Restoring my first 914

[Darren C]

Today I spent the majority of the day attending a charity car show, but this afternoon Kev (who was in the area) called in to visit.
We chatted all things 914 and he took a look at the parts I have off the car and we identified a few discrepancies and problems that I need to address. Looks like the bearings Berlyn Services sent out are 914/6
All in all it was an afternoon & evening well spent. Many thanks Kev, I hope you enjoyed looking at my other projects too.
So tomorrow I will hopefully pick up the correct front bearings and move things forward again.

[Darren C]

Last week I emailed Berlyn Services pictures of the incorrect bearings and this afternoon I’d not had a reply so I phoned them and got the ansa machine. Left a message but no-one phoned me back today?
Hey ho, lets hope they respond tomorrow, I just want to get my money back that’s all.

Well, at least my trustworth local Motor factors came up trumps today and at lunchtime I picked up two correct bearing sets. Should have gone there first really, they were half the price of the wrong Berlyn ones!
So tonight I finally got to fit them to my new front discs.
Because the old discs and bearings are still on my car which is a few miles away from home I couldn’t use the old outer races to drift in the new bearings as I would have normally done. Not wanting to do this on Saturday (as it would waste weekend valuable assembly time) I decided to see what I had to hand to make new bearing drifts. The inner race sits quite deep into the back of the disc so using an old outer race here to drift it in could end up with it getting stuck.
I had a rummage in my metal bar off-cut storage and the nearest bar I had would need a good 20mm turning down off the diameter which to be fair is a waste of the bar. I then looked in my big socket drawer and found two that were just about 1mm too big. I stuck them in my lathe and took a skim off them to get a perfect size and used them to nicely drift the new bearings home.
Inner drift



Outer drift



For info the bearing set is made by:
Premier Bearing Components
Part ref BRT333
Comes with inner & outer bearing and the oil seal for £7.47 +Vat

[Darren C]

This morning I emailed Berlyn Services again and they called me this afternoon. I’m posting the wrong bearings back tomorrow and getting a refund, so that’s the end of the saga as far as I’m concerned.
Today at lunchtime I picked up a bit of steel bar from the local engineering supplies and tonight I’ve been turning on my lathe for a couple of hours. I’m part way through making a little 914 gadget that if it works out ok, I’ll share it with you all.
Kev emailed the Porsche Authenticity Certificate application form today so I’ll get that filled in and sent off to aid registering the car with DVLA and getting the tax fee status.

[Darren C]

This morning I started off by sanding smooth the plastic weld repair of the split in the engine lid water tray and boxed up those wrong bearings to post back to Berlyn, then left for work.
During lunch I filled in and emailed off the form Kev sent me for the Certificate of Authenticity. About 20 minutes later I got a call from a lady at Porsche. She asked if I needed the certificate to register my car (as I had put “not registered yet in UK” in the box for registration). I said yes, it was part of the paperwork I intend to submit to DVLA. Mainly because of the date of manufacture to qualify for tax free status. She said that the Certificate of Authenticity is NOT VALID for DVLA, it needs to be a “Certificate of Origin” for DVLA.
Apart from the header on the top of the piece of paper they are basically one and the same. The only problem is Porsche want £65 for the “Origin” and as a PCGB member the “Authenticity” is free.
So what to do?
I said send the free “Authenticity” document and I’ll submit it and take a chance. DVLA are a strange lot, they won’t accept a VIN plate on a car as its chassis ID or date of manufacture (since they can be tampered with) and a US Title (their V5) just has a year of manufacture, not date. I had this with my Delorean. The VIN said car No 4532 and August 81. They rejected that and registered it as Jan 1st 1981, I argued that the factory didn’t start making cars until March/April 81 and mine is the 4532nd, so it can’t be 1st January. They wouldn’t budge without a letter from The Delorean Motor Company (but that wrapped up in 1983) so even a club historian letter wouldn’t do. I gave up in the end as it was just plain red tape and no-one I spoke to at DVLA could use basic common sense.
Hopefully this time around I might get an easier ride when I come to register the car. It’s all Bollox really as a friend of mine registered his kit car with a frame chassis and BMW engine as a Lamborghini Replica and the logbook came back as Manufacturer Lamborghini , no mention of replica…how does that work then when they are so pedantic over a less important day & date?

Anyway I posted the bearings back during what was left of my lunch break and when I got home tonight I spent an hour on my lathe and another in the attic rubbing down the engine lid water tray. Despite several hours trying to rubbing paste it to bring back the colour its returned to a sort of milky grey. I’m resigned to the fact if I want it black I’ll have to paint it with a flexible plastic bumper paint.

[Mr Pharmacist]

My cert of authenticity had 'not valid for registering a vehicle' or words to that effect printed on the bottom of it. So I ended up paying the £65 for the cert of origin. Which as you say is almost exactly the same info. Its a bit of a rip off I think. Fingers crossed you get away with the COA!

[Darren C]

Thanks Stuart, It’s worth a try.

Today I’ve been doing a bit more turning on the lathe and also put a light coat of plastic paint on the engine lid water tray and to be fair it looks much better than I was expecting.
During lunch I picked up a litre of brake fluid from the Motor Factors ready for the weekend rebuilding and this evening after an hour on the lathe I gave the new high tensile front calliper bolt heads a coat of satin black paint to prolong that “new” look when they’re fitted.
Tomorrow hopefully Porsche Centre will have the 968 sill piping in so I can see if it’s a good substitute for the no longer available engine lid mesh T trim.

[Darren C]

Today I finished off turning my proto-type press tool (that I didn't want to mention until I knew it worked) and picked up a nice M16 bolt for the centre this lunchtime. No news on the trim part from Porsche so hopefully Monday it’ll be in?

I have been thinking on a good way of blanking the front wing marker lights. To do this well would require swageing a recess in the wing and welding in a disc of steel to blank it off. The idea is to dress off the weld and hopefully little or no filler will be required.
Last weekend I removed a light and took a set of measurements. The main issue is not only the large hole but the smaller fixing holes around it. To do this right I need to include the small fixing holes behind the new covering disc. The panel looked to be completely flat in the local area of the light, but tomorrow I will take along my new press tool and just check if there is any contour in the wing.

After work & Tescos tonight I got a piece of 1mm scrap steel and cut two test holes in it, the same size as those in the front wings. Next I located the press tool and simply tightened the nut and bolt to press a trial recess.



I repeated this in the second test hole and they both came out perfect with no distortion in the surrounding sheet.



The plan tomorrow is to get the front discs, callipers, pads etc and fluid into the car, afterwards I can tinker with checking the tool and wing contours before I jump in and press them.

[DaveW]

I just rewired mine to be indicator repeaters...rather than risk rust creeping back through in the future. Admire your efforts though.

[Darren C]

Today shall be known as BLACK Saturday!

Question: When is a 914 front brake disc not a 914 front brake disc?

Answer: When you buy it from Porsche Specialists Berlyn Services and wait 6 weeks for it to turn up.

Ok….picture quiz, spot the difference:

Picture 1….



Found it yet? No? Well, neither did I at first.

Ok, Picture 2…..



Got it yet? No? I didn’t either.

The bearings are correct, as is the oil seal, both 914.
I was happy it was a 914 disc as sold so I spent 4 hours painting them, another two hours making bearing tools and fitting my nice new bearings.
All was well in my world until I fitted them to my car today.
They went on lovely, I packed the bearings with new grease and carefully set the securing nut pressure, painted the bearing caps and fitted them. All nice & dandy.

I then went to fit my callipers and that’s when my world fell apart.
The music from the shower scene in psycho played in my head at full volume.
The callipers wouldn’t fit?
Hey? What the fooook?
I couldn’t see what was wrong at first, then the penny dropped..
The disc part of the assembly was 10mm out of place.
The only thing I could do was take it all off again to see if the inner bearing was located properly.
Yep, so what the hell was wrong?
After taking them on and off a couple of further times in disbelief I got the old disc out of the dustbin and laid them side by side.



The new disc was TOO SHALLOW!

It wasn’t the bearing hub part of the disc, they were identical, it was the casting that forms the braking surface. The damn thing had the wrong offset.






So what on earth have Berlyn Services sent me?

It certainly IS NOT 914.

Any suggestions before I take to excessive amounts of alcohol and do something I may regret?
Suffice to say there was a lot of tool throwing and choice words today as I put my rusted discs back on the car for a second weekend in a row, moved the car back into the compound and went home.

[Bruce M]

Oh dear.

The new discs are probably 411 407 075 which is the early version. The later version has about 10mm offset difference and has a part number of 411 407 075B. That minor difference in part number doesn't help because the aftermarket producers usually drop the end letter.

[Bruce M]

For example:

http://www.csp-shop.de/cgi-bin/cshop2/f ... ort=0&all=

[914 KEV]

I’m lost for words over Berlyn Services service!

When I saw the painted brake disc last Sunday, they looked correct at a quick glance, as the early discs look different.

Did they arrive still in the manufactures box? (Two discs in one box)
The box should have the manufactures part number on the label as well as the OM number.

Not sure what the could have come from, maybe a Polo or Golf at a guess!

I’ve just take a photo of the early front brake disc (left) and the later brake disc (right).
I could not find the box label for the later brake disc in the short time I have before going to help a 914 owner put his engine back in his 914 this morning!

[Bruce M]

Darren, how thick is the friction section of the new disc? 11mm or 9mm?

[Darren C]

Thanks Bruce, but as Kev says what I have IS NOT a set of 914 discs regardless of the letter B at the end of part number.
(I'll measure them and get back to you)

Here lies the problem, The earlier disc has no "boss" on it that locates the wheel when mounting. (that's the raised ring around the bearing cap that makes it a pain to take off the bearing cap, but a pleasure to put a wheel on)

From Kev's picture you can see the earlier disc (that I have just learned has an offset too) has no wheel mounting boss and the later disc on the right does.

This is the KEY identifying feature of the disc, particularly if you don't happen to have the other type to compare it with.

Kev, all 4 discs came packed in one plain cardboard box from Berlyn so no numbers on it.

As for what it is......there is also a possibility that SOMEONE is making EARLY 914 discs but adding the LATER boss to them. If this is the case then it's going to cause chaos in the part suppliers industry trying to identify what they are selling to you

I'm not defending Berlyn, but David did send me two photo's of the front of two discs before he shipped them to me. One showing no boss, the other with the boss.(He didn't know which was early or which was late) Naturally I said yes to the one with the boss. So that's what he sent out.

Has anyone else come across this? If not we're ALL going to have to be cautious from now on

There's nothing I can do now but wait until Monday to call Berlyn and sort this out.

[Bruce M]

If the disc height (wheel mounting face to back of friction surface) is 84mm then it is the early disc. If the height is 92mm then it is a late disc.

Assuming the friction section is 11mm thick.

If the friction surface is 9.5mm thick & the height is 84mm then it is an early type3 / beetle disc.

I can't think of another part that has the same bolt pattern (4x130). Polo/ Golf uses a different PDC.

I wouldn't rely on the concentric ring (bit that locates wheel) as the volumes on these parts is so low, the aftermarket manufacturer (Sebro, for example) would probably use the same base casing, if they can.