I can see underneath the car, inside the engine bay, and between the quarter panel and the engine compartment tin the hell hole appears solid (but I’m prepared to find surprises). The rear of the car seems worst off with rot from the foam above the tail lights partially cut out and partially corrected (I’ll be cutting that all back out and starting the job fresh). It was also hit from behind on the LH side and although I haven’t measured everything out yet, from what I can see underneath things don’t seem to be out of whack (maybe wishful thinking as the panel gaps for the rear trunk are uneven). The trunk lid itself somehow didn’t rust out along the rear edge, but it’s suffered a lot of abuse in the form of a now missing luggage rack and a black fiberglass spoiler that had been attached with wood screws. The front of the car doesn’t show any signs of impact damage but the trunk lid sits high when latched on the LH side.

My plans are to do a driver quality restoration (between a Hagerty 2 and 3) and get it on the road where I can enjoy it; I’ll cut out and weld the rusty sections, do as much of the body work myself as possible (thankfully it is very straight and the paint meter indicates there shouldn’t be a lot of bondo hiding under the old re-spray) and get a professional re-spray at a local body shop. I’ll either farm out or attempt to DIY the engine work myself. Since I’m assuming the engine will need a rebuild (see below) I’d definitely like to increase the displacement while staying with the stock FI setup.

I just started assessing the car in the last couple of weeks and have focused on the health of the engine. It’s still got the original L-jet FI (which I intend to keep). When I got it, it fired up easily but was extremely lumpy and stumbled badly coming off idle. After fixing vacuum hose routing (mostly anyways), adjusting points, doing timing, and adjusting valves it idles well at 850 rpm, sounds much healthier, and revs up from idle nicely (all this is based on stationary testing as the car is not on the road).

Today I warmed the engine up and did compression test (throttle propped open with screwdriver) followed by a leak down test. I think the results tell me that I have a tired engine needing rebuilding:

Cylinder Compression Leakdown
1 105 15%
2 105 20%
3 105 21%
4 105 23%

I didn’t crawl around under the car to listen for leaking valves, but for each the cylinders I could hear hissing in the crankcase as soon as I pressurized the cylinders, which I assume is a bad thing. I’m going to discuss rebuild options at a local multi-generation family garage that started out as a VW shop; if they can do the work within my budget then I’ll probably go that route. I plan to drop the engine sometime late this month.

One thing I need help on at this point is figuring out the remaining vacuum lines. I have a large inlet on the air box that looks from the diagrams as if it should go to the charcoal canister but there was no hose on it when I got the car and I don’t know where it should be routed, or even where the canister is (is it that plastic contraption sitting on top of the fuel tank!?). And just yesterday I noticed there is another nipple on the metal thing that the coil bracket attaches to…what’s that supposed to go to??

Looking forward to sharing my progress. This is a great forum that I’ve already learned a lot from!

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Nearing completion on rust work in the right front section of car.

Cut out and patched the rotted metal on the nose underneath the right front headlight area. It is an area where several panels overlap and seem to have received a lot of spot weld heat during construction...not to mention lots of mud, water and probably salt.







As I was working on the nose patching I noticed that the passenger side shock mount was skewed....hmmm. Turns out the car was in what seems to have been a minor right front corner shunt. The structural piece that the bumper strut mounts to was pushed about 1" or more toward the outside of the car. Someone dealt with it by putting a bunch of spacers between the bumper strut and the panel. I managed to get it mostly straight by fashioning a crude puller. It's not perfect but it will have to do.









I also realized that I didn't carry the patch of the area between the turn signal and the inner lip of that panel in the headlight bucket far enough. I took a lot of measurements using the driver's side as ground truth and will need to make a relief cut in the top of the patch that I welded in and shift things between 1-3mm inwards. Probably the first of many stupid mistakes to come.



There are probably about six or more small spots in the frunk weather stip channel that must have trapped water and rotted through over the years. Most seem to be on the LH side, but there was one in this area as well. Got that patched up this morning.





Once I get the relief cut and welding done I'll be cleaning up the underside of all of the welds, seam sealing, undercoating, and then moving on to the LH front welding. The rot between the directional light and headlight there is not as extensive. Same goes for the rot on the bottom of the nose section behind the bumper. Aside from in-filling a bunch of frunk weather stripping channel rot-through areas there, the most annoying fix will be the cup-shaped depression where the captive nuts are for the frunk release handle; water had been pooling up there and there is probably a quarter-sized hole that will need to be patched. It's not a great spot to get to with a mig welder...at least with the frunk lid still on.