This will be an attempt to document a long and sordid history of my 1974 1.8L 914. It's been with me a long time, and suffered many ills both before and during my ownership.

My initial interest in Porsches came after reading "Porsches For The Road" as a young child, I still have the book!


I really wanted a 911 or 912, but even project cars were beyond my budget of about 2k. I thought I had it made when our elderly neighbor parked a neglected yellow 1984 911 Targa under a tarp in the alley between our houses. He didn't want to sell it, but I used to keep the tarp tied down in the hopes I could one day purchase it. Unfortunately, we never made a deal and when he died several years later the car disappeared.

After that, I started shopping for 914s, and this 1974 914 car popped up for $800 on craigslist. It was garaged, had awful brown paint, and the passenger door closed nicely. The seller mentioned he wasn't the original owner and that he parked it when the motor became "tired" in the mid 1990s. A deal was made, and I brought it home in a torrential downpour. I was about 15 years old at this point.

First restoration efforts (2007ish):
My first attempt at getting the 914 back on the road included painting it a red I picked out of the Sherwin-Williams catalog instead of the original Marathon Blue Metallic (unfortunately!).

Upon further investigation, there were some pin holes in the bottom of the passenger long as well as some small holes under the battery tray. The door closed fine and it didn't look like the really ugly pictures I had seen, so I figured it was at least structurally sound.

I remember pouring a rust converter into the small holes under the battery, then welding a plate over the top. There were some holes in the rear trunk, so I cut that metal out and welded sheet metal in. The bottom of the passenger long looked fine, so I left that as is. 15 year old me was not a talented welder.

While removing the paint, I discovered the car had been in an accident, and that the driver's front fender/headlight cavity were not-so-artfully grafted on from another car. I also found accident damage on the passenger rear quarter panel and rear trunk. The seller did not admit to any accidents, so I assume these are from a previous owner.

After painting, I never really put it back together and the car sat for about a decade. During this time I was off at college, then the military, and then more school. My younger brother wanted to use it as a getaway car at his wedding, and almost completely reassembled it with a 1.7L engine I had purchased from a guy doing a V8 swap. I sold the original 1.8L during one of several moves over the years…

I drove the car exactly once with the 1.7L engine, I remember it ran poorly with high idle and leaked a fair amount of oil.

Getting started, one of the only early pictures of the car:


Car after painting (side skirts never made it on):







Second attempt (2020ish):
It had been almost 15 years since I bought the car. I had moved many times for school, military, more school, and then more military. The car mostly lived at my dad’s house during this time, but I now had a small garage I could park it in. I brought it home and got to work.

It quickly became obvious (thanks to browsing 914world!) that the rust problems were not minor, and would require significant work to repair before anything else. I decided to move front to back. The bottom of the car was coated with a thick bed-liner type coating that I removed from the bottom of the floor pans and much of the front trunk. You can see some of the original paint in the wheel well where the coating was removed with a putty knife.

As it sits today:



Passenger long, looks fairly solid from the outside. The hole is where I used a cheap endoscope to look at the inside (lots of rust).



The 1.7L motor. Not sure why it's blue, definitely needs some help.

Rear trunk, back is fairly lumpy and has a lot of bondo. I have the restoration design floor pan and a member here is sending me a rear section that I will replace at the same time.



Front trunk rust hole:



Replacement piece being welded into place:

man, find a safer way to work under that car.

be carefuller than you think you need to be !!!

Good catch, I'm not working under it like this. Just raised to front to save my back while I work on the trunk.

Hell hole looks ok, this is what I welded in a long time ago with rustoleum over the top. I'll likely end up cutting most of this out and replacing it with a cleaner repair piece after I get door braces on. I'm planning on using POR 15 for the trunks, floor pans, and wheel wells. I like fluid film and will probably coat everything inside and out with it when everything is done.




Suspension console was "repaired", but not well. I have the replacement piece to weld in:



Some of the hood seal channel is rusted out, I'm going to try making some repair sections with 18/20ga steel and a harbor freight bending brake. Fortunately it looks like only one side will need to be replaced in any given place:



Floors are very solid, you can see my failsafe support in the middle of the two jack point supports:

If you have the bottom that clean use epoxy paint or get some DuPont Nason black truck paint and a cheap can of urethane catalyst. It's a spray paint so it's a bit thin, but it does go on with a brush OK. It flows out so you can hardly see the brush marks, do 2+ coats.
I'd wash it with some Krud Cutter to keep it from rusting till you get the paint on.

Better than Por-15 IMHO, I've seen and have Por-15 on my bug pan, couple areas came off in a whole sheet. I won't use it again.

Interesting, haven't heard of Por 15 coming off like that too often. wonder if the prep was bad or it just didn't like the surface? I'll probably end up using the Por-15 anyway, as I have it in my hot sweaty hands and I don't have as much experience spraying. In an ideal world I would do a full rotisserie resto, but this one is probably solid enough to not need it and I'm going to go back at some point to repaint it the factory color.

This garbage bed liner crap that was on it separated and held water in a few areas. Fortunately, the factory paint/primer were well adhered so there isn't too much rust from that.

The big challenge areas on this car are going to be positioning the suspension console correctly and fixing some of the monkey business in the front trunk and drivers quarter panel. I'll get some pictures up of that area later, the accident repair was less than ideal. The rear trunk is not strictly a nessesary repair, but I hate having that flat plate instead of a proper floor and the globby Bondo/fiberglass rear section between the tail lights is annoying.

About a year ago I got some Kirker Enduro Prime epoxy primer, and so far I've been very pleased with the results. It's very tough and budget friendly. You can get it in quart or gallon and comes in white, gray, and black. A couple weeks ago I had a little left after spraying a section, so I brushed some on a fixture I made, no prep or clean up on it, and it's stuck amazingly well, so properly prepped metal will give great adhesion

POR 15 with come off in sheets, even with the best prep work. It will not come off your skin, you will wear it as a badge of stupidity for days.

Not a fan of POR15, I would prefer you to use a can of rustolium. Or about anything else including water.

Epoxy primer top coat is the way to go. Tinted U-Pol truck bed liner will work also. I want to go with something I know works today, and is easily repaired in the future. Epoxy primer, and U-Pol is the way I would do it.

Wood is safe in compression, nothing wrong with it, just be careful, like with anything. Even steel and lifts have been know too fail.

I for one say keep at it, your making head way in less than ideal conditions, while I can't seem to get off my butt while I figure out how to build a charging station and battery storage system for my collection of M12 tools. Stupid Garagejournal for adding nice place to work to my first world needs. When I was younger I got so much more do with out the well lite space, beautiful floors, and proper tools.

Keep rocking this build.....

POR 15 is good for rusty metal, but not so for clean metal

The only thing hood got rusty metal is to remove it.

Poor 15 needs something to bite into to adhere properly.
There are applications that por15 isn’t suited for, but the durability of the product truly comes down to prep. You must clean the surface thoroughly, making sure all oils are removed and then use something to etch the metal (like their Metal Ready product) before applying.
Lots of people complain about por15 coming off, but I’d be willing to bet they didn’t really prep things correctly beforehand. 10 years ago I used it on my floor pans inside and out, the outer longs, and rocker panels and it looks exactly the same as the day I applied it but I also followed the prep instructions beforehand.

I'm looking into an epoxy based solution. I'm not so concerned about the clean metal, but now that the seam sealer is off there are a lot of seams and cracks that need to be sealed by whatever I paint it with.

Front trunk patches welded in:



Welds ground:

The driver's side front corner was repaired with a welding in section. Unfortunately, the repair was less than perfect and there are large areas of overlap (similar to a lap joint) that are welded on only one side and have rust in the gap. I'm starting the process of cutting through the welds, trimming the overlap, and re-welding with butt joints.

I have a front left corner you can have for the price of shipping.

Thanks for the offer, I think I can save this one and preserve the paint job. For the fender portion that is under the paint, I'll just trim the loose end and wire wheel the rust off.

I bought some BAR-RUST 235 epoxy primer and Devthane 379 that will be going over everything under the car and in the trunks.

One more reason to avoid POR-15...it can kill you (EDIT- make you really sick. Apparently the molecules are very volatile and if you apply it without a respirator, your lungs and bloodstream can be seriously compromised). I guess it has its place, but ALWAYS use the proper respirator...

I had a bad reaction after touching up a small area and came across some scary reading...
http://forums.pelicanparts.com/porsche-911...airs-por15.html

I read quite a bit about POR-15 after the discussion above, doesn't seem to be the right choice for this purpose. I would definitely wear a full respirator for any aerosol application as you're risking an inhalation pneumonitis or worse. I also prefer to wear a simple mask when I'm using grinders or wire wheels, it keeps the dust out and is easy to wear.

The engine part of this project has been on the back burner, but I'm starting to research various configurations. My budget for engine stuff was going to be about 3-4k and I was thinking of a 1911 or 2056 and ditching the D-jetronic for duel Webers. After some more research, I noticed The Dub Shop is only about 1 hour away and now I'm thinking one of their FI systems may be worth stretching the budget for. I would appreciate any suggestions for engine builders in the Seattle/Portland area, looks like there are a few to choose from.

Slow going, but finally got to peel back some of the overlapping bit under the driver's side fender. Lots of dust and rust between the metal.

Best wishes and providence on your effort! Definitely a passion (and time). Not as easy or quick as they present on those car resto/custom shows.

Cleaning up the last rusted section of rust on the front. This area had several rust holes that went through the trunk floor to the torsion bar mount (from a leaking headlight bucket). It was also affected by the shoddy repair of the driver's front corner and the pinch weld at the front was mostly detached/rusty.

If anyone has a picture of this area with the reinforcement plate off, that would be helpful!







Torsion bar mount, will be welded on the bottom. Very little rust on this piece.


Corner reinforcement plate (old one was completely rusted through).

Walk over to my place if you need to take more pictures.

What did you use to strip the paint inside the frunk?

Will do, this area under the trunk corner support would be covered on yours (unless someone had removed it). Not a big deal, was just curious what the metal looked like before it rusted away!


Wire wheels, lots of work and takes forever. Blasting is better if you're able to strip the car down.

Keep going. Such a bummer to have to fix previous repairs that were a bit shady but you'll know it's been fixed right this time!

1st love, hard to get over, I still have my 1st 914, it needs luv.

Perfect, thanks!

Replacement piece welded in. This would have been much easier with a salvaged piece, fabricating the piece took forever and isn't as clean as I would have liked:




Weld through primer:


Fortunately this corner reinforcement will cover most of the repair:

I purchased a large lot of parts with another car which included a rotisserie. I'm hoping this speeds the project, but it has taken me a few days to modify the rotisserie and some door braces. I'm going to tack weld the square steel tubing to the long (where my finger is) so the doors can be put back on the car.

I removed the interior so I could weld my door braces on, and made an interesting discovery. It looks like someone has cut into the inside long and stuffed it full of fiberglass insulation? There are aluminum covers pop-riveted over the large round holes as well as duct tape and some duct tape inside the long on the heating tube.

Trying to decide what to do with this. I can access the inside of the long from these holes and probably knock off most of the rust with a die grinder. I was going to use the 914 LTD reinforcement kit (already purchased), but the inner long reinforcement kit would cover this area nicely. I'm also curious if treating this rust inside the long with Ospho would be sufficient. The outside looks ok, and I'm not sure I'll gain much by opening it up.

The metal covers:



The holes and insulation:


Outside of the long:


Loose rust inside the long, doesn't look too bad:

Is the new car at the house on 40th? I peeked over the fence and did'nt see it. Come over and knock on the door if you're so inclined.

The stuff previous owners did to these cars never ceases to amaze me.

If there is a competiton for most abused model of cars, 914's surely must be near the top of the list.

I know you probably don't want to hear this but you really should open it up and just do it right once and for all.

I see pin holes on the outer long. That means the inner is side of the outer longitudinal has been rusting from the inside outward. You can put the LTD long kit over that but you'll basically be covering over the lower portion of the rusted long outer. You look like you have the skills to do it right.

With that level of rust and previous owner damage to the inner long you really would do well to just fix it right. That inner long is what the seat belt attaches to. That big hole cut above the seat belt anchor is dangerous and will lead to the anchor just tearing out if it were in an impact.

The C-shape section of the long inner is where much of the structural strength comes from. Once that C section is closed out by the long outer you have a box section that is quite stiff and is the main structural element. You most definately don't want a lack of metal integrity there.

I feel your pain and the desire to do it as quickly as possible and potentially with the LTD, or Engman inner long type kits. I had very similar challenges on my car upon discovering that the longitudinal rust was more extensive than I had hoped when 1st bought the car but my car is certainly worse than where you're starting from.

No, over at my place. I'll stop by next time I'm over there.

Yeah, I took a closer look and I think that has to happen.

Car is on a rotisserie now, planning to cut into the long tomorrow. I'm thinking I'll start by reinforcing the inner long from the inside of the car because I'm worried the car will distort if I cut the outer long with the inner long weakened as much as it is. The other option would be settling it on the jack points and then cutting into it. Anyone have any insight on this?




I also took a crack at repairing the nasty front trunk seal channel with some steel and a harbor freight bending brake:



Better:

I used the rotisserie to lower the car on to the four jack points and then checked with a laser level to ensure everything was level (see laser near bottom of long in the picture). Door gaps were not far off, and adjusted nicely with the door braces.

So the heater tube is gone and the long is stuffed with insulation....The heat must have had an interesting aroma ?

Lol, tube is still there. Just had insulation around it for some reason.

encouragement for you! Keep on trucking!

You are brave. Be careful if you lean up against your car with any weight in your hands!! Yikes.

It's still supported by the rotisserie, the blocks are there to keep it flat.

Finally opened up the longitudinal. I tacked some plugs on the inside long to help stiffen it before I cut into the outside. Rust actually doesn't seem that bad compared to some that I've seen.

I also found some mouse droppings so it may be that the insulation was part of a mouse nest. The duct tape was probably the PO's attempt to clean up the mouse nest. Hopefully the heater tube is usable, replacements look expensive.

The plugs:


Outer:


Inner:


Prior owner's duct tape and some mouse droppings:

Unfortunately, that heater hose isn't the original. The original is a fat, insulated hose that clips into place. It looks like the PO replaced with cheap heater hose and then packed the long with insulation to make up for it. I"m shocked you don't have more rust in there than you found.

The duct tape was to hold the tube on because it`s not the original tube. The original tube has some built-in insulation which makes it a larger diameter than the tube the PO installed in your car and it has plastic male on each end that fit inside the steel pipes. So, my guess is the insulation was added to try to keep the heat in the air in the non-insulated replacement tube.

You beat me to it, Brent.

Ah, makes sense. I guess I'm looking for a replacement then.

Well, it isn't the first time someone's been hosed by the PO. Sorry, couldn't resist.

You are doing a great job!

When you finish it will be all done right and ready for 40 more years on the road.

John

Great Job..