Restoring my first 914

[jackstowers]

Nathan, you should re read the thread and carry out the same jobs in yours in time with Darren's thread. If you start around now even with the odd delay yours will be ready for next years international?!?!

[nrc914]

David

I reckon you're right, but unfortunately I'm doing work on the house extension morning/lunchtme/evening instead at the moment, although not quite the early and late hours Darren is doing as I think I'd get shot making noise at those times. I'm sure my thread for the building work wouldn't be as entertaining as Darrens is and to be quite honest by the time i'm finished I've usually only got enough energy to shower and fall in to bed!

Hope to catch up with you guys soon.

Regards

[Darren C]

I'm sure you could do quiet jobs on the 914 when you cant make a noise on the house Nathan, I'd read you house DIY thread too.

After what was an amazing and eventful Carfest North I returned home shattered yesterday so after cleaning up the Delorean ready for Carfest South in a few weeks time I started on the 914 today.

I contacted Porsche Centre to chase up the ignition key as it has been 2 months now since ordering the spare. “It came in today” was the reply. Hmmm, co-incidence? I also ordered up a set of screw covers for the trims around the roll bar and the windscreen pillars. Most of the originals were missing or chewed up. Still available (as they fit 924,44 & 68 also) in stock Porsche UK and £1.97 each. Hopefully have them on Friday ready for the weekend.

The plan is to fit the windscreen and rear window this weekend. I’d placed them in the back of one of the garages for safe keeping after taking them out the week before going to the paintshop.
Setting up my trestles with extra foam padding I got out the rear window and with a brand new Stanley blade in my scraper I removed the old window stickers for South California University and Yellowstone Park. There was a good coat of paint on the glass too. Seems the last paint shop didn’t even take care to mask the glass let alone remove it. This all needed scraping off with a perimeter line of water limescale before the glass was scrubbed with Cif and scotchbrite. (A cheap supermarket green scotchbrite that doesn’t scratch). Flipping it over I cleaned both sides before starting on the screen.
The glass is a replacement, having been fitted some time ago it was stuck in with tons of silicone! There was plenty left on the glass after slicing it out the car which needed cleaning off.



Again as with the rear window there was plenty of dirt, limescale and general grunge on the glass, so it got a total Stanley blade scrape and scotchbrite Cif.





After a few hours I’d got it cleaned up ready for the weekends installation. I’m not happy about the rear view mirror mount, so may need to take a look at prying it off the glass. The PO has glued it back on but scuffed up the base with 40 grit to key it and it looks awful from the outside looking in. Partially black with random sandpaper silver scratches to bare metal showing. I tentatively tried to get it off the glass tonight but its rock solid. As I was running out of daylight again, rather than rush it, I can take a look tomorrow.

[nrc914]

Wahey he's back - let proceedings resume!! I take my hat off to you Darren how you find the time to do most of the work on this and other cars and actually write up about it every day but i'm glad you do.

[Darren C]

Cheers Nathan, you just make time (easy when you have a Delorean & Plutonium)

Anyway this morning before work I had a go at getting the mirror of the windscreen. The PO had stuck in on with what looked like araldite and had made quite a mess around the base. It was on rock solid so I had to get serious with it to remove it.
Setting up a layer of left over underlay from some laminate flooring from my old house (that I’d kept as it comes in useful for kneeling on while working) I carefully angled the screen, like in the car, so a good proportion of the glass edge rested evenly across the underlay pads.
The next bit isn’t for the faint hearted.
I got a new Stanley blade (loose) and rested it across the corner of the foot of the mirror. Next I used a toffee hammer sliding along the glass, ensuring it pressed on the inside of the screen as it moved (as you used to do when you nailed in window panes before using putty) so that it struck the top of the Stanley blade and slowly drifted it between Mirror foot and glass until it was released.
The Mirror eventually came free, and wiping sweat from my brow I put everything away and left for work.
At lunch today I called in at a local sign writers (I hate using that name as today its all vinyl stickers as no one paints signs anymore) and arranged for a 20mm wide black glass vinyl strip to be made. This is going along the bottom of the rear window. I believe Porsche used a form of insulation tape like you use on wires to cover the inside bottom of the glass to stop you looking in from outside and seeing the un-upholstered back of the bulkhead trim.
The sign vinyl strip will do the same job but stick far better and make hopefully a neater job. The guy said if he made one specially for me it would be £30, but if I could wait a day or two until he’s doing some black vinyl work, he’d cut me several for a Tenner while the machine is set up.
When I got home this evening I found the two seat belt triangular plastic covers for the roll bar had arrived from VW Heritage. They’d been on back order for a few weeks and it was a nice surprise. I tried the fit and it was perfect. Bit of a punt as they are listed as early VW Golf on their website but after a lot of trawling on line the pictures of the Golf ones looked just like the 914 covers.
After playing with the belts, I got the trestles back out and marked the mirror position on the outside of the screen with masking tape. Flipped the screen over and set about carefully scraping the old glue off the screen with my Stanley scraper. A final Cif & green scotchbrite and you’d never know it’d been there.
Finally I gave the glass a final clean and put it back into the rear of the garage until the weekend.
Hopefully tomorrow I’ll pick up the screw cover caps from Porsche Centre and the plan is to turn down a cutting tool tomorrow evening to remove the a small circle of vinyl on my re-trimmed interior parts. (I’ve had the windscreen pillar trims, roll bar side and top trims all recovered) There’s about 20 or so holes to neatly cut in the new vinyl so I can get the screws in and caps on. With the new caps in hand I can measure them accurately with my Vernier to determine what size vinyl hole cutter to make. The old ones I have left are miss-shaped so not reliable to measure and the old trim holes were a bit worn. With a bit of luck If I cut the vinyl holes accurately the caps should be a snug fit and not need anything on them to hold them in place.

[914 KEV]

At lunch today I called in at a local sign writers (I hate using that name as today its all vinyl stickers as no one paints signs anymore) and arranged for a 20mm wide black glass vinyl strip to be made. This is going along the bottom of the rear window. I believe Porsche used a form of insulation tape like you use on wires to cover the inside bottom of the glass to stop you looking in from outside and seeing the un-upholstered back of the bulkhead trim.
The sign vinyl strip will do the same job but stick far better and make hopefully a neater job. The guy said if he made one specially for me it would be £30, but if I could wait a day or two until he’s doing some black vinyl work, he’d cut me several for a Tenner while the machine is set up.

Darren you got round the wrong way!
Its not for when looking in!

The tape is to cover the glass so you hide the glass mounting when you look out the back screen and keeps it neat as there is a sight gap that can be seen in places between back pad and the glass.

The factory used insulating tape and it is placed at the same height as the rear window to engine lid rubber seal and follows the same contour.

From the 72 model year, cut outs were added to the back pad for the retractable seat belts fitted for the North American market.
Here they taped a bit of rectangle vinyl the same colour as the back pad to hide the damping mat and car body which could be seen to the 914s fitted with the static seat belts.

[Darren C]

Cheers Kev, most other cars I’ve come across have blacked out window surrounds and tape for looking in, not out. Trust the 914 to be quirky. Can you imagine the board meeting in the late 1960’s when the trim department had to tell the project manager that the rear trim was too short to cover the bottom of the window!

“Kühler dreißig tage“



Today I called in at Porsche Centre and collected the screw caps and key blanks. I went to Timsons at lunch to get the blanks cut. They refused as I’d not bought the blanks from them! I went to a local independent locksmith and while he was cutting the keys he was obviously curious about the car they were for and we had a good chat. When he found out Timsons refused to cut the original Porsche blanks he laughed and said have them on me and refused to take any money.
This evening after work & food shop I measured up the blanks and turned down a simple tube cut tool and tested it in some spare vinyl for the cap fit before very carefully sitting down and cutting out the holes in the newly trimmed parts.
They’ve come out really good in comparison to the nasty split parts full of filler that I handed to the trimmers.





Again I ran out of daylight.

[Darren C]

Today I felt like murdering an old friend……

I got up early this morning and cleaned up around the rear window. I sorted out the small packing pieces form a bag of parts I’d previously made up and stuck them in place with a blob of caulking. I set up my padded trestles and gave the rear window a final clean up and degrease. Using the new 3m Butyl I carefully set a strip around the window aperture with the join spliced in at top centre.
Very carefully I lifted the glass into place and gently pressed it home, looking from the inside outwards to check an even stick and compression of the butyl.
Next I gently rested a piece of 4 x 2 against it while I went back to the house to sort out the roll bar trim. (Not that it was going to fall out, more for peace of mind)
I fitted the two plastic surrounds for the rear roof latches back into the trim and unpacked the latches bolts and washers.
The latches were fitted to the roll bar and nipped up then the recovered padded trim fitted over them. What a puzzle that was for a while trying to get it back on around the roof catches, but with a little patience it went on. I’d pre fitted the horizontal screws so that the points showed through as they were a real sod to get out the trim before recovering and don’t easily go straight back in without dropping into the deep hole in the foam of the trim and then you cant get them to line up with the inner metal frame. Pre-fitting them was the easy way to do it.
After a little manipulation the trim was pushed into place and the horizontal screws tightened up. The vertical screws go through a much thinner piece of foam in the trim and with a torch looking up its much easier to align the holes in the car body and with a magnetic screwdriver just put the screws straight in.
The new blanking caps got fitted next, much more supple than the old rock hard ones and the trim was complete.
I then fitted the two re-trimmed windscreen pillar trims. I’d asked the trimmers to leave a flap of vinyl on the top so I could feed it around the metal channel under the rubber. With the ends of the lower roof seal pulled out and the tiny screws and cup washers out, all that was needed was a tweak the fit was good.
Due to the dash cap being fitted and the trims being recovered they were a little tight at the bottom. A little soft soap (PH neutral) was put on the metal pillar, rear of the trim and end of the dash cap. The Pillar trims slipped in a treat. As with the roll bar trim the screws were pre fitted so the tips just poked through and with a little manipulation all holes lined up and the trims secured. The tiny upper screws and cup washers refitted along with the lower roof seal, with vinyl flap tucked under. Again all new screw caps were fitted to finish off.
After a bite to eat I started to fit the trim clips around the screen that hold the ali surround. I used a very, very small blob of caulking made into the tiniest of washers to surround the hole as they went in. This should hopefully prevent any water/rust starting around the clips. Next I fitted the two packing shims and set up my padded trestles.
Having lifted out the screen on my own, loaded it in my car on my own and brought it home where over the last few months I’d moved it numerous times I thought just to be safe I’d call and old friend over to help me lift it into place on the car. I lifted the screen out of the garage where its stored and carried it around to my lock up where the 914 is kept. Resting it on the trestles I gave it a final clean around the edge.
My friend arrived and I carefully explained what we needed to do. I went to sort out the new dash to screen rubber seal while he kept watch on the screen on the trestles.
Now this is where my day took a turn for the worst. My dear friend who is very enthusiastic is by no stretch of the imagination practical minded. While I was working on the car he went to help me lift the screen into the car, but held it on the bottom corner and “thought” he could twist and lift it from just one corner while he swapped his hand over.

“KLICK”…..

I looked over towards him and in his left hand was a long razor crack right through the screen from top to bottom…….

I was simply lost for words. Nothing I could say would help the situation. He was with all good intention trying to help me, but had no idea of the consequences.
Next time I’ll just fit it on my own.

So tonight I am drowning my sorrows with a few beers.

I called Kev earlier to ask him about availability and got a Pilkington number for the screen. I phoned around a few local glass places but they all said that they wouldn’t know until Monday on UK stock as the suppliers were closed on a Saturday.

So if anyone is free tomorrow I may need a lift with a long heavy roll of carpet wrapped in bin bags that I’m burying in the woods.

[911hillclimber]

Great stuff.
I can NEVER work on a car with someone else unless it is the wife helping to bleed the brakes, otherwise it is only me.

6 feet down of digging in a wood with all those tree roots is just too hard, so get him to buy the beer next time...bet he felt worse than you.

Why is running out of light an issue?
Are you building this up in the car port or something?

Smashing reports, my favourite non 911 thread by far.

[Darren C]

Thanks for the encouragement. Light is an issue as I’m in an ex council garage block with no power. It gets too dark to see at about 8pm, then I work off my LED light. Problem is I use the LED light between 5am and 7am, and 8pm & 9pm by which time it needs recharging (which I do between 9 & 11pm).
As for tree roots, I’m not digging lower than 18”. After breaking the screen instead of beer he took me out for lunch…..only to realise he’d left his wallet at home so I had to pick up the bill.

Anyway moving on….Today I sorted out a few long term electrical Gremlins. With most of the dash built up the majority of the loom was reconnected (apart from the centre console) so I decided to put the battery back on and test everything.
I started with the wipers. When I came to dismantle the dash I found the plug was already pulled off the wiper stalks and tucked up behind the dash? While the stalks were out I’d cleaned and tested all the contacts and cleaned the pins and spades in the plug. The wiper mechanism was unseized and cleaned and greased, all wires reconnected, battery on, ignition on, wipers on. NOTHING!
Here we go…..
So now was the time to find out what on earth was going on. I started at the fuse No8 and had power, so I gave the holder another clean and checked the fuse fit just in case. Still power but no wipers?
So I bit the bullet and took out the blower box again to check the wires on the wiper motor. I really wanted to do this before I put the blower box in, but I’d bench tested the wiper motor and it was ok, so never expected a loom issue (plus the dash was still out so I couldn’t test it in situ until today). Anyway, tested the wires and I was getting an intermittent low voltage on the red/white feed. It seemed to be ok with the cable pulled off the wiper motor but loose voltage when the wire was reconnected?
I went around in circles for a while and in checking the wiring diagram the same feed runs the fresh air blower. I’d bench tested the new motor, bench tested the rebuilt speed control and the slide fan controls in the dash and it all worked. Guess what, with the blower box out of position but loom plugged in it didn’t work either!
Looking at the wiring diagram the wipers share a power feed with the fresh air blower relay.
I dropped the fuse box and pulled out the fresh air blower relay and found a melted and burnt pin on the relay and in the holder. This must have happened when the blower fan broke up. There was burning on the heater slide contacts I’d repaired earlier so it looks like the whole thing happened at the same time which would have probably smoked and smelt bad.
So now I kinda understand the PO unplugging the wiper plug now as I would imagine the melted relay would possibly smoke when the wipers were turned on (since the old fresh air blower motor had gone open circuit)
All was revealed. I set about repairing the relay holder and temporarily stuck my fuel pump relay in place (as it is brand new)
Put everything back together in the fuse box and battery on. Hey presto I had wipers.
Great I thought, moving the fresh air blower slide to try my new fan….Nothing!
With the air box still out I pulled the plug, switched on the fan and measured the voltages. 12V, plug back on, no fan? Eh?
After a bit of head scratching I decided to pry open the plug and take a look inside. There it was, a splayed open tube connector on the +12V (ironically all the –ve were fine). Cleaned up and back together, plug back on and eureka the fan worked.
I then spent a good hour wrestling the blower box back into position and compressing the top rubber seal.
Next I tried all other switches. First to fail was the indicators, two blinks then nothing. Here we go again. Well to cut a long story short it was loose & dirty spade connectors on the relay base. Not wanting to be caught out again I removed all other relays and cleaned up their pins, female connectors and tightened everything up.
Trying everything else all was good except a gauge illumination bulb in the left gauge. Quickly popping out the gauge yet again I changed the bulb. All in all that’s 12 faulty dash bulbs the car had.
Before I knew it it was time to go pick my son up for another interesting driving lesson in the Traveller.
A welcome break in outing the Gremlins.

It’s an early night tonight, Got to be up a 3:30am tomorrow to get to the airport to fly over to Jersey with work, so I had to wrap up and get on line to order some new relays and update the thread earlier than normal.

[Darren C]

Today was a long day. I flew out to Jersey and was sat in a Waterfront Café in St Helier eating breakfast before 8am. Following a very busy day of meetings I flew back and arrived home just after 7pm.
Not wanting to loose a chance to work on the 914 I went straight into my shed and started on the dash knee roll that the trimmers had, had an accident with.
The top edge of the roll which sits under the basket weave panel was torn quite badly in two places where they had pulled off the new vinyl after burning a hole stretching it into shape. I ended up having to cut all the loose original vinyl off until I came to a good bit that was still bonded to the foam. All in all I ended up with almost 10” x 2” missing off the knee roll. The foam then needed to be undercut to allow the new two part plastic resin to get a good hold on the old edge of vinyl. I mixed up a few batches one after another to build up the undercut edge and left it to dry while I grabbed a quick cuppa. The resin fortunately sets in minutes so next I keyed the surface of the resin and the old vinyl edge with 80 grit and applied a light skim of filler.
Before I knew it I’d spent over 2 hours this evening on the knee roll, so having been up for over 18 hours I was starting to feel a little tired, so left the filler to cure until the morning when I’ll start to sand it down.

[Darren C]

I was thwarted by the rain today. Hoping to rub down the flexible filler I put on the lower knee roll last night, I drew the curtains this morning to rain. Rubbing filler down inside is not a good idea as the dust makes a right old mess. A change of plan was in order so I sorted out the washer tubes between bottle, column and spare wheel.
I’d purchased all new rubber and had fitted between jets and column switch while the dash and blower box was out but not got around to the bottle.
I removed the tube & bulkhead grommet to the spare wheel and the washer bottle cap with short 5” tube and fittings.
New tube was cut to length and with some boiling water the tube was softened and all the ends & valves refitted.
I used some short ½” in length adhesive lined heat shrink and replicated the sleeves on all ends of the hoses.
The new hose was then fitted back into the car with a cleaned up bulkhead grommet and the cap refitted to the bottle. The car was finally free of all perished water hose.
At lunchtime I called in and picked up some black silicone sealant and some more masking tape.
I’d fitted the rear window with the correct butyl 3M ribbon at the weekend but I wasn’t too happy with the weather protection. Looking from inside out I could see I had a good 360 degree seal on the butyl to glass but there was a nice tiny channel between glass and body where the butyl holds the glass off by about 2-3mm.
Also when cleaning the glass the other day the vertical sides of the window where it meets the shell has a 2mm gap where the butyl is visible and is sticky causing fluff from the cleaning cloth to get stuck to it. This would drive me nuts, so I carefully taped the glass and shell as tight as possible into the corners and applied a tiny bead of black silicone sealant around the glass. With any excess cleaned off and the tape removed I had a very neat thin silicone coating over the butyl.
This should not only stop the sticky issue tight into the corner of the rear window but should stop the gap holding water, prevent leaks and help stop any future corrosion. Being silicone it can be easily removed if ever I need to remove the rear window.
Along the bottom edge its just lower than the steel lip so wont be seen when the decklid seal is fitted.
Next I sorted out two new fuel hoses for the fuel tank. I’d fitted new hoses before the car went off to paint, but they could do with being a little longer for ease of fitting/removal. I’d got plenty of spare new hose left so cut and fitted two more that were another 4” longer than the previous ones.
Finally I refitted the fuel tank retaining straps that I’d removed to get at the blower box before running out of torch light. With the washer hoses in and the blower & wiper motor sorted I plan to get the tank back in tomorrow.

[Darren C]

The weather was dry today so I got chance to rub down the flexible filler in the knee roll repair and start to reshape the damaged area. I applied another thin layer of filler and left for work.
This evening before getting too dusty with filler I decided to fit the rear window to deck lid seal as the window was well and truly stuck in and silicone cured. I wasn’t happy with the 914rubber seal so I’d bought a new genuine one. This went on a treat and sealed nicely along the glass just above the silicone and butyl.
Next I refitted the fuel tank and clamped it down. I was about to refit the filler and expansion tank but noticed the clamp ring was chipped around a few of the M5 bolt positions. I’d previously cleaned and repainted it so I was a little annoyed it had been chipped when I took the tank off again. A quick removal and strip off of all the paint to bare metal again, I gave it a new coat of fuel resistant black. This will need to dry overnight before I can fit the expansion tank tomorrow.
Main fuel tank in place I fitted the washer bottle and linked all the new pipes up that I’d made last night.
While the paint dried on the expansion tank ring I sanded down this mornings filler on the knee roll.
A third layer was required to sort out a few air/pin holes and shaping so I mixed up a new batch and applied it carefully before leaving it to dry overnight. Hopefully this will be the last sand and finish before I can give it to the trimmers again.

[silverfox]

Darren, you are quite amazing and put me to shame. I am starting final assembly of my 914 and do more thinking and shuffling than action. I had hoped to re use many of the seals but am thinking of just biting the bullet and buying a seal kit and upholstery kit from 914 rubber, what's your experience? Do they do a check list of rubber to make a custom kit?
Also, seem to have lost the NS door main window glass, if anybody has one I would really appreciate a pm. Moving my 914 closer to home soon, not sure I'll be doing a before work shift though!.
Keep the updates coming, your an inspiration.
Paul

[Darren C]

Hi Paul, you'll need to read my thread to see how I feel about the 914rubber products. They do offer kits, but to be fair everyones car has its own requirements so it may be more economical to make a list of what you actually need then see if you can get a discount on a bulk buy.

This morning it was dry early on and I managed to rub down and refill the knee roll once more before the rain arrived at 7am.
We had some really heavy rain & thunder through the day, but as if by magic at 5pm the rain had stopped and by the time I got home it was dry again in time for more sanding and filling.
The accident at the trimmers had caused me a whole load of trouble chasing my tail across the knee roll to repair the torn off surface until I could make good.
After a lot of perseverance I finally sorted it out.





The plan is to drop it off at the trimmers again in the morning so that they can try again to recover it.
After dusting myself off I fitted the fuel expansion/breather tank with the newly painted securing ring and nice shiny M5 stainless bolts and washers before running out of light.