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

[Big Len]

I've never seen anything like this. Speechless.

[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.
(IMG:http://www.914world.com/bbs2/uploads_offsite/i265.photobucket.com-18255-1467144809.1.jpg)

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)

(IMG:http://www.914world.com/bbs2/uploads_offsite/i265.photobucket.com-18255-1467144809.2.jpg)

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.

(IMG:http://www.914world.com/bbs2/uploads_offsite/i265.photobucket.com-18255-1467144810.3.jpg)

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.

(IMG:http://www.914world.com/bbs2/uploads_offsite/i265.photobucket.com-18255-1467144810.4.jpg)

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.

(IMG:http://www.914world.com/bbs2/uploads_offsite/i265.photobucket.com-18255-1467144810.5.jpg)

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.

(IMG:http://www.914world.com/bbs2/uploads_offsite/i265.photobucket.com-18255-1467144810.6.jpg)

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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.

(IMG:http://www.914world.com/bbs2/uploads_offsite/i265.photobucket.com-18255-1467144811.8.jpg)

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…

(IMG:http://www.914world.com/bbs2/uploads_offsite/i265.photobucket.com-18255-1467144811.9.jpg)

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.

(IMG:http://www.914world.com/bbs2/uploads_offsite/i265.photobucket.com-18255-1467144811.10.jpg)

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.

(IMG:http://www.914world.com/bbs2/uploads_offsite/i265.photobucket.com-18255-1467144812.11.jpg)

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.

(IMG:http://www.914world.com/bbs2/uploads_offsite/i265.photobucket.com-18255-1467144812.12.jpg)

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.

(IMG:http://www.914world.com/bbs2/uploads_offsite/i265.photobucket.com-18255-1467144812.13.jpg)

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!

(IMG:http://www.914world.com/bbs2/uploads_offsite/i265.photobucket.com-18255-1467144812.14.jpg)

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.

(IMG:http://www.914world.com/bbs2/uploads_offsite/i265.photobucket.com-18255-1467144813.16.jpg)

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!

(IMG:http://www.914world.com/bbs2/uploads_offsite/i265.photobucket.com-18255-1467144813.17.jpg)

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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.

(IMG:http://www.914world.com/bbs2/uploads_offsite/i265.photobucket.com-18255-1467144813.19.jpg)

And in close up…

(IMG:http://www.914world.com/bbs2/uploads_offsite/i265.photobucket.com-18255-1467144814.20.jpg)

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.

[2mAn]

this is crazy. seriously, all of it. health first. I wish you a speedy recovery

[JoeDees]

I hope you're doing better. That is super scary.

[tygaboy]

My thoughts and prayers are with you for a speedy and full recovery.
Your health is way more important than a car - but OK, your car is way awesome...
Keep us posted on everything and take good care.

[Mueller]

The amount of work and dedication is insane, in a good way.

[jkb944t]

(IMG:style_emoticons/default/agree.gif)

This workmanship is absolutely fantastic!

Jeff B

[Olympic 914]

Wishing you a quick return to health.

I enjoy seeing the methods you use to repair and refinish parts.

Very inventive.

Tom

[76-914]

God speed, Darin. Your determination will trump any physical limitations placed upon you. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/beerchug.gif) Kent

[mbseto]

Take care of yourself, man- best wishes for full recovery. Your workmanship is amazing.

[jor]

Health First; car second. Get well soon!

That said, your work is utterly fantastic and I am thoroughly enjoying your posts on your build. Well done, sir!

[altitude411]

(IMG:style_emoticons/default/agree.gif) Take care of yourself, your build & thread are fantastic. Great job.

[Darren C]

Thanks for your overwhelming support Guy's.

It's been very tough going after the TIA stroke.

My thread is as I said at the beginning of this Challenge, is a couple of months in advance of time. (That's how us Delorean owners roll) ;-)
In all fairness it is a real time thread with each day number indicating the days since the car arrived in UK, and the total time in my ownership here across the pond. I was 1/4 way into the build in October when the challenge started, so decided on the grounds of fairness to all contestants, and have exactly 365 days to start and finish the build, that I would run my thread in real-time but just backdated to meet the October to October duration of the Challenge.

I've had much time in and out of Hospital since the TIA and I am currently back at work. Thanks for your concerns and kind wishes. The story of my recovery will unfold in the next few monthly updates on here.
It was actually in the first few months of this Challenge that I had the TIA Stroke. I actually wrote up some of my earlier posts on here while in Hospital typing with one hand! If you read back through you'll see I have mentioned having brain scans in the MRI machine while thinking about working on my 914! I didn't want to give away what had happened to me or throw in the towel.

The need to get the car finished in 12 months and the need to update this Build-off Challenge thread each month has actually increased my determination and sped up my recovery.

For this I am truly grateful to 914World.

[Darren C]

Interim post to bring my thread up to July 4th.

Day 265

I didn’t sleep a wink in the Stroke Ward overnight. The guy opposite didn’t make it through the night. The mechanical breathing machines in the wards rhythmic clunk and hissing plus the groaning and my own thoughts wouldn’t allow me the escape of sleep.

Over last night it was diagnosed as a TIA stroke as within 6 hours I’d gotten my functions slowly back. It was a 50/50 chance of a full blown stroke or a TIA, for the grace of god this time it happened to be a TIA.
My vision came back first. Tunnel vision followed by soft edged fuzzy vision. By 2am I could see normally.
This was the greatest relief.
Motor functions returned but I had a complete numbness/pins & needles loss of feeling on my left side.
They could only give me water (no food) for 24hrs. This was in the form of small chilled bottles. I found that holding the ice water on my right side I felt instantly that it was cold. Holding it on the left side I felt nothing.
Shakily I could walk and hold stuff in my left hand.
I stayed in the Ward all day being tested every 30 minutes.

Day 266

Another restless night. I did manage to catch a few random naps. At least I got Breakfast today. Having not eaten for 36 hours it was very welcome.
I was still lacking sense of feeling and the Consultant arrived after breakfast for a meeting.
Since I’d had a TIA, they decided that I’d have to take a range of pills including Statins indefinitely until more tests could be done. I was to be discharged that evening as I’d got 95% function back, but because it is classed as a brain injury I would have my driving license suspended.
This was NOT what a guy who’s whole life revolves around cars, wants ever to hear.
I argued with the Consultant that not only was it my job, it was my hobby and my life.
Suffice to say it changed nothing.
I had a long conversation and the outcome is that until I have further tests including more brain scans over a period of several weeks, there would be no change in the ruling until I got an “all clear”. Besides I hadn’t fully got my sense of feeling back in my left side and it was unsure if this would be permanent.
I had to phone a friend to come collect me that evening and to arrange to get my car moved from the Hosptial car park.
By 8pm I was discharged with a sack of drugs and back at home.

Day 267

On day 264 in the morning of the TIA before work I’d cleaned up the CV bolts and painted all the heads satin black and laid them out to dry before leaving for work. At lunchtime I’d picked up the new driveshafts from Porsche and the gaskets that I took a chance on. Sure enough the gaskets were too large a diameter, so it looks like I’ll revert to Plan B and cut some out myself. Interestingly the CV boots & cover flange fitted to the new dive shafts has 6 holes not 4 (which bugs my OCD) but has the dowels fitted. Looks like Porsche use a generic boot and flange these days.

I called sick into work this morning and had to be back at the Hospital this afternoon for another MRI brain scan so in my world it was another wasted day of trains & taxi’s with nothing done on the 914.

Day 268

After being poked and prodded all day again in Hospital, I’m getting bored with all the Cop type drunk tests (stand on one leg, touch your nose with your left finger and so on) they let me out this evening at 6:30pm.

Getting home late this evening I needed a little normality so off to the shed I went.

(IMG:http://www.914world.com/bbs2/uploads_offsite/i265.photobucket.com-18255-1467565998.1.jpg)

The next job was to sort out the elusive gaskets. After finding the 912 ones were too big on Friday lunchtime I’d had an idea. I measured the CV joint to find the inner diameter of the required gasket (80mm) and got out a British Standard flange table. A quick visit to BSS and I had 4 + 1 spare 3” pipe flange gaskets with a perfect 80mm hole in the centre.
Carefully marking out the 4 bolt semi circles and the 2 dowel semi circles I cut them using my punch set and finished them carefully with a rats tail file.

(IMG:http://www.914world.com/bbs2/uploads_offsite/i265.photobucket.com-18255-1467565998.2.jpg)

All that was left to do was then carefully mark out and cut the external diameter with sturdy scissors. Much easier to cut the outer diameter than trying to cut an inside diameter.

(IMG:http://www.914world.com/bbs2/uploads_offsite/i265.photobucket.com-18255-1467565999.3.jpg)

I made 4 plus 1 spare so just need to clean up the outer stub flanges and we’re good to fit.

Day 269

This morning I awoke at 3:30am with too many ideas running through my mind, by 4am I’d realised a design for a new fuel rail, calculated the flow, itemised materials and worked out a rough cost. I’d decided the best composition of a painting that I’m planning, decided on the plan this week for the 914, had considerations of how to get mobile while I’m not allowed to drive and had a few more ideas for my other cars.
Suffice to say by 4am I couldn’t lay in bed any longer so got dressed and went out to the garage. The weather was awful this morning before dawn so I got a few bits from my shed and closed myself in behind the up and over door with two LED lights.
I fashioned two long handled paint brushes from some flattened tube and sticky tape and began work on the RH rear inner arch.
While lying in hospital over the weekend I actually got a lot of stuff sorted, designed, tweaked and considered in my mind. As they say I had plenty of time to think.
One thought I had was about the final finish of the old factory underseal on the car. The product Porsche used dried to a matt finish and wasn’t jet black as a result. Simple underseal off the shelf is too Black, too glossy and slightly gritty in texture. I had a product in mind from an old 911 restoration I did a few years ago, rummaged in my shed last night and found a half used 5 litre tin. This is a professional stoneguard designed for spraying in a Shultz type gun. It dries to a matt black very resilient hard finish.
Since the task was to “restore” the under arch Porsche finish (and I’d locally repaired the flaked damaged areas with a similar texture) I was able to just lightly paint the new stone guard on with a brush and stipple finish it to loose any brush marks.
This morning I started on the RH rear arch and managed to coat everything forward of the rear wheel including behind the door striker plate panel, and up under the roll bar fin. I coated everything down to the sill panel on both the inside of the rear quarter panel and the inner arch making sure every surface was covered.
I was back at work today (yes back at work 5 days after the TIA, I got bills to pay and we don’t get sick pay) and had arranged a colleague to pick me up, so needed to get cleaned up and changed for 7am.
This lunchtime I called Porsche Centre and ordered a single 914 wheel bolt to replace my single rogue Beetle bolt. They’re still available and I’m curious to see what final finish the new bolt arrives with. The old ones have a dull zinc plate (or what’s left of it). I plan on having the bolts replated and hopefully the new bolt will show me what a new bolt should be like.
Anyway after getting home a little later than normal from work this evening I carried on to complete the RH wheel arch.
I took a photo with flash, so the arch looks far grayer in the picture than in reality.

(IMG:http://www.914world.com/bbs2/uploads_offsite/i265.photobucket.com-18255-1467566000.4.jpg)

The two trailing arms were repainted and “toned down” to give them a natural look rather than a just painted too shiny gloss. Both "K" marks were carefully retained to look like original un-restored finish
I was extra careful with the stone guard and used a small modellers brush to detail around all the fiddly bits like the suspension bolt caps and sill screws to finish the LH arch.
Going back a page you can see the washed and scrubbed original Porsche coating has been matched pretty well with the new stoneguard for colour and matt finish. I'm really pleased with the way its turned out.
Tomorrow the plan is to do the same with the RH rear arch.

Day 270

Today was a repeat of yesterday but with a lie in until 5am this morning!
I finished off the LH rear arch this evening after work to match the RH. The “K” mark was retained on this trailing arm too (its just behind the brake pipe obscured in the picture below). On this side of the car it didn’t have the circle around the K, possibly to id the parts left & right at the factory?

(IMG:http://www.914world.com/bbs2/uploads_offsite/i265.photobucket.com-18255-1467566001.5.jpg)

(The runs in the stoneguard near the front of the inner arch are genuine Porsche, so I left them!)

Day 271

This morning before being picked up for work I cleaned up the drive flanges that attach to the end of the shafts and fit into the hubs. I also purchased a new set of shiny gold BZP twin hole plate washers for the CV joint bolts (couldn’t put the old ones back on these uber shiny driveshafts)
The Porsche ones are no longer available but IRS Beetle ones are; from UK stockist VW Heritage. Slightly different profile but the best I could find from the same stable and era.
This morning I gave them a light coat of Waxoil and slid them along a wire to dry while I put a thin coat on the drive flanges and the CV joints and gaiter metal flanges too. This should stop the nice shiny BZP from fading or going white and powdery before rusting.
I left everything to dry and went into work for 7:30am.
At lunchtime I convinced a colleague to drive me out to the paint suppliers and picked up 4 more litres of stoneguard. I used 1 ½ lites under the two rear arches, so a quick calculation showed I didn’t have enough in the old tin left for the front. I’m also considering redoing the floorpan while the wheels are away and the cars up in the air. Not savouring the thought of the deep clean and prep, as it’s a large area!
Anyway this evening after work I decided to fit the driveshafts. Fitting the flanges into the hubs first and loosely fitting the castellated nuts I carefully degreased the perimeter of the CV joint where the thin gaskets fit with cellulose thinners. I then cheated by putting two tiny opposing dots of superglue on the gasket and stuck it to the CV joint.
This allowed me to push the bolts with plate washers through the joint before feeding it over the gearbox and heat exchangers and down the hole in the trailing arm to meet the flange without the gasket falling off and getting damaged. I used this method as I didn’t want to have to remove or disturb the heat exchangers. With a spline tool on a short ¼” drive extension I tightened the all bolts up gently to make sure everything was good and the gasket was fine before swapping to 3/8” drive and tightening them up a little at a time using opposites to pull the dowels home equally.
I left the transport/packing caps on the gearbox end to stop grease getting everywhere and manoeuvred the CV joint with loose gasket (no need for glue this end as you can hold and see everything) into place and bolted it up to the drive flange.
The N/S is a little more of a fiddle with the starter motor in place but with patience it does fit in without taking the heat exchangers or starter off.
I nipped everything up and then went around again just to be certain I’d not missed anything before calling it a night.
It does look nice with new driveshafts fitted.

Day 272

Today I had a whole day in Hospital undergoing further test, scans and general poking and prodding.
I decided to get a couple of hours in on the 914 before catching the morning train and had to think of a few tasks that wouldn’t get me too dirty. Following on from last nights driveshaft installation I needed to tighten up the castellated nuts on the hubs and fit the split pins. I sorted out some new split pins and pre cut the length and then using two wheel bolts and a very large crow bar in combination with the handbrake I locked each hub in turn so that the nuts could be tightened to the high torque.
The pins were added and then the nuts and pins given a light coat of clear waxoil to protect the gold BZP finish.
With the waxoil can at hand I gave the CV bolts a light coat along with the 3 bolts and plate washers on each underside that hold the outer trailing arm support bracket. I was pleasantly surprised when I cleaned these off last week to find them still shiny gold BZP so the waxoil should keep them this way.
I wrapped up and got the train into the city and walked a mile to the Hospital.
During the day Porsche centre telephoned me to say my wheel bolt was in, so while I’m not mobile I’ve asked them to post it out so hopefully if it doesn’t arrive tomorrow I should have it by Monday.
During the numerous MRI brain scans today I had a lull from 11:30 until the ultrasound tests of the arteries in my neck at 2pm. Not wanting to sit doing nothing I decided to walk right across the city to the motor factors and pick up some bits and bobs. Easy when you’re in a car but I underestimated the distance on foot. I ended up power walking 2 hours for about a 5 mile round trip to get back in time for my next Hospital test!
Anyway after walking back to the station and getting home this evening I started on the steering wheel.
The steering wheel spokes were a little dull and had a few tiny chips here and there. I’d expected the trimmers to maybe make a mark or two and to get glue on the spokes and true to form that’s what they did. I carefully cleaned all the excess glue off with white spirit.
Next the spokes were T cut rubbing polish to restore the faded paint to a very nice gloss finish.

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After a couple of hours working carefully with the T cut on both sides of the 4 spokes and around the hub I use a very fine modellers brush to carefully touch in the small chips so they disappeared. Finally I used Brasso on the hub which is made of plastic to get a glass shine.

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I then turned my attention to the horn push. This was looking a little worse for wear and had lots of chips and worn off paint. I’d scrubbed it with Cif cream a few weeks ago and now it was time to sort it out. Starting with a fine (400 grit) wet & dry I carefully feathered all the edges of the chips. I looked at trying to remove the foam pad out the centre of the metal surround but decided against it as it was well and truly bonded in there and risked damage trying to get it out. The only thing to do was to take extreme care working around it. There was a little oxidation of the Mazak in the corner and a section of paint had fallen off. Again I carefully removed the loose paint and feathered the edges before going over the whole metal section with red scotchbrite to key the surface.

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After masking up with some fine line detail tape, degreasing and a wipe with a tack rag I locally etch primed just the areas of bare metal and left it to dry for tomorrow.

Day 273

Today I started by flatting down the etch primer on the steering wheel centre with 1200 wet and dry. Drying any water off thoroughly I degreased and tack ragged the surface before the first coat of black paint. I took extra time on this small part as it will sit in full view every time I sit in the car so any small imperfection would drive me mad.
Allowing a good hour between each coat I built up the colour in several thin layers to a high smooth gloss finish with no orange peel.
In between coats I cleaned the horn contact ring on the back of the steering wheel hub and with a light coat of grease I fitted the steering wheel to the car.
I also moved 4 cars around to empty my main garage at home as one of the strip lights had burnt out the ballast last week and tripped the breaker. I had a spare ballast in the attic of the garage so stripped a spare unit down and replaced the burnt out one. As a precaution I’d bought some new starters having seen the ends were quite brown from heat; so went around and changed all 12. I also had a bit of a spring clean in my workshop. I was loosing floor and bench space with a collection of old worn 914 parts and a few bits from the other cars that just seem to mount up.
After 4 or 5 (can’t quite remember) coats of black paint (and changing the gearbox oil on my Volvo V70 in between) it was almost finished. I brought it indoors and sat in on the kitchen worktop and warmed it gently with a small electric fan heater on low setting for an hour, rotating it every 15 minutes to help the paint cure. Normally I’d put stuff in the oven, but this still had the plastic/sponge pad attached so I didn’t want to damage or melt it.
After another hour to cool I unmasked the pad cleaned it gently and fitted my new decal.

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I was fortunate enough to find the original “To Start” decal under the centre console carpet when I lifted it out. I’d posted earlier in the Originality section on here (914world) where a guru had replied with a photo showing where the decal was originally fitted! Many thanks.
The old decal was intact but the adhesive on the back was long dry and full of dirt from being on the floor of the car for 40 years. Enough detail remained for me to scan it and send the details to Rob (a nice guy in UK that makes long lost auto decals) who very kindly made me a new one (and a spare).
I’d imagine most owners on purchasing their new 914 would have peeled this off and thrown it out; after all it’s not particularly attractive.
I kind of like the idea of having it on the car now that it’s looking almost new again, so decided to reinstate it.
With the wheel centre still nice and warm from the heater I warmed the decal and carefully applied it using a stiff bristle nail brush to work it into the grain texture of the horn pad.

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I plan on leaving it 24hrs for the paint to dry a little more then fitting it back in the car.

Day 274

Today was a busy day.
I started early by going to fit the horn push in the steering wheel. True to form it was awkward and in the end I had to take the steering wheel off and change the cable from the contact ring and solder a new spade on it. I’d heat shrunk the old spade but it was proving difficult to fit the horn push as the heat shrink was not flexible enough to allow it to move while fitting. Eventually after a few dry runs with the wheel off the car I sorted it out. Fitted back on the car and battery on, turn the key and the horn sounded continually.
Battery off and horn push off again to examine, and I found the bayonet frame in the wheel slightly bent? All I can think of is that it got bent at the trimmers as it was fine when I took it apart. The bent frame was just holding the horn centre in enough to make contact at the bottom which was sounding the horn. With this gently bent back up the horn push was refitted and worked fine.
My son arrived just as I’d taken the battery back off. I called a friend and we spent a few hours this morning out on a driving lesson. (I had to ask my friend over to sit in the car with us as I’m not allowed to drive at the moment and technically that even means I can’t supervise my son. A right royal pain in the ass!). As a reward I cooked a Sunday Roast for us all and while it was in the oven we flatted one half of the Morris bonnet with soapy water & 1200 grit to remove some old orange peel and dull paint, before rubbing paste, T cut and a good wax.
With everyone fed & watered and on their way I returned to the 914 and started under the front LH wheel arch. I’d cleaned and scrubbed the inner arch previously, but there was plenty of splattered underseal all over the suspension. I started by scraping it off the shock absorber and working down to the torsion arm, hub and steering rack.
I spent 3 hours scraping off the excess underseal on the LH before running out of charge on the LED light and calling it a day.

Day 275

Today was another 4 hours under the front wheel arch scraping underseal off the front suspension; it really is rock hard and a bit of a nightmare to get off. I took a few pictures so you can see the task in hand. Fortunately under all the underseal there is very little rust if any to speak about.

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Absolutely everything had gotten sprayed with stone guard but with a little time and patience I’m slowly getting it all off.

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I worked on the RH side this evening and started at the top of the shock absorber and worked down to the torsion arm and to the end of the steering rack.
Yesterday I got most of it off the LH side.

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Once it’s all scraped off I plan on lightly sanding down any paint edges and locally priming any bare metal as I did with the rear suspension. It’s going to take a few more days and long hours to sort it, but hopefully I’ll have it all prepared ready for a weekend of painting.

Day 276

Today I made up two short brake pipes with the formed end on one end only. I passed them through a couple of new unions and then brazed up the open unmade ends of the pipes to blank them off.
I clamped the flexi hoses on the front suspension and undid the brake pipes at the shock absorber and quickly swapped over and fitted the two “blank” pipes I’d made up. This allowed me to remove both front callipers without loosing brake fluid.
The callipers were carefully placed in my shed and next I removed the front discs and dust/stone guards from the rear.
All the grease was cleaned off the stub shafts and I now had much better access to continue cleaning and dismantling the front suspension at my leisure. To do a good job I needed to stripdown the front suspension and take it off the car.
So another couple of hours cleaning after the mechanical strip down and my LED lights were out of charge so I called it a day.

Day 277

Today was another day under the front wheel arches. After scraping off the underseal over the last few days there are a some areas that needed sanding and preparing. I spent several hours today with 320 grit wet and dry feathering any paint edges, smoothing out runs in the original paint and dealing with tiny bits of surface rust.
I took apart the tension/limit stops for the torsion bars so that I could clean and prep behind and spent a good while on the trackrods removing some nasty old pipe wrench/mole grip marks.
By 9pm I retired to my shed and cleaned up the torsion bars, track rods and tension/limit bolts as the long exposed thread on them was quite rusty. After cleaning up the hex heads I called it a day.
A few more hours sanding and fettling and it should be all ready for paint.

Day 278

Today I continued to prep the front wheel arches with the suspension off. Finishing sanding down and with it part dismantled I dusted and degreased everything.
With the seasonal temperatures low for the time of year I’m in a race against nature now to get anything on the car painted. If the temperature goes too low the paint just wont flow or dry properly and with no power in the garage I’m trying to get it all painted this weekend. If not I’m considering options of renting a Calor gas heater or similar, but I’m not keen with the idea as they generate a lot of moisture and there’s not much room in the small garage to set it back far enough from the car.
With time pressing, tonight I gave all the areas above where the suspension bolts on a coat of stone guard and continued on the underside of the wheel well sides where the torsion bars run and up and over the steering rack back to the sills. I used another litre of the stone guard, painting until I ran out of LED torch charge again.
Tomorrow I plan to paint up inside the shock towers and then everything will be done so that I can move on to painting the suspension and bolting it all back in place at the weekend.



So this takes us up to day 278 of 914 ownership which is July 4th (starting on October 1st 2015)

The biggest challenge this month, was to recover.
Personally the not being able to drive is the hardest thing for me to accept.
Being suspended from driving indefinitely and having to visit the local Doctors Surgery and the City Hospital every other day for tests is a real bind. Fortunately my work colleagues are my taxi service, but my relentless need to do stuff and go places is awkward for all.
Hopefully the Neurologist will get to the bottom of it and I’ll have an idea of what my long term prognosis is.
I already know I’m restoration crazy, so maybe they’ll actually medically confirm it!

[Darren C]

Month 10 continued….

Day 279

Today I continued to stone guard the front arches. I finished off up inside the shock towers and moved on to the rear of the wings down the back of the door hinge post and up and over the inside of the wheel arches to the front valance on both sides. This took quite a while to work it into every corner and around the panel seams. It’s a bit like decorating a room, do all the fiddly cutting in then paint the bulk of the walls after with a roller. Just need to do the roller bit now. Last night (and tonight hopefully) the weather was mild so still good for painting. It’s supposed to get colder overnight next week, so I need to get a move on this weekend!

Day 280

Today was a good day as far as progress goes. I finished painting the removed front suspension in my shed then back under the arches in the garage for a paint-athon moving from side to side, front to back, inside, outside upside down and back again. I feel like I've had a real workout today in that tiny garage!
More of the same tomorrow with the stoneguard and I might just get this bit done before the weather turns bad.

Day 281

Fortunately it was really mild today and the sun came out for a good part of it which heats up the garage roof and acts like a mini radiator.
This morning I got up early and started to clean all the bolts and washers in my shed that hold the suspension to the car with my detail wire brushes. They were surprisingly good condition beneath the old underseal. Most of the original BZP was intact and after an hour they were all clean. I then gave the underside of the car another coat of stoneguard just where the suspension fits before my son came over for an 8:30 am driving lesson.
After which we flatted the remaining half of the Morris hood, rubbing pasted and T cut it back to a glass shine before a couple of coats of wax. After cooking a large fry-up brunch, my son left for his part time job, and I continued on the 914.
I undersealed for a couple hours and with sidelights removed I finished painting the inside of the wings and around all the fiddly bits before filling in the remainder.
Coming up for air with all the paint fumes making me a bit heady I made a quick cuppa got some fresh air and returned to fit the suspension back up onto the car.

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I need to let the paint harden a few days now. They’re a few spots I’m not happy with on the suspension, but the paints too soft at the moment to address them. I’ll see how the weather pans out this week and get back to them; now I’ve got the thankless task of painting the floor pan next. Working in such a tight garage with no power or light, I haven’t got the luxury of being able to spray on the stone guard. Instead I have to decant it into a small pot then work it into every nook and cranny with a brush before going over a second time with a soft paint roller. Takes a whole lot longer than you’d think to work it into the old textured surfaces and replicate the missing areas.
Just gotta keep going. Takes my mind off my suspended driving license.

Day 282

Today was a long day.

I got up early and 800 grit, wet and dried the suspension and shocks. I wasn’t happy with the finish. There were a few tiny paint sags and a few tiny bits of dust in the paint that ended up being foam from my new roller stuck in the paint!
I got picked up this morning and taken to work early by a colleague because I needed to get ahead as this afternoon I was back in hospital for more tests.
This evening I had to catch the train back home from the city and got home a lot later than normal. Just got to wit now for the Consultants to give me the results.
I did manage however to get a fresh coat of paint on the areas of the suspension that were displeasing me late into this evening with foam shedding free roller.
There were a few scary moments in the torchlight this evening as a massive eight legged friend scampered across the garage floor towards me as I lay under the car. I did scramble out in a flash but now I don’t quite know where it went?

Day 283

Today I telephoned the wheel refurbishers who are bead blasting the rear of the wheels to see how they are getting on as I haven’t heard anything for 3 weeks.
Unfortunately it transpires that they haven’t even started them yet!
They've promised to take a look this week. A bit frustrating though as I was hoping to get them back and off to be electroplating stripped this week.
Hey ho, just have to wait a little longer.
I also called Vintage Tyres at Beaulieu where I have 5 new tyres reserved. It’s been a little longer than I anticipated having them reserved so to be fair I’ve paid today and should have them this week. They've found me some brand new 165 SR 15 Michelin XZX’s, which I’m pleased to have as they are the same as the originals the car came to me with and the paperwork in the history file shows were purchased by the PO in CA way back in the early 1980’s.
This evening I fitted the Torsion bar adjusting screws that I’d removed and cleaned up then began to start the deep clean of the floor pan. I began with covering the garage floor with lots of old newspapers and with a bucket of hot soapy water and scrubbing & tiny nail brushes I cleaned the drivers side floorpan up to the centre line from the steering rack back to the rear bulkhead. It’s not easy working upside down with water! With a little patience I got most of the mud sand and dirt off. Unfortunately most of it ran down my sleeve, inside my shirt and I now have muddy elbows and a muddy back from lying in the dirty water for several hours!
Again not easy with the car on axle stands only an inch from the tip of my nose when I crawl under it!
Tomorrow the passenger side floorpan…..the deep joy continues.

Day 284

The 5 new Michelin tyres arrived this afternoon at work. Looking really nice, but I had to move them out the office as the ladies didn’t like the smell of the rubber…
Suffice to say there were a few jokes going around this afternoon.

This evening more of the same I’m afraid. Scrub, scrub and more scrubbing under the floor pan. At least with it raining this afternoon I was already wet from having to walk home before I started so it didn’t matter at all having more water run up my sleeves.
Hope to have the whole floorpan cleaned for painting this weekend.

Day 285

Today I got a friend to drive me over to take a look at the 1st “trial” light bead blast of the rear of the wheels.

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I’m going to replate them with the clear anodise like they were originally, but the rear of the wheels needed a good clean up to prepare them for the process. Painting the rear or powder coating would be the easy option to “hide” corrosion, but my OCD wouldn’t let me live with a compromise here.
The result looks pretty good and I’m happy to let them do the remaining 4 rears of the other wheels. (The front face has been heavily masked up to stop the bead blasting getting anywhere near the polished surface).
This evening after work I continued with the floor pan scrub and finally tonight I have all the mud, sand and dirt off it.
Tomorrow its scrapers and wire brushes to remove any small areas of flaky underseal.
(Really looking forward to that)

Day 286

This morning before work I started by painting the front brake discs that I purchased from Pelican parts so that they are ready to assemble this weekend. Using the same very high temperature paint as I used on the rears, I painted the hub section and the outer diameter edge of the discs and left them to dry.
This evening I scraped off a few area’s of loose underseal and carried out some local texture repairs (as I did under the arches) to replicate the missing underseal so that it will dry overnight for a full re-coat tomorrow.
Wanting to progress further I retired to my shed and de-greased the front hub bearing caps, carefully removed the rubber grease seals and sanded the caps carefully before applying new satin black paint to finish them like new.
I cut a small piece of wood and made a nice tiny shelf to fit on top of my kitchen radiator and sat the bearing caps on it to keep them warm overnight so the paint doesn’t bloom in the cold night air.
It was a late start this evening afterwork, with food shop (using a friend as a taxi) and weekly washing chores, so after painting the caps it was gone 10:30pm so I called it a night as I needed to cook some dinner.

Day 287

Today I made very good progress with repainting the floorpan.
I started this morning and with a combination of brushes of varying sizes and a sponge roller I painted the whole of the floorpan from the steering rack right back to the rear bulkhead and suspension.
It was a bit like painting a concrete block wall for the first time. In the end I gave up with the roller and used brushes. Due to the very textured underseal it took a lot of effort to work the new paint into the texture. Especially difficult were the circular areas and sides closest to the sills where the seam sealer is the heaviest stipple texture.
Again all this working upside down was a messy job with the runny stoneguard.
By mid afternoon I’d completed the floorpan. The stoneguard dries quite quickly and the front of the car was dry by the time I reached the back. I could then see some areas/spots that I’d missed so spent another hour filling in.
Tomorrow I plan a second coat and some photos

Day 288

This morning I made use of the light at dawn and started early to assemble the front hubs. It was too cold first thing to paint so I started by fitting my new bearings into the Pelican Parts discs that I’d painted the other day.
I then re fitted the recently blasted and powder coated disc backing plates to the hubs followed by the discs.
I cleaned the paintshop dust from the brake callipers and refitted them next with new bolts and tab washers.
Finally the brake hoses were connected just in time for my son coming over to visit. While the morning air lost its chill, my son and I bled the brakes.

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Afterwards we cleaned up and went into town, as I’d promised him some new clothes and a haircut.
Arriving back home early afternoon, the sun was out and the temperature into double figures. It was warm enough to give the floorpan a second coat of stoneguard.

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I’m quite pleased with the result. It was worth taking time to 800 grit wet & dry all the suspension parts to get a super smooth finish.
Again taking time to replicate the Porsche stone guard finish with care (unlike the original sprayed on that seemed to be splattered all over everything) makes for a neat look.
I just need to get the wheels back now and I can remove the axle stands and fit my blasted and powdercoated steering rack undertray.

Day 289

Yesterday I’d removed the horn push from the Steering wheel again. I wasn’t happy with the black paint. I’d spent ages getting it super smooth but it just looked too glossy against the rest of the dashboard.
With the sun shining and the temperature in double figures I lightly scotchbrited it and gave it a thin coat of satin lacquer to tone it down slightly.
This morning I woke up at 4am and couldn’t get back to sleep so after an early breakfast I decided to un mask the horn push and fit it back in the car.
Tonight after work it was one of my other monthly car club committee meeting and I knew I’d not be home until after 11pm, so if I were going to achieve something on the 914 today it had to be done early this morning.
With the horn push refitted it looks much better with the less glossy black paint.

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Day 290

Today the evening was very dark with storm clouds, windy and wet.

I retired to the shed this evening and started cleaning up the wheel bolt heads. The new missing wheel bolt turned up week before last from Porsche Centre and it has a dull zinc plate. I plan to get the bolts replated but need to clean and fettle them properly first.
Pretty boring stuff, filing a few burrs, wire brushing and sanding, but preparation is everything.

Day 291

Tonight even with another dark and wet evening it was pleasantly mild. I managed to complete a little job that was niggling me.
Working under the arches with the stoneguard I’d noticed when sat under the arches with the suspension missing, looking outwards, that the rolled return of the front arch from 11 to 1 o clock is rolled tight over. This means that it was difficult to paint when the car was sprayed in the paintshop with the wheels on. The blue paint was a little thin on the return, and I suspect it was like this from new also as I could see the white of the factory primer through the colour.
I have about ½ litre of colour left from the respray so I carefully stirred/mixed the paint and poured a tiny amount into a mini roller tray and then with a new mini gloss roller with only a light coat of colour, rolled the paint onto the return of the arch (with the inner stoneguard masked off). Using this method there is an invisible edge of paint on the rolled arch. This was only the edge that’s rolled right over so you cant see it looking upwards at the arch, you need the wheel off and your head resting on the shock absorber to see it.
Tomorrow if its mild enough I’ll put a coat of clear lacquer over the basecoat colour using the same method.

Day 292

Today was a real bind as I had to leave early and got home late from work using the train (as my work colleagues are finding it a real chore to taxi me around while I cant drive) combined with it raining again, it was real grim.
This evening I decided to hold of coating the arch returns with lacquer as with the cold damp air it would most likely bloom. (go foggy with the cold and damp weather)
Instead I gave the engine bay a good clean. The garage I’m renting seems to have a real issue with dust/dirt. 3 garages down they are developing the old council estate, knocking down and building new flats so there is an excessive amount of dust generated, which seems to cover the car even when the doors shut. With no engine lid on the car yet, I keep washing off the bodywork but haven’t done the engine bay for a while. I must get an indoor cover sorted!
Anyhow after a good wash & wipe clean I sorted out a few bits and bobs including a couple more P clips to tidy hoses and wires, I called it a night as my second LED flashlight ran out of charge.

Day 293

Today was a GREAT day.

I had to go visit the Hospital and see my Consultant for the results of all the tests from my TIA.

No visible permanent damage.
High risk of a re-occurance
Keep on the Medication
Change my diet to keep low cholesterol
More tests required to find the cause.

Then he said the magic words….

“I will lift the driving suspension”





Today was the first day that I have been allowed to drive for a month (it could have been a year or indefinitely, so I was VERY lucky)
I made the most of it and when I got home I spent the rest of the day driving!
At lunch I called into the wheel refurbishers. Having had my wheels for over a month, they’d obviously lost the sense of urgency and had only done the back of one wheel. Hopefully they’ll get the other four done before the end of the month now I’m mobile and can check up on them!
Tonight I took my son to the movies so tomorrow I concentrate on the car!

Day 294

Today I started with taking my son out on some more driving lessons, 1200 flatted the front section of the Morris Traveller roof & front wing, then polished out with rubbing paste & T cut. Lunch, then out for more driving before dropping him back.
I then carried on with the “tinkering”.
I’m going to call it “tinkering” now, as I’m just finding stuff to do until the wheels come back and I can get the car down the UK Ministry of Transport Test Centre to have it Tested and hopefully certified and legal to drive in UK (and then they will issue a Title and license number) .
With the afternoon sunny and warm I mixed up some 2-pack lacquer and finished off the roll over edges of the wheel arches with a fresh mini gloss roller over the blue base coat I’d applied the other day.
I then crawled under the car and touched in a few little area’s of the stone guard in the original heavy ripple texture, where from certain angles I had missed a few valleys in the texture.
I also had an in line fuel pressure tester (with gauge) turn up in the mail today. I’ve wanted a professional one for a while and had knocked myself up one (cobbled from bits & bobs) that had started to leak a bit and I wasn’t sure on the gauge calibration so had taken the plunge and bought a new one.
I made up some extra fittings on my lathe this evening and shall have a play with the car fuel pressure tomorrow!

Day 295

Today I did a little more turning on my lathe to make a fuel return bleed and assembled my new fuel pressure tester.
I sorted out the fuel hoses in the engine bay and tidied everything up. A trip down to the local gas station with two cans (with a stop for lunch) I put fuel back into the car. It’d been dry since pulling the tank out to replace the fresh air blower motor a couple of months ago. After replacing the fuel pump relay (removed while I was sorting out the cars electrics that needed the ignition on) I ran the pump and found a few leaks. These were repaired and the pressures set and tested.
After some more fettling I ran the engine and warmed it through while checking for leaks from over the whole system, tank to engine bay & back.
One of the criteria when the car went into the paintshop was that the painters could drive the car. I’d temporarily rigged up the engine & fuel system so that this could happen, but now I needed to make a more permanent (and safer) situation.
With everything looking good I stopped the engine and made use of the heat in the garage to touch in a bit more paint including the LH heat exchanger where the outer casing had moved/expanded along the pipes about 3mm and revealed bare metal needing painting.
I was interrupted by a neighbour with car trouble so gave him a hand to fix it before returning to the 914. Finally fitting a few tinware screws that were missing and clipping the throttle cable near the coil to tidy it up before calling it a day

Day 296

Today I had another afternoon of testing and prodding at the Hospital. Despite the results the Consultant wanted a couple more tests run. I did however manage to visit the zinc platters and take along the wheel bolts.

I took along the brand new single bolt as an example of how I wanted the old bolts refinished in dull zinc.
After an inspection and discussion they agreed to do a sample strip and replate on one bolt only as a trial.
Expecting to return tomorrow the guy said, take a seat, have a coffee and I’ll do it while you wait.
10 minutes later he came back with a electro stripped and replated old bolt.
The colour & matt finish was good but the old bolt hex head had some wheelbrace/ socket marking.
The new bolt (and my old ones when new) had a very slightly rough texture in the metal from the forging/manufacturing process. Over the years taking them off and on with a socket or wrench had “smoothed” the textured surface. Not easily seen when in the old condition, but once the bolt had been replated the smooth corners of the hex had quite a comparison to the textured centre of the hex flats. The smoothness makes the zinc plate look more chrome/shiny than even dullness.
After a bit of deliberation I plan to take all the bolts over to the bead blasters tomorrow (including the replated one) and have just the heads blasted to return the texture finish evenly to the hex flats.

Afterwards they can go back to the platers for a coat of dull zinc. I want a minimum 15 microns to give good rust resistance whilst retaining the surface texture.
I know its an OCD thing, but I want the car to be finished to a high level, and marks on the wheel bolts will drive me nuts.

Photo below show (from left to right) New Bolt, Test replated bolt with texture worn fron wrench use & old bolt as it was before test replating (remaining 14 are like this).

(IMG:http://www.914world.com/bbs2/uploads_offsite/i265.photobucket.com-18255-1469382121.10.jpg)

The plan is to get them looking like original brand new against the refurbished wheels without spending a fortune on buying all new bolts.
The new bolt from Porsche admittedly has a high texture finish to the head, which seems to be slightly rougher than my old bolts. It’s the wrench marks that really show as a “polished” smooth contrast to the texture that is my issue. It’s a little like the contrast of the Fuch wheels between dull and smooth surfaces. It really stands out, so off to the Blasters the remaining bolts go!

Day 297

Today I took the wheel bolts to the blasters and got all the heads cleaned up and textured evenly to remove the socket wrench marks before dropping them off at the zinc platers.
This evening I emptied out a few boxes and bags and took stock of the few remaining parts that I’d removed from the car to work out the best restoration methods.

Day 298

Today I picked up the freshly dull zinc plated wheel bolts. The pre blasting really did the trick and all the heads are now a nice even texture with no socket marks showing in the zinc plate.

(IMG:http://www.914world.com/bbs2/uploads_offsite/i265.photobucket.com-18255-1469382122.11.jpg)

The dark rings on the thread is where they were wired up to hold them in the tank for plating. This will have a nice coating of copper grease so should be fine when fitted.
I’m really pleased with how they came out. It cost me £10 to get them done which is just less than the price of the one new bolt from Porsche (which I needed anyway as I had a rogue Beetle bolt in there) What a bargain price to get them looking all like new again.

Interestingly the bolts had little VW stamps on the ends..

(IMG:http://www.914world.com/bbs2/uploads_offsite/i265.photobucket.com-18255-1469382122.12.jpg)

Day 299

Today was a little frantic to say the least. I had a 10:15 hospital appointment in Portsmouth but decided to get up early and do a bit on the 914 very early on.
I’d picked the wheels up from the blasters on Friday and taken them home. The guy who works at the platers said he needed them pretty clean so that it wouldn’t contaminate his chemical tanks. The blasters had done the rear of the wheels as asked but the rims had lots of hardened black rubber marks from the tyre beads and the face of the wheels had old black and dirty stick foam from old wheel weights. All this had to come off before I could drop them off to be stripped of the original clear anodise coating.
It took me a good 2 ½ hours this morning to clean all this off with a combination of aluminium plate scrapers (I’d cut from some spare ali sheet) brass wire brushes, Cif cream (good olde Cif) and some pan scrubber scotchbrite (the green stuff that wont easily scratch) and a good amount of Cellulose thinners to clean after and remove the old grease from down and around the bolt holes
As it was a Monday and I’d had engineers working on a project at work over the weekend I needed to go into work before the Hospital appointment at 10:15. I had breakfast on the run, loaded the car with the wheels and shot off for 2 hours at work before leaving in good time for the Hospital.
Today I had an EEG test following my TIA last month, where they wire about 30 electrodes on your scalp to measure your brain waves, make you look at strobe lights and hyperventilate until you start to starve your brain of oxygen (all in the name science).
What they don’t tell you is that they measure and mark your head/hair with a pastel crayon then a sort of paste and glue the electrode onto your head, so by the time it was time to leave I had a head covered in goo, sticky stuff and spots of yellow pastel crayon. Not a good look and certainly gave me a few funny looks on the walk out of the hospital!
Anyhow, still looking like some crazy punk rocker I dropped the wheels off at the platters to get them stripped of the clear anodise before rushing home to wash my head.
After a manic wash and brush up I leapt back in the car, hair still wet and raced to Chichester Hospital for a 2pm MRI brain scan.
This was a novel experience too. Stripped of any metal jewellery, clothing containing metal and fitted with ear plugs and ear defenders, my head was sat in a cradle with a cage place over it while I entered the large donut MRI machine. This banged, clunked and buzzed in an alarming way for 20 minutes with me daring not move a muscle as it carried out an in depth brain scan.
Fun over I asked the lady where I collect the photo (in a sort of Roller Coaster, end of the ride way).
Back in the Hospital carpark I turned my phone on and got a message to say the wheels had been stripped and were ready to collect. By now it was 4pm and a toss up between going back to work for an hour or picking up the wheels. Guess what choice my fried brain made……

(IMG:http://www.914world.com/bbs2/uploads_offsite/i265.photobucket.com-18255-1469382122.13.jpg)

They’ve come up like brand new!
Tomorrow the next stage of this refurbishment process is to go back to the blasters to gently blast the dull area’s between the polished petals to remove some old battle scars (scratches, knocks from lazy wrench action etc) to give a uniform texture before going off to the polishers.
Once all this is done they can be re anodised in clear. I forgot to mention that when I dropped them off this morning before work the chap used a special meter on them to measure the original factory anodise thickness. This ranged from 8.5 microns on the face of the petals (which you can only presume wears thin with washing over 40+ years) to 11 microns on the inside of the wheel (under the tyre where it cannot get washed/rubbed)
The platers reckon they can get 20 microns on them when they re anodise, so hopefully this will exceed the factory finish and prove to be longer lasting.

Day 300
Today I dropped the wheels back off at the blasters and explained what was needed on the “dull” area’s of the wheel faces, so hopefully they get out the numerous dents and scratches for a flawless finish!
I had a few parts turn up in the mail today including the majority of my 316 stainless pipe fittings that I plan to construct a neat Twin Carb fuel rail with. (This is the one I mentioned designing last month).
After unpacking the pipe fittings I started on the new stainless fuel rail and made up the parts ready for Tig welding.
I should have enough bits to keep me going this weekend while the wheels are still away. I’ll take some pictures tomorrow of progress as I’ve not been home in daylight today, early start and long day at work getting in the way of the 914 restoration!

Day 301

Today I had a good day making stuff.
Since the weather was awful I spent the day in my shed and cut and treaded some stainless pipe to make up a nice fuel rail with centre feed so as not to starve either carburettor. To ensure that there was no risk of fuel leakage from any of the thread fittings, all joints got stainless Tig welded up.
To make sure all the welds and joints were good I capped the ends and pumped it up with my foot pump to 10 psi. (I plan on running between 3 & 3.5 psi, so a test at 10 psi is more that sufficient). To double check I submerged it in the bath tub for a good while and all went well.

(IMG:http://www.914world.com/bbs2/uploads_offsite/i265.photobucket.com-18255-1469382122.14.jpg)

Next I turned down a fuel bleed/return. When running carbs with an electric pump it helps to have a bleed/return to keep the pump happy when the engine is at idle and the floats are closed. It also helps to cool the pump if there is always a flow.
The easiest way to do this is machine out a shouldered bore inside a spare carb hose tail. After rummaging in my shed I found some old bits of carb and unscrewed a hose tail. This was lightly bored out on my lathe and from a scrap bit of brass I turned an insert with 1mm bleed hole. It’s always important to turn a chamfer/cone on the end facing against the fuel flow. This helps if there are any dirt or particles in the fuel system. The hole is less likely to block as the dirt/debris tends to head down the chamfer/cone to the sides of the pipe and keep the hole clear.

(IMG:http://www.914world.com/bbs2/uploads_offsite/i265.photobucket.com-18255-1469382123.15.jpg)

Day 302

This morning I had a lie in until 6am. I went and picked my son up and we spent a good 2 hours out driving in the Morris Traveller. As the weather was blustery with constant drizzle all day, I let him get away without flatting and polishing a body panel after we’d finished. After a fry up brunch I dropped him home and started on the 914.

I had a good day fitting parts to the car and making a few adjustments to get this just right.

As I’d said earlier in my thread, Carbs were fitted from my shed stock way back in November to get the engine running for the first time in several years so that I could find out just exactly what I’d purchased blind. The paint shop had also said to me that they’d only take the car in for paint if it drove, so carbs were a quick no cost solution for me as I have numerous old & new sets in my shed from my VW days.

I temporarily fitted rubber fuel hoses and used rivi-nuts in the factory holes in the bulkhead between engine bay and trunk to secure the fuel hose to the bulkhead with stainless rubber lined P clips. (This picture is from last November)

(IMG:http://www.914world.com/bbs2/uploads_offsite/i265.photobucket.com-18255-1469382123.16.jpg)

Moving on to today I fitted the stainless steel fuel pipe manifold I’d just made using the same rivi-nut fixing points for a much neater and safer out of the way installation.

(IMG:http://www.914world.com/bbs2/uploads_offsite/i265.photobucket.com-18255-1469382123.17.jpg)

Just need to hunt down some tiny metal tubing this week to make a nice twin vacuum tube between carbs and dizzy.

Day 303

Today I chased up the wheels, they’ve had them a good few days now but told me they have been too busy to start them this week. Fingers crossed they might be ready to take to the polishers by the end of the week. With the engine running, and most bits done I’m itching to get the car down to the test centre for the MOT. It’s most likely that they pick up some inherent “made for USA market” faults and make me go take it away to make it comply with UK market law, so I need to plan time to do any remedial works.

Anyway this lunchtime I ordered up a couple of metres of small metal tube to make the vacuum pipe with.
When I got home this evening I did a little housekeeping in the engine bay and noticed an open tube from the tinware on the drivers side forward of the inlet manifold. I think this is the old warm air take off for the induction. With the twin carbs it isn’t really required so I turned down a spare bit of stainless bar on my lathe and plugged the hole so that any air wouldn’t escape into the engine compartment and instead be redirected over the cylinders.
I also had a tinker with the spring tension on the newly made throttle assembly. I’d made a spring anchor with a threaded end which fits in either of the 4 bearing housing mounting bolt holes. By moving it left or right by a hole, I can adjust the coil spring tension and ultimately the accelerator pedal feel/resistance.
The throttle arms fitted directly on the carbs have their own return coil springs and with the new assembly “safety” spring installed the resistance (when set as I found on the FI) was overall greater than stock as your pressing against two carb springs in addition to the FI springs. Since I cannot safely remove the two carb springs (which is not recommended) I took the Safety spring anchor off tonight and set the tension less by moving it back to another hole. This worked a treat and the pedal feel is much nicer than before.
It’s these little tweaks that I need to make and find over the first few months of usage until I get everything to my liking, fluid and just so!

Day 304

Today, with blustery rain and wind I’ve kept indoors all day (There’s British summer for you) . I took the engine lid out of storage in my attic and started to re-assemble it as I’ll soon be ready to put it back on the car.
First I fitted the two new rubber bump stops to the hinges, followed by the cleaned and refurbished spring rods that hold the lid open under hinge tension. The small plastic clip and screw were cleaned within an inch of its life and fitted back on.
Next I used my Swedish punch set to make the holes in the new rubber T seal for the engine lid grill (that I’d previously fitted the Porsche script too). I then fitted the grill using the cleaned up captive rubber coated washers with a tiny bit of caulking applied to the rear to seal the hole in the engine lid and hopefully prevent any future corrosion due to held water under the washers.
Finally I fitted the new genuine Porsche U trim along the outside edges. I tried alternative suppliers but found only the genuine Porsche seal is the exact size U, nothing else seemed to come close.

(IMG:http://www.914world.com/bbs2/uploads_offsite/i265.photobucket.com-18255-1469382123.18.jpg)

Tomorrow I plan on getting the water tray out of storage and sorting out the fixings to complete the lid rebuild.

Day 305

Today I picked up a few stainless fixings and this evening I fitted the refurbished water tray to the inside of the engine lid. I discovered why the tray was cracked when I got the car. There should be two bushes in between the tray and the two outer M6 securing bolts. Without them the bolt pulls the tray into the metal pressing and cracks it. I’d repaired the tray and only when looking at the PET last night for the M6 bolt lengths did I see the Bushes. These were missing from my car. I can only guess that when the Muppets who carried out the awful respray for the PO back in the past, took the tray off, lost the bushes and bolted it back on pulling up the bolts tight and cracking the water tray.
Anyway, suffice to say I’ve made new ones this evening and bolted on the repaired tray without issue.

(IMG:http://www.914world.com/bbs2/uploads_offsite/i265.photobucket.com-18255-1469382124.19.jpg)


The grille I fitted last night with the rubber T seal was causing me some concern. The last and first inch of the seal has to have the bottom return lip cut off to clear the lid pressing. This means with a 914rubber seal (unlike a more rigid plastic original seal) it seems to just flap around as it’s too flexible. Last night I masked it up, after posting on here, and injected a tiny amount of Tigerseal between grill and lid at each end of the seal and stuck it back in. With a small bit of masking tape to hold it in place I left it to dry until today.
With the tape removed it was held perfectly in place with no Tigerbond visible. No more flapping about and hanging out.

(IMG:http://www.914world.com/bbs2/uploads_offsite/i265.photobucket.com-18255-1469382124.20.jpg)



So that was Month 10……

Despite all the setbacks from the TIA, the Consultant thankfully found no lasting brain damage. I’m still having many ongoing tests and have to stick with the Medication and low cholesterol diet until they can find what caused it.

The good news after a month is that I can drive again. For someone who’s raison d'être is cars, it’s the best news ever!

Progress on the 914 has been good in cramped conditions and bad weather setbacks, the whole underside is restored and repainted, front suspension and brakes refurbished, rebuilt and back on. Wheels part restored and the wheel bolts refurbished. A little self indulgence was had on making a neat 316 Stainless Steel fuel manifold for the Carbs in the engine bay; and the engine lid was re-assembled.

We only have 2 months left now before the end of this 12 month Build-off Challenge and I’m on track to have the car tested by the UK Ministry of Transport so that after many years sitting un-used it can be returned to the road and enjoyed again.

Thanks yet again for taking time out to read my thread. I hope you find it interesting.

[3d914]

Awesome job, Darren. Glad you're on the rebound health wise. This will be a sweet ride to enjoy for many years.

[theleschyouknow]

wow. just wow
just read the whole saga over the last few days
great build great documentation
your persistence and attention to detail is amazing, if a bit over the top!
holding a good thought for your continued recovery

(IMG:style_emoticons/default/beerchug.gif)
cjl

[gereed75]

I read with continued amazement. Continued good health to you.

Your level of craftmanship is off the charts (IMG:style_emoticons/default/smilie_pokal.gif)

[Vysoc]

Wow Darren, you are really an inspiration to all of us.

Stay healthy....unbelievable work and documentation!!!

Vysoc (IMG:style_emoticons/default/flag.gif)

[Darren C]

Thanks for the kind words, much appreciated.

There’s been a lot of good progress this last month with the other challengers build off threads, some impressive work going on out there!

Month 11


Day 306

This morning I started by very carefully painting the retaining nuts holding the Porsche script letters black through the grill so the couldn’t be seen so easily. The originals were black as far as I know, but the Porsche superceded nuts came BZP and could be seen through the grill which played on my OCD, so they needed to be blacked out.
At lunchtime I checked in on the wheels at the bead blasting company. They’d promised to start them yesterday so I thought I’d see how things were going. Not finished yet so will try in a few days. Today the fine pipe turned up in the mail for the vacuum advance tube I plan to make.
This evening I spent a good few hours with some fine gas welding rods to bend up a “pipe wire” the guide I plan to use for bending the pipe. I tried a few options before coming up with what I think is the neatest route where the pipe can be clipped easily at even spaces and doesn’t offend the eye or obstruct anything in the engine bay.
For the sake of a good vacuum advance/retard curve I’ve retained the original distributor. Most people swap them out (with all good intention) to a centrifugal type. These are ok to a point but never match the original advance curve exactly and can cause issues at certain revs with timing. With my twin carb modification the Webers that I’ve used have vacuum ports. The key here is to use BOTH carbs vacuum ports linked in one pipe to stop “pulsation” that sometimes occurs when your only running a vacuum advance from one bank of cylinders in a Boxer engine.
With the pipe wires made up tonight I hope to start bending my new pipe tomorrow.

Day 307

Today was another manic Friday. I did however manage to get a blanking disc made to fit in the centre of the alloy wheels (about 77mm diameter) to help the metal polishers keep on track.
I also started to bend the new vacuum advance pipe to match the wire I’d bent last night. I need to check & double check one end of the wire for the driver side as the welding rod I used was too short for the complete length (it exceeds 1m between carbs). I started to venture out of my shed and over to the garage tonight just after 9pm and had second thoughts due to the drop in temperature; so returned to bending pipe and sorting out some nice stainless rubber lined P clips to hold it in place.

Day 308

Today I took my son out for more driving lessons, he did really well and by noon we’d been out almost 4 hours so called it a day and dropped him off back at his mom’s house..
I carried on this afternoon with the vacuum pipe. Taking a few things off the car to have good access I went too & fro from garage to shed getting the bending just right for a perfect fit.
I marked up the area nearest the dizzy and cut a short piece of pipe to make a tee and silver brazed it in place for a very strong joint. Next I ran a small drill down the pipe to create an opening inside the tee.
After sanding it all down, dressing the braze with needle files and a final rub with red scotchbrite; I gave it a paint indoors in the warm with satin black engine enamel.

It doesn't look much, but figuring out a neat route for the pipe to avoid all obstacles and make sure it doesn't obscure service stuff, plus pick up on tinware screws for the P clamps was no mean feat.

(IMG:http://www.914world.com/bbs2/uploads_offsite/i265.photobucket.com-18255-1472496046.1.jpg)

Day 309

Today I fitted the vacuum pipe using a flashlight, it’s no fun in a tiny ex council garage with no power & heat in the dark I can tell you!
The pipe fitted a treat held in place with the new rubber lined Stainless P clips.
If the temperature doesn’t start to rise a little I’m going to struggle working out there in the evenings after work. Fortunately I have only the engine lid to fit back on the car now, then it’s the wait for the wheels to be finished and I should be good to go!

Day 310

Today I did call the blasters and they told me they were in the middle of working on the wheels and they should be blasted (between the area’s to polish) by the end of the week. Hmmmm, I’ve heard that before somewhere?
During the engine lid rebuild I wanted to fit the rubber “L” bracket to my car to prevent the boot hitting the engine lid. I’d purchased the rubber part from Mark at 914rubber way back in the summer with the other bits but had no metal bracket to support it.
Internet and UK parts searches had thrown up the part as discontinued so I thought I’d make one.
Not having the part and only some low res pictures off google, I spoke to Kevin a fellow UK 914 owner who did me a smashing drawing with photo of two brackets he’s hoarding.

Here’s a copy of the picture he emailed me and his brackets. (The one I’m missing)

(IMG:http://www.914world.com/bbs2/uploads_offsite/i265.photobucket.com-18255-1472496046.2.jpg)

This was all I needed to make my own.

This morning I got up a few hours before work and with the aid of a warm air blower spent a couple of hours in my shed before dawn and started to fashion some heavy duty spare metal plate in to a form press to make the missing bracket.
Now I guess at this point someone is going to tell me they have one that I can have; but to be fair the fun and satisfaction for me is in making one. (sad I know)
After work this evening I carried on with filing and checking, welding and dressing the form press parts in my new Imagineering quest.
To be fair this evening I was only going to post a couple of sentences in this thread saying “spent 5 hours in shed filing” or something similar, but hey, I thought post a picture because no one ever realises when I explain something as mundane as an angle bracket, the sort of effort that goes into it.
So with the two parts of the form press roughly measured and made, the next stage tomorrow will be to machine a locating dowel (for the hole to hold the metal precisely in the die while pressing) and a strongback with matching dowel hole for the other plate to lock upper and lower forms together while pressing.
Eager to see how things would work out and to understand the press “shrinkage” I was going to get (so that I could make the actual plate that forms the bracket wider to start with so that when pressed it will be the exact size) I trial pressed a piece of scrap Zintec sheet.
I’m quite pleased with the result as a first trial, there’s maybe another few hours refining the form press but it’s pretty much where it needs to be to make a nice “pattern” bracket.

(IMG:http://www.914world.com/bbs2/uploads_offsite/i265.photobucket.com-18255-1472496046.3.jpg)

Day 311

Today's 914 escapades started at lunchtime when I picked up some slightly longer M6 stainless Cheese heads from the iron mongers. The new throttle bracket I made and a couple of the P clips holding the vacuum pipe barely go in a few turns now as they pass through extra parts so my plan is to swap them over for longer sets.
This evening I had a parcel arrive. It was from Auto Atlanta (about time too) with two new deflectors in. These are the plastic parts that hang under the car just in front of the engine. One of mine was missing (apart from a broken bit of it left, held on with the screws). I opened the parcel with great expectation but my smile turned into a frown. The quality was again very poor. Obviously a back street molded part. Air bubbles and pieces where the plastic hadn’t flowed into the mold properly. I’m beginning to think (from bitter experience) that 99% of Auto Atlanta reproduction parts are like this. They must employ Stevie Wonder to make them and wear mittens for quality control.
Hey ho, at least they weren’t expensive unlike the speaker grilles. I think I’ll repair and tidy up the best one of the two and just replace my missing one.
I decided to take my mind off things and head for the shed.
Using some more scrap plate I cut and welded a strong back onto one half of the form press I made last yesterday. I then turned down a M8 bolt to give a 6mm dowel and tapped out the other half of the form press. Lining the two halves together I carefully measured and drilled the strongback to accept the dowel bolt.
With a second piece of Zintec of the correct thickness, I bent it at 90 and drilled a 6mm hole to take the dowel. This “Locked” it into the form press and because I’d made a threaded dowel, as I pressed the zintec in the form press (using my large vice) I could back off (unwind) the dowel so that both halves of the form press could close fully without the dowel hitting the jaw of my vice.
The result was perfect. Superb definition and no distortion in the zintec as it couldn’t slip & slide like my first trial piece. The shrinkage on the width was a whopping 7mm (calculated from the first trial) so with the second zintec sheet cut 7mm too wide, it finished at a spot on width.
Finally I opened up the 6mm dowel hole to a 7mm slot and radiused the corners and folded the 5mm angle on the bottom to complete the missing bracket.

(IMG:http://www.914world.com/bbs2/uploads_offsite/i265.photobucket.com-18255-1472496046.4.jpg)

I’m really pleased with the result.

This evening I cut a few extra long tinware screws down to an exacting length for the vacuum pipe P clips, rub down the small angle bracket and give it a coat of etch primer before sticking it in the oven in my kitchen to bake.
Fingers crossed tomorrow I can pick up the wheels from the blasters.

Day 312

Today I’ve been tinkering with jet sizes in the carbs and painted the newly made engine lid bump stop bracket a satin black over yesterdays etch primer and fitted it along with the rubber part to the engine lid, perfect!
I then had a play with the Carb intake trumpets. I’d bought some nice billet turned ally ones and with messing about with the jets the otherday noticed that the flange on their base overhung the main jet holes just enough to make you have to take the trumpets off to unscrew the mains. This was obviously a faff, so I took them off and filed a neat semi-circular cut out in the flange to clear the jets and refitted them.
I then spent a few hours making one good underbody air deflector flap from two poorly molded Auto Atlanta replacements and tapped out the 3 mounting holes M5 to finish.
With the wind and rain picking up, I went back out to the garage and got under the car to remove the old remaining part of the broken off air deflector. I had to unclip the fuel pipes to get the old bolts out but once off I gave the area a damn good clean. The underside got touched in with stone guard and behind the fuel pipes above got a good coat of clear waxoil. All this should hopefully be dry by the morning so that I can bolt on the “remanufactured” air deflector.
As promised in between todays escapades I took a few photos in daylight (very dark cloudy daylight) of the engine bay to show the fitted vacuum advance pipe I made last week to sit neatly on the engine.

(IMG:http://www.914world.com/bbs2/uploads_offsite/i265.photobucket.com-18255-1472496047.5.jpg)

(IMG:http://www.914world.com/bbs2/uploads_offsite/i265.photobucket.com-18255-1472496047.6.jpg)

Day 313

Today was a busy day with more driving lessons with my son, working on my Audi A4 daily driver (fixing the tailgate latch flap cover and putting another coat of paint on the 4 new brake disc/rotors ready to fit them) while trying to keep things pinned down in the very blustery wind.

I did manage to get the remanufactured AA air deflector fitted to the underside of the 914 and another coat of waxoil over the bolt heads!
With any luck the wheels might just be ready from the blasters tomorrow.

Day 314

Today was a long day.
I was out of the house and off to work by 6am and I have only just got in at 11:25pm !
Straight from work I had a car club committee meeting that went on a while.
Anyway the good news is that I managed to pick the wheels up from the blasters and it was well worth the wait as they’ve done an excellent job and understood everything asked of them.

This is “Stage 4” of the wheel restoration.

Stage 1……. was the clean, scrub and cif to get the dirt grime and brake dust off after the tyres were removed including hours of scraping with soft aluminium home made scrapers to get the black tyre bead marks and old wheel weights & stick foam off the rims. This left cleanish wheels with a good amount of surface corrosion on the rear inside rims.

Stage 2……. was to bead blast the rears to remove the corrosion and leave an even finish, plus cleaning them perfectly ready for Stage 3 (which they would only do with clean wheels)

Stage 3……. was the electrochemical stripping of the anodising.

Stage 4……. was the removal of all marks, scratches and damage to the dull areas of the wheels in between the polished rim and petals, including slip scratches from wheel braces, PO scraping off scratches from old wheel weight removal when the tyres had been changed and the removal of screwdriver lever marks from old centre cap removals.
Here’s a couple of pictures from tonight after bringing them into the house.

(IMG:http://www.914world.com/bbs2/uploads_offsite/i265.photobucket.com-18255-1472496047.7.jpg)

This is still bare metal, no anodised coatings or paint.

(IMG:http://www.914world.com/bbs2/uploads_offsite/i265.photobucket.com-18255-1472496047.8.jpg)

Stage 5….. will be the Polishing of the appropriate areas only and 6 the re anodising.
Tomorrow I need to spend a few hours tweaking the polishing templates and centre discs I’ve already made before I’m happy to drop them off at the polishers.

Day 315


Before work and after this evening I’ve been working on the polishing template/guards.
I plan to drop all the wheels off at the polishers in the morning so needed to make sure all the polishing templates were a good fit. Time spent on this is well worth it for a good lasting result.
The first template is 2mm steel and solid so it wont deform. This sits flat and level in the wheel and I designed it to be used purely to polish the outer rim and leave a neat line between polished and matt alloy to match the original.

(IMG:http://www.914world.com/bbs2/uploads_offsite/i265.photobucket.com-18255-1472496048.9.jpg)

The second template is 1.5mm aluminium that I have worked by hand into a convex dish (using my panel rollers) to sit perfectly around the petals. This is for polishing the petals only. I also made two centre discs to sandwich the middle of the wheel to aid petal polishing and a “spring” ring to sit inside the rim to stop the polishers catching the matt area.

(IMG:http://www.914world.com/bbs2/uploads_offsite/i265.photobucket.com-18255-1472496048.10.jpg)

With the aid of 14mm bolts everything is locked in place so that the polished shapes are uniform around and between each wheel.
I’ll load them up in the morning and drop them off before work.

They form a kinda “idiots guide” for the polishers and should provide mm perfect accuracy and match across all 5 wheels when they are worked on the polishing wheels. It also means it costs me less money at the polishers as I’ve made it real easy for them.

Day 316

I dropped the wheels off at the polishers today. The bloke took one look and said with a sharp intake of breath "oooo they're a bit fiddly!"

"Fiddly, fiddly!”
After all my effort in making the templates so they can go wild with the polishing heads without getting it wrong, the chap thinks they're fiddly?
Just a load of twaddle imho to justify him trying to charge me more money!

Well, we'll have to see. He thinks he'll get one polished by the end of the week for me to inspect.

Until then tonight after work I'm tinkering with rebuilding/refurbishing the whole braking system on my Audi A4 wonder bus that I bought the other weekend to replace my Volvo V70.

Day 317

Today was manic, driving lessons with my son at 8am. We went along Southsea front and it was so stormy a wave hit the sea wall and crashed right across road and the little Morris Traveller. Suffice to say we gave it a good wash when we got home to clear the saltwater stains!
The rest of the day was dedicated to full brake replacement inc hoses, discs & calipers on the new Audi. Needs must on the daily driver.
Anyway a few more 914 tinkering bits turned up in the mail including these….

(IMG:http://www.914world.com/bbs2/uploads_offsite/i265.photobucket.com-18255-1472496048.11.jpg)

So there's still stuff to play with while waiting for the wheels and working on the Audi!

Day 318

Today I visited the polishers......
4 out of 5 wheels done
They look AWESOME !

The last one should be finished tomorrow so off to the anodisers Friday.
I'll take my camera tomorrow so I can take some pictures.

Day 319

Yesterday I called in at the polishers but they hadn't quite finished the last wheel.

Today I called in and collected them in my van.

(IMG:http://www.914world.com/bbs2/uploads_offsite/i265.photobucket.com-18255-1472496048.12.jpg)

They look perfect.
I took them down to the anodisers straight away. They need to fully chemically degrease them and remove any residue polish and dirty finger marks prior to the final clear anodise process. This will protect and calm them down ever so lightly to match the original finish.
Part of me would like to leave them this high mirror polish finish, but with salt on UK roads they’d just corrode real quick. I’ve opted to get them re-anodised to help stop this and get them back to factory fresh finish.
Hopefully they’ll be done tomorrow, it’s a quick process.

Day 320

This morning I loaded up the 5 x new Michelin tyres and took them into work. I called the anodisers this morning to see if the wheels were ready to pick up at lunchtime. The plan was to take them straight over in my lunchbreak to get the tyres fitted.
Unfortunately they were still in the tank as they hadn’t gone in until late this morning.
I got to collect them late this afternoon.
It was quite a surprise to see them at the end of this long process. The wheels had “toned down” massively from the highly polished finish they arrived with to what I can only describe as a dull satin. Apart from all the kerb marks, corrosion on the rear, chips and scratches (that have all been removed now) the wheels don’t look at all like they’ve been refurbished.
Part of me quite liked the very chrome-shiny look before anodising and is sorry to see it lost, but thinking long and hard about what I see before me now, I’ve achieved the goal I wanted….the fact that they look like they haven’t been refurbished at all!
The only down side today is that by the time I’d dropped them off at the tyre fitters this evening it was too late today for them to fit the tyres.

Day 321

Today I did a little fettling on the 914 (after working on my son’s car and my Audi).
In anticipation for the wheels arriving home with tyres on, I wound back the track rod arm lock nuts on both ends and unscrewed the link rod. Everything got a good coat of copper grease and re-assembled. I'll need to get the tracking done when the car goes in for MOT so today's exercise was to ensure it can be done with the lightest of touch and little effort at the garage.
I also went around and under the car with a fine tooth comb and a tiny brush touching in a few bits and bobs.
With any luck I'll get the wheels back from the tyre fitters tomorrow. My friend runs the tyre shop and He knows I want a good job with balance weights on the rear of the rims so they look neat from the front. I’d rather wait a day than get a bad job or a damaged rim.

Day 322

Today I finally got the wheels home with tyres fitted.

Not that it all went to plan, that is…..I telephoned the tyre fitters this morning and they said they’d be done for 5pm today. This scuppered the planned lunchtime pick up, so I worked through and left half an hour early.
After fighting through the rush hour traffic I arrived at the garage and collected my wheels, arriving home this evening after 7pm in the miserable dark & rain I carefully placed the wheels in my No1 heated & dehumidified posh garage (attached to my house) to spend the night.
I’ve taken a few photo’s of the finished wheels.
Please excuse the tyres, they’re covered in that soapy stuff used to fit them still and soapy dirty fingerprints around the holes in the alloys from the fitters (and me) lifting the wheels around. I was going to wash them off but in the hammering rain and darkness outside I’ll leave it until the morning when I can see to do a better job.
As explained a few days ago I was quite taken aback on how they’ve come out after the clear anodising. With the test meter we measured consistently North of 20 microns so they are far, far better protected than they were new.
At first sight I thought they looked as if they hadn’t been refurbished at all, which was a little disappointing considering all the effort.

Then the penny dropped….That’s because I have followed the original processes to a T, so they should look like this.

So to further talk myself into this theory and support the synopsis I started to google old factory pictures (or what I thought to be old).

For some reason I’d gotten it in my mind that there was a stark contrast in light and dark between the polished and un polished surfaces (as in the photo of them in the back off my van leaving the polishers) but in reality it is all about how light hits the wheel, after all its all the same alloy, just a contrast between a smooth and textured surface.
Bingo! In some light and angles the wheels look all one shade and in others the texture strikes a contrast.
So after much ado (and waffle) here’s what all 5 wheels looked like tonight under the light of my No1 garage, seemingly one shade….

(IMG:http://www.914world.com/bbs2/uploads_offsite/i265.photobucket.com-18255-1472496048.13.jpg)

When laid flat and with the camera at an angle so the light hits the wheel in the horizontal you get the contrast. (This is the difficulty of taking pictures on a dark night under strip lights and camera flash)

(IMG:http://www.914world.com/bbs2/uploads_offsite/i265.photobucket.com-18255-1472496049.14.jpg)

So that’s hopefully (an OCD as best as you’ll get in the UK) refurbishment of the 914 Fuchs wheel!

Day 323

I couldn’t wait until the weekend to wash and clean the wheels to get the tyre fitters paw prints and soap off. I gave them a good clean this morning (in the dark before work) and finished them off this evening (again in the dark). After a chamois I brought them into the house to dry.
Off into one of my sheds and unpacked the nice new centre caps that I got in the summer with my large order to 914rubber. I’d taken one over to the anodisers to use their special meter to check firstly if they’d been anodised at all and to what thickness.
The chap said they’d had a chemical brightening process before between 6 & 8 microns of clear anodise applied.
I considered having them re-anodised to a thicker coat but the chap said that he couldn’t do that without dulling them down a little because he couldn’t replicate the chemical brightening on site. After a little thought I decided to leave them as supplied. They’re a relatively cheap item so if in 5 years they corrode with UK salt on the roads I can just buy some more.
Tonight I went over the 5 wheels and selected the one to be the spare then fitted the centre caps to the remaining 4. These were bloomin tight to get in, even with a little PH neutral soft soap, in the end I had to use a block of softwood and mallet to get them in. Hopefully they won’t fall out easily!
I couldn’t resist placing the bolts in the holes loosely to see how they looked.

(IMG:http://www.914world.com/bbs2/uploads_offsite/i265.photobucket.com-18255-1472496049.15.jpg)

Day 324

As I was off work today I decided to take advantage and get the wheels fitted to the car. I got up at dawn (before the rain swept in) and started by coating the mounting faces with a very light smear of copper grease. This should stop them sticking to the brake discs over time and help prevent corrosion.
I carried each wheel in turn out of the house down the road and into the garage block in a wheel relay race to beat the rain clouds. All inside the garage (a bit cosy I can tell you as there’s hardly room to squeeze down each side of the car let alone do it with 4 wheels in the way) I set about copper greasing the newly plated wheel bolts and sitting them neatly on 4 sheets of kitchen paper roll by each hub.
Having checked the owners handbook for the torque setting (for 39mm long bolts) I set my wrench and fitted all 4 wheels before finally removing the axle stands to drop the car onto the floor and torque the bolts up.
Apologies for the dark pictures but it was raining and I didn’t want to push the car out of the narrow garage.

(IMG:http://www.914world.com/bbs2/uploads_offsite/i265.photobucket.com-18255-1472496049.16.jpg)

(IMG:http://www.914world.com/bbs2/uploads_offsite/i265.photobucket.com-18255-1472496049.17.jpg)

Within minutes of opening the garage door this morning the car (freezing cold from overnight) began to condense moisture over every surface from the warm humid air entering the garage. By the time the wheels were fitted the car, to my dismay, was dripping wet with condensation! I chamois it off but it fogged up straight after so there was nothing I could do until it physically warmed up to the outside temperature.
I retired to my shed and unpacked the front undertray that I’d had previously blasted and powder coated. With the axle stands now removed and back into the shed I could fit the tray over the steering rack. I’d got some rubber trim from UK supplier Woolies, they list it as “mudflap” trim, some call it feather or lip edge, but it’s the same stuff as original. The lip on the Woolies trim is about 4mm wider than the old trim, but apart from that its identical. I’d put the trim on the undertray in the same orientation as the old one that came off, but had to admit the old one didn’t look great when it was on the car.

(IMG:http://www.914world.com/bbs2/uploads_offsite/i265.photobucket.com-18255-1472496050.18.jpg)

I fitted the tray after cleaning up and waxoiling the bolts, but wasn’t happy with the fit of the seal to the car underside. Lying under the car looking at it I pondered for a while (while watching the suspension arms slowly fog up with condensation!) and decided to take the tray back off, remove the seals, flip them over and refit the tray.
Perfect!
With the seals reversed the curl in the lip met the underside of the car and followed the contours perfectly to close all gaps.

(IMG:http://www.914world.com/bbs2/uploads_offsite/i265.photobucket.com-18255-1472496050.19.jpg)

(IMG:http://www.914world.com/bbs2/uploads_offsite/i265.photobucket.com-18255-1472496050.20.jpg)

With the axle stands gone I went around and did a little underbody guard paint touching up just as the wind and rain moved up a gear so I called it a day as the wind kept lifting and rattling the half open “up and over” door allowing the rain to blow all over the rear of the car! Lets hope the weather gets better tomorrow.

Day 325

Today I was up and out before dawn to attend a classic car show in Wickham Square, North of Fareham (An old medieval village about 20 miles form Chichester). There’s always a varied turnout of cars and today was no exception. My favourite car of the day had to be a lovely burgundy 912, with a 3 letter 3 digit 912 licence plate. Anyway I had a nice day out and the weather stayed dry for once which helped.
I got home mid afternoon and straight on to the 914.
I took the carbs apart and fitted my new 32mm venturi’s in place of the 28’s, reduced the air correctors to 175’s and the mains to 125’s.
The engine ran up easy then as it was warming through it started to splutter and died?
Since I’d fitted a fuel return, when the engine stopped I couldn’t hear the pump?
Hmmm, lifted relay cover and took out the Brand new genuine Porsche relay and swapped it with an old one that came with the car, pump ran up again….bloomin annoying.
I did notice that the large voltage regulator fastened to the relay board had got a very hot bracket where it screws onto the relay board (not the dome cover, just the brackets)??? I’m wondering now if its on the blink or I’m getting excess voltage (which might have killed the new pump relay?) or that's actually normal?
The gauge on the dash shows a shade over 14V when running so on initial inspection seems ok. I need to get my meter on it tomorrow in the daylight.
With the relay swapped over I ran up the car and all was good again, apart from a hot reg bracket, but I need to fine tune it now as I have suspicions on the timing as I’ve not checked that since buying the car.
More jobs for tomorrow.

Day 326

This morning, making use of the dry weather, I sorted a few jobs out on my Audi before mid morning then moved onto the 914.

All went well first thing. I turned the engine over by hand (spanner on the alternator nut) and revealed the timing marks on the fan. I gave them a degrease with a small paint brush soaked in cellulose thinners, before using a very fine modellers brush to paint the thin line white. I carefully continued this across the fan blade to cover the width of the fan in a bright thin white line.
With the relay replaced yesterday I started the engine and warmed it through. The alternator output was checked and by meter was 13.44 volts so no issue there, which was a relief.
Next I set and checked the timing to the 27 degrees mark at 3500rpm with the vac pipe off. It was a tiny bit out but nothing to shout about. With it reset spot on I did up the clamp and put my strobe light away just as a friend turned up with his dwell meter.
A quick check of the dwell and it was all good at 45 degrees.
I was just about to fine tune the idle speed and the engine died, just like yesterday?
Today in daylight I could see better than yesterday evening and after initially suspecting the relay (I took it out and tested it….but it was ok) I noticed the fuse on the relay board looked burnt.
On closer inspection it had blown but in a heated slow way which meant that the two halves touched when cold and parted when hot. This was causing the issue yesterday. When the engine was cold it ran up, when it warmed through it parted and cut the engine out.
This was a 25A fuse, so something was amiss?
I spent the afternoon chasing myself around in circles and discovered a partial earth on the 87 pin of the fuel pump relay connection in the relay board when the 14 pin plug (nearest the bulkhead) was disconnected?
At first I thought it must be a fault in the relay board so removed it from the car for testing but all seemed good. After a bit of head scratching and staring at the Haynes wiring diagram I noticed in very fine print, a take off from the fuel pump relay pin 87 (built into the relay board) that feeds pin 12 on the 12 pin connector at the rear of the relay board (nearest the boot). This has a white wire that feeds the FI Supplementary Air Valve that I’d removed when fitting the Carbs. Inadvertently when I reconnected up the main wiring loom I’d got one spare male spade in a single housing and one female spade from Temperature sender II that were both located by the coil. With everything reconnected and the FI loom off the car I’d foolishly connected these two wires together on the basis that they were the only two connectors left and were the correct position on the engine as the loom lay to joint together. WRONG!
So in reality I’d put a resistance to earth on pin 87 of the Fuel pump relay via the Supplementary Air Valve cable…Doh! It was a slow heat of the fuse on the relay board that eventually blew it.
Having realised my mistake I disconnected the wire just as my friend who was googling “blown fuse on 914 relay board” came up with a short on the Supplementary Air Valve wire!
Suffice to say I swapped the fuse over for a 16 Amp (instead of a 25A) as I have no rear heated window and to give a better earlier indication of any future faults.
It wasn’t a relay after all, just a self made error.
The voltage regulator still runs warm to the touch, but as there’s a vent opening under it in the relay board and I’m measuring 13.44V, I suspect that its normal to run warm but not hot?
On the bright side though....I have the carbs running sweetly. No nasty spitting back or popping that you usually get as a compromise with Carb conversions.

Just need to sort out the advance curve now on the dizzy.

Day 327

After the weekends tinkering and setting up of the Carbs and timing etc I wanted to get the vacuum advance working on the original Distributor as changing to a fully centrifugal (which most people do) has its issues with flat spots and poor mpg.
That said if I can’t get the original vacuum advance to work with these carbs then I may still need to go down the centrifugal route, but not before trying
Currently with all the tinkering at the weekend the car runs well with the vacuum plugged. Connect it up with my new pipe and the car runs worse?
This got me thinking and reading up on line articles and also some old 1970’s Weber books I have.
I think the issue is that the new carbs have a single vacuum port with a short stub pipe on each carb and the original FI took the vacuum from the combined manifold at the chamber.
The pipes on the IDF are “ported” vacuum take off, which isn’t quite the same as manifold or “direct” vacuum.
The ported vacuum take off is shown highlighted in red below and is a 15mm long 5mm diameter pipe sticking out from the carb.
(IMG:http://www.914world.com/bbs2/uploads_offsite/i265.photobucket.com-18255-1472496050.21.jpg)

There’s plenty of conflicting information on the internet and reading numerous articles just confuses you more. Many people advise to drill and tap a point in the intake manifolds to get a “direct” vacuum but there is already provision for this on the IDF that most people forget (arrowed as "vacuum ports"). There are two plugs next to the two mixture screws for manifold vacuum take off.
Problem is buying something that fits these (most vendors don’t understand what you want) so tonight after work I set about making some on the lathe.
After removing a blank plug and id-ing the thread as M4, I cut down four 20mm pieces of stainless 5mm diameter bar left over from making the throttle linkages.
The next stage was to face off chamfer and machine a 5mm length on the end, down to 4mm diameter and under cut the shoulder to 3.3mm and cut an M4 thread on it.
Next I faced off the other end and drilled a 3.2mm hole 13mm deep. This was then tapped out to M4 to a depth of 6mm.
The idea is that the plugs that came directly out of the carb to blank the holes will fit exactly the ends of these tubes to blank them. This is to ensure that I have some flexibility in using all or none of these tubes in the end. I plan on experimenting at the weekend with my bank of 4 vacuum test gauges to see and measure exactly what’s happening at the new “direct” manifold and at the carb “ported” tubes.
Finally to finish off the new manifold vacuum pipes I drilled the last 7mm in length at 2mm diameter through the middle of the M4 male thread to ensure it still has a decent wall thickness and strength.

(IMG:http://www.914world.com/bbs2/uploads_offsite/i265.photobucket.com-18255-1472496050.22.jpg)

It was difficult getting a good focus on the camera as these are so small!

Day 328

Today I thought I’d investigate the vacuum/timing characteristics of my car in an attempt to understand the optimum method for ignition timing and use of vacuum advance with a standard dizzy using Weber 40idf carbs.

As I’ve said before, it would be nice to keep the original dizzy (if I can get it to work well) with the carb conversion. It’s a bit like one of those Top Gear challenge specials. I have a fully centrifugal 009 with 050 advance curve lurking in a box in my shed. If I can’t get the original dizzy to work well, then the box is opened.

The first thing I did today was take out the Weber manifold vacuum plugs and fit my new tubes on cylinders 1 & 2.

Next I connected vacuum test hoses to these points (leaving the “ported” vac pipe still plugged and my blue “bespoke” vac pipe disconnected)

(IMG:http://www.914world.com/bbs2/uploads_offsite/i265.photobucket.com-18255-1472496051.23.jpg)

The hoses were run to my Carb Synchroniser panel gauges 1 & 2.
I then connect gauge 4 to the carb on banks 3 & 4; to its single ported vac pipe and ran up the engine with no connection to the vac diaphragm on the dizzy (as you do to time the car).
After warming through and sitting a tad below 900 rpm I could measure the vacuum in the intake manifolds of cylinders 1 & 2 and the ported vacuum of the carb on bank 3 & 4.

(IMG:http://www.914world.com/bbs2/uploads_offsite/i265.photobucket.com-18255-1472496051.24.jpg)

To my surprise I had a reading on 1 & 2 and nothing from the ported vac pipe on the carb over 3 & 4 ??

Hmmm. The balance on 1 & 2 was fine, but zero on the carb ported pipe.

I gently rev’d the engine to around 1200rpm and from about 1000 upwards I started to get a reading on gauge 4 from the ported carb vac.

(IMG:http://www.914world.com/bbs2/uploads_offsite/i265.photobucket.com-18255-1472496051.25.jpg)

Not a great vacuum but watching and comparing “ported” with “direct” (manifold) vacuum, the results are that my 2.0L engine has manifold vac from idle to around 1500 RPM which peaks around 1000 and drops off to zero as the carb reaches about 15% open. The ported vac however, starts at zero when at idle, then slowly increases up to 1100RPM where it balances out with the direct vac (as that decreases) so overall the maximum ported vac is much less that the manifold vac at idle. It’s not a very good vacuum and only present for a short period of time.
Interestingly with the timing set at 27 degrees BTDC at 3500 with vac pipes disconnected as per instructions; the timing at idle is barely 2 degrees BTDC (with vac pipe disconnected). With the vac pipe connected using manifold vacuum to the pipe on the dizzy diaphragm closest to the body it pulls the diaphragm at idle to just past TDC, retarded by a degree or so (hard to tell without markings)
Since this is the “factory standard” diaphragm pipe to use for the 2.0L with the other pipe (furthest from the dizzy body) left unused, I’m quite surprised by the findings?
I’d have expected it to be a few degrees BTDC? More investigation required.

Day 329

Looking on line I got a factory timing table for 1.7 & 1.8. but expect that the 2.0L is different.
However it does show an advance timing at idle. (The vac measurements are pretty much what I'm reading in mm)
From a little digging I've been told the timing of a 2.0L at idle is "around" TDC. It's not really where you measure it as the "books" state 27 BTDC at 3500rpm, and give no indication of where it should be at idle.
Having timed my car this way and used manifold vacuum to the diaphragm pipe on the dizzy nearest the body (the one you call the retard pipe) which is where it should be on a 2.0L; my gut feeling based on how the cars running now, is that I would benefit from a few more degrees of advancement at idle.
This is all obviously my own doing by converting to carbs from FI with a stock cam.

I'm sure I've got it running and timed by the book (including the correct dwell which can give 3 or so degrees of timing adjustment).
It's my OCD that's maybe making me look for something thats not there; combined with my experience of tuning multiple engines in the past that gives me this gut feeling that with these Webers fitted I need a few more degrees of advance at idle to optimise what I've built.
If it ever stops raining today I plan on trying the vac pipe connected to the other (unused on a 2.0L) pipe on the diaphragm. This is the one that folk normally use and refer to as the "vacuum advance". In reality I believe this is the "ported" vac pipe connection, and the one your calling the retard, is the one used for "direct" or manifold vacuum.
The early carb cars used both. Working on that basis it gave you a pull on the inner diaphragm chamber at idle, a pull on both around 1200RPM and nothing after 15% throttle on either. Looking at this logically all it did in effect was offer vacuum at idle and no vacuum early on in the throttle opening as one balanced out the other. This nips the vacuum in the bud at low throttle but seems its loaded in favour of retarding timing at idle. If I play about and put my "direct" vacuum on the outer diaphragm pipe only I'll think I'll initially get what I'm looking for but may get a little too much advancement between 1100-1200rpm.
It's going to be interesting to measure and document all this as I can't currently find any record anywhere of this data.

So after writing my daily diary today, it got the better of me and I had to go back into the garage!

Just been tinkering/experimenting in the garage this evening. It finally stopped raining!
So here’s what I’ve found today.
If the manifold “direct” vacuum is applied to the outer pipe on the distributor diaphragm (against the standard Factory installation) I get my “in my mind”, ideal advancement at idle, running about 4 degrees BTDC at 900 rpm.
Trouble is that as the engine revs the 27 degrees BTDC mark is reached way too early (2000 rpm) and overshoots to give excessive advancement above 2000 rpm.
So I cant place the manifold vac pipe on the outer pipe of the distributor diaphragm.

On a whim I rigged up a second vac pipe from some spare hose with a Tee and connected it up to the Weber ported vac tubes (the brass one) that's in the initial photo had the blue hose attached. I paired up each Weber ported vac tube and connected that to the outer diaphragm pipe and left the manifold vac hose connected to the inner diaphragm pipe. (As per an early 1.7L carb car)
Sceptical if this would work with a 2.0L distributor, I ran up the engine.
Bingo!
I kept a nice 5 degrees or so (hard to quantify without a scale) advancement BTDC at idle and as I gently rev’d the engine up to 3500 rpm it made the 27 degree mark right on target!
I may have answered my own question. As seen yesterday by gauge, the ported vac rise eventually matches the direct vacuum so cancelling each other out early and preventing advancement past the 27 deg BTDC.

It certainly looks like the best ignition timing installation for Weber twin carbs on a stock cam 2.0L using the stock distributor is to run both a ported and direct vacuum pipe (like Porsche did on the earlier cars) after all.

Problem now is I need to make a second one of those nice bespoke vacuum pipes to run between my carbs ported vac take offs and the outer distributor diaphragm pipe!

Day 330

When oh when are we going to have a day without horrendous wind, rain and hail?

Anyway having got soaked 3 times today and having to work in darkness at 1:30pm in the afternoon, I managed to make up a new “ported” vacuum pipe out of 4mm copper pipe.
This is to be a permanent pipe to replace the loose rubber hose I ran last week while tinkering with timing and vacuum advance.
I got the parts delivered through last week and brazed on a Tee pipe next to the dizzy and sleeves on each end to increase the diameter to 5mm at the Carb ends to match the Weber ported vac tubes. The pipe was purposely chosen at 4mm diameter to match the port on the dizzy diaphragm.
The outer diaphragm port is 4mm the inner diaphragm port is 5mm. Keeping them factory sizes stops anyone (or even me in a senior moment) getting them mixed up.
Like the first pipe I made for the manifold vacuum, I painted it a nice satin black and carefully bent it to follow the contours of the tinware and held it down with stainless P clips.
Running backwards and forwards down the street with tools, pipe and stuff I got soaked in the heavy rain which wasn’t funny the 3rd time after changing my clothes twice already!
Having pressurised the washer system last weekend (in its first test since rebuild) I had a leak from the Schrader valve core in the hose nearest the bottle. Again I’d pick one up during the week from the tyre fitters so got to change that over today.
Lastly I managed to source some olde fashioned black cloth woven wiring loom insulation tape on line last week. Today I finally managed to re-bind the “Tee” part of the engine loom at the base of the bulkhead in front of the engine fan for that OCD factory fresh look.

Day 331

This weekend was a bit of a landmark date in the restoration of my 914.
After working in the engine bay, fettling, tweaking, imagineering vacuum pipes and tuning to get the engine running well; I finally fitted the last part back on the car……….The engine lid.

A new set of stainless bolts and stainless washers (made on my lathe) were used to hold it in place.
A good amount of adjustment was needed to make sure it was centralised to give an even gap on each side. It also needed adjustment forwards and back to line up exactly the thin seal between metal panel and grille of the lid, to the two fixed matching bits each side of the opening. Too close to the glass and not only is it out of alignment but the lid catches on the hinges and won’t open fully. Too far back and the rear boot lid catches it when opening.
After a bit of faffing around and in between setting the height of the rubber bump stops it was all aligned nicely.
The final job was to fit the striker pin (purposely left until last so while all the adjustments were going on, there was no risk of snapping the lock shut and not being able to open the engine lid if it was misaligned).
Again the striker pin was set to hold the lid down sitting flush on the bumps stops so it wouldn’t rattle with the minimum pressure to help it “pop” up when the cable was pulled, but not too much so as to jam it.

With the lid fitted the car looks instantly complete for the first time since the car arrived in UK.

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Lastly this afternoon I took the jack out of storage and started to give it a clean up and repaint ready to go back into the trunk.
All that’s required now is to sit tight for some nice weather so I can drive it around the block to see if there are any last niggles and Ministry of Transport test here we go!

Day 332

In the meantime, a small update today….

Finishing off a few final bits and bobs I repainted the Jack earlier in the week. I also had the old tool kit cleaned up and took the box spanner wheel nut tool, the open ended spanner, tow eye and shaft for the screwdriver down to my local electroplaters.
This lunchtime I collected the tools looking all shiny and new again.
The vinyl roll (late type) was missing from my car presumed lost, so after a bit of searching I only came up with some nice (but wrong, I know) early basket weave ones for sale. Studying a few pictures on line the roll I needed looked very much like my old Boxster one. I got a replacement one off ebay for a few pounds and it scrubbed up really nice (thanks Cif). Albeit it has more pockets than the 914 original its not a bad match overall and comes with a sewn on tie tape rather than a rubber band (plus it's genuine Porsche)

This evening I lightly oiled my newly plated tools and popped them into the tool roll.

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Day 333

Today was a BIG landmark day for my little 914.

I’ve been holding out for the good weather to arrive for the MOT. Not only to allow all the salt on the roads to clear, but also to ensure the anniversary of the MOT will fall again next year in the best weather.
So today after a good week of dry sunny weather I drove my 914 for the VERY FIRST TIME (I’d never driven it before) to the MOT Station.

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The rebuilt and RHD converted headlights were aligned to the UK Ministry height and direction.

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After a whole hour of rigorous testing…..

It’s PASSED !!!!!!

The brakes just squeezed in, over the minimum level, but to be fair with all new discs, pads and callipers a 3 mile drive wasn’t enough to bed them in, they started to get better on the way over to my friends workshop afterwards.

Finally this afternoon we set the wheel alignment, to complete the landmark day. The first time in many, many years the little cars been driven, and the first time I've driven a 914!

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Now I have a mountain of official paperwork to fill in….

I’d already applied for the forms (called V55/5) as it takes around a month to get them sent out from the UK authorities, so this evening I began to fill them in. Hopefully I’ll get everything straight in the post tomorrow morning to Driver and Vehicle Licensing Agency.

They take around 2 weeks to process the paperwork and I should be issued an age related UK licence plate number and UK title for the car.

For now I’m NOT allowed to drive it (other than taking it straight home from the MOT test centre) until the paper work returns and I get licence plates made up.

Day 334

Before the MOT and first drive, I hadn’t been happy with “feel” of the brake pedal. Having bled the system 5 times, using a combination of pressurised bleeder and the old fashioned “up…down” method; the pedal continued to feel soft and creep. This was driving me a little nuts. Each calliper had, had at least 2 litres of fluid bled from it yet the pedal simply didn’t feel right.
So, while waiting for a Title Document to arrive I decided to bite the bullet and buy a new master cylinder. This was most frustrating as the master cylinder on the car was brand new, but after checking the rear calliper clearances 4 time, bleeding the system 5 times, taking the pads in and out to check the pistons and looking everywhere for leaks and finding none, it all kept coming back to a master cylinder issue.

The 2nd new ATE master cylinder arrived today, so early this morning with the aid of a friend I changed the master cylinder.

What a difference!

A nice firm pedal at last!

So there you have it. The first new ATE master cylinder from a reputable supplier was faulty or maybe the seals in the NOS unit had degraded with age.
Fitting a good one has transformed the car. Hopefully this was a one off, but if any of you are planning to fit a new master cylinder, please be aware of this issue.

Anyway, moving forwards, this afternoon I decided to make up a bracket to support a fire extinguisher in the car. Having had a good look around over the last few weeks/months for a suitable mounting place I decided to install it behind the drivers seat at floor level so that the seat can still slide back without obstruction. Not wanting to drill any holes in the car or mark or damage the interior I thought the best solution would be to pick up on the two existing bolts at the base of the rear bulkhead.
Carefully measuring the padded trim and the distance between holes and height from the floor; I came up with a simple design. To stop the bracket squashing and marking the bulkhead trim I turned down two spacer bushes on my lathe. One at 5mm and the other (inner one) at 10mm. This set the bracket frame clear of the padded bulkhead trim and the 5mm offset squared it off to look aesthetically pleasing. The spacer bushes were turned so the outside diameter matched the metal ferrules in the bulkhead trim. All designed so that they clamp firmly without marking.
I then made two angle brackets on which to attach the extinguisher holder.
These had two functions.
1, to sit the extinguisher lower to the floor, just above the carpet so as not to foul the seat, while allowing the original bulkhead screws to used.
2, To turn the extinguisher holder 90 degrees so that to grab it in an emergency it lifts upwards to release (had I just mounted it flat to the bulkhead then it would have needed the seat to have been slid forwards to allow enough space to remove it from the holder. This would be too much of a faff in an emergency, when you just need to grab it)
Finally I welded it all together and dressed up the welds ready for powder coating.

(IMG:http://www.914world.com/bbs2/uploads_offsite/i265.photobucket.com-18255-1472496053.34.jpg)

Day 335

So I dropped it off at the powder coaters this morning before 8am and after work this evening in exchange for a box of tea bags it was nicely blasted and powder coated satin black.

(IMG:http://www.914world.com/bbs2/uploads_offsite/i265.photobucket.com-18255-1472496053.35.jpg)

I ordered some over length screws (to fit through the bracket & bushes and be still long enough to fit to the car) on-line on 3 days ago, so hopefully they'll be here tomorrow so I can fit it to the car.

Day 336

The stainless 1 1/2" screws arrived today in the post so this evening I fitted the extinguisher.

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Having got the car out of the narrow garage a few times over the last couple of weeks, tweaking and messing with the Carb jets (driving under load always shows up a few niggles you can't see when running stationary) and noticing a few paint issues, I've got it running really sweetly now. I needed the accelerator pump rods adjusting to cover the change from idle to main jets that bogged the car down under load but didn't show while running parked up.

So still waiting for the Title to arrive, I got a little bored this evening so decided I'm going to hand flat and polish ALL the paintwork. It's not a bad paint job, but it generally bugs me to see slight orange peel in places. Tonight I've made a rod for my own back now........by flatting a rear quarter down with 1200 wet & dry.....hand polishing with rubbing paste, finishing paste, then T cut. After 4 hours solid I have a rear quarter that has a glass smooth surface finish now.

Trouble is; it may take me a whole month to do the rest of the car!

So that was Month 11.

For the first time in 8 years this little 914 is up and driving and has been saved and is loved once again….
It’s passed the stringent UK MOT testing and is declared fit for use on UK roads.
I have to wait a couple of weeks now for the Title documents to arrive before I’m able to drive it for the second time ever!

Having worked relentlessly for 11 months, these last 2 weeks are going to be the toughest.

To take my mind off it, I plan on hand flatting and polishing the paintwork. It’s had 6 months to cure and harden, so it’s a good time to get it looking like a $million glass finish paint job!
Another challenge that’ll be in this tiny 16ft x 8ft garage with no power or light……

Thanks again for all your kind words of encouragement and I hope you’re finding my thread interesting.

Regards
Darren