Restoring my first 914

[Darren C]

More progress today…..
This morning I cleaned up all the plastic door panel furniture with an old toothbrush and Cif cream, rinsed off and left for work.
At lunchtime I collected the engine lid grilles all nice and re coated Satin Black, I’ve got to say they look absolutely superb. I dropped off a box of brackets and stuff for blasting and called in at Porsche Centre on the way back to work. Collected my new bonnet release wire.
Tonight when I got home I had a parcel waiting that contained my new circlip assortment so set about re assembly of the rear targa roof catches. All went together nicely and I wrapped them up in kitchen towel before bagging up all the bits in zip top bags. The painted screws had dried well so I unscrewed them out of the wood block and bagged them up too. The Targa seal channels got a look over and I decided another coat of black was required so gave them another spray.
Next I took the exterior door handles out of soak and using an old toothbrush gave them a going over. Some bits are still baked on so back in soak they go until tomorrow.
I also had good news on the new 914 home; the garage with a new door has a new lock, so I get to finally draw the key in the morning and take possession. This hopefully will give me a couple of weeks to de-spider it and paint it all out inside just in time for the car returning from the paint shop.
I also had a call from my local paintshop regarding the bumpers and sills. They have done some paint swatches for various levels of satin finish (all in black) so I can choose the level of sheen and another set in various grades of ripple stone chip so I can choose that for the front and rear valances. Not strictly OEM, but certainly much improved chip and rust resistance over just paint. I’m hoping to get it a good match to 944 sill texture. In this was at least it has some genuine Porsche family lineage behind my choice of finish.
It’s that time of year now when car club stuff starts to invade my time so I wrapped up early and went over to The Kennels on the Goodwood Estate tonight for a two hour “think tank” meeting about the future of Goodwood Events and improving the GRRC. Serious stuff, the meetings are tape (digital) recorded and filmed so that it can be kept, ideas hopefully implemented and analysed by Lord March! Suffice to say I was on best behaviour.

[Darren C]

Today I gave the Targa latches and trim strips a coat of satin lacquer (in my loft as the weather had got quite cold & damp) and left them to dry before work.
At lunchtime I signed for my new garage and took possession of the keys.
First thing tonight I checked it out. It has a new door and frame but true to form it had been fitted by a pair of idiots. The door was p*ssed in the frame and the lock would not latch as a result on the top left side.
Fed up with the whole situation I went home and fetched my tool box. I took off the new door (which was a nightmare on my own) re drilled and installed it square in the frame. I had to straighten out a battered closing plate that they beat two bells of sh*t out off trying to get the p*ssed door they’d fitted to close!
I get so frustrated by the lack of basic ability and common sense of folk these days. What makes it worse is they are oblivious to their lack of skills yet still get paid. Anyway rant over, just simmering down now from having to wrestle with a 7ft garage door on my own.
I settled down by sorting out the 914 exterior door handles and came across a few issues and solutions that may help others out.
Despite being full of sand and frighteningly stiff to operate they cleaned up well with a 2 day soak in white spirit.
The drivers handle was obviously more worn than passenger. Once free of sand and rock hard old grease it still jammed half open. That’s to say the pull bit of the handle didn’t spring flat and the plastic fork that slides up and down seemed to be sticking and holding the handle out. I took out the screw in the end of the lock and removed the operating cam. (beware if you do this the lock barrel and tumblers are free to come out the handle). Next with the cam off the end if you pull on the handle as if to open the door the fork travels off the end of the lock (now the cam is gone) and you can un latch it from the handle. The two pin lugs on the fork have a flat on them so that you can get it apart with ease.
Now I could see what the problem was. The handle itself where the fork slides up and down has two steps on it. The plastic fork has square cross-sectional ends, it gets stuck on the start of the step on the metal handle causing it to jam and the handle not to spring flat. The simple fix was to take a very small file and round off the two inside ends of the fork, so that it cannot lock itself into the corner of the step on the handle. ONLY by a very tiny amount as that’s all that’s needed for it to work smoothly with a tiny bit of grease to keep things happy in there.
Next I’d noticed that when putting the key in the lock it sprung returned when twisted one way but not the other?
I solved this too. Under the cam on the end of the lock barrel is a small coil spring that works in a rotary way not stretch. It has two bent out ends that locate in an open slot in the cam. One side of my slot had worn very slightly rounded, so as the cam turned the end of the spring got stuck under the cam and not rotated by the cam. Since it wasn’t being rotated it didn’t spring back. The solution was to file the rounded slot in the cam flat again with a needle file (or buy a new cam of course) but filing it worked a treat.
While I was in there I took out the lock barrel carefully holding the tumblers in (with key inserted) and cleaned it all out. There I found a crumbled rubber O seal, so found a new one of the right size in my assortment box before re assembling the lock back into the handle. Top tip is the put the spring carefully into the cam and seat both ends in the cam before fitting it. Fiddly but do-able with patience.
Once all back together I then ran an M6 tap down the front threaded fixing hole as the thread wasn’t too clever. I managed to cut 1 new turn of thread at the bottom which should improve the hold as the first two turns appear completely stripped. In total there’s about 4-5 turns in there, so even though it’s a 7mm deep threaded hole I still have a good 5mm of thread now.
Finally I checked over and repeated the fork improvement and greasing trick on the passenger lock and wrapped them up in kitchen towel before bagging them up for the grand assembly.

For info, I found the handles fit neatly inside an old Pot Noodle container so you get maximum submersion with minimum white spirit.

[jackstowers]

Yes, but you do have to eat a pot noodle!!

[Darren C]

It's all I can afford (a happy shopper value version 32p) after buying 914 bits, plus in my day it only takes 3 minutes to prepare

[Darren C]

Today early doors I wrapped up and placed in safe storage the recently painted parts and requested the measurements for fitting the Porsche engine mesh script. Auto Atlanta said the purchase came with a template, but the box only had the letters, no template?
At lunchtime I visited Wickes and purchased some white masonry paint and some grey garage floor paint ready to spruce up my new 914 home. On the way back to work I picked up a few M6 socket head bolts for the door interior handles as my car had a right old mix of fixings that weren’t right.
After work this evening it was unfortunately food shop & washing night (had to top up on pot noodles) so I got home a little later than normal.
I still managed to get an hour and a half in the new garage, dragging out old lino and carpet, bits of wood, bricks, old curtain rails and general junk that had been left in there by the previous tenant. The floor had at least two bags of builders sand spread over it to presumably soak up a massive oil leak from a car. Really nice of them to leave it in such a sh*t state and then let it out like that telling me it was all ready to move in. I had to take my wheel barrow around with a shovel to clear it out and now I have a wheel barrow full of oily sand that’s my responsibility to have to take down the tip.
“Sand why did it have to be sand?” (he says in an Indiana Jones snake homage kinda way)
Finally I gave the ceiling a brush down to clear some monster spiders and webs away before it got too dark to see.
The plan this weekend is to thoroughly clean it out and paint it. This will give a good month for the floor paint to harden before the car comes home and make a nice environment to re assemble everything in.

[Darren C]

Today I have mostly been…..

Working on the new 914 garage.

Sanding down the roof steels from yesterdays wire brush, they got a nice fresh coat of red oxide. They were really very rusty and flaky and I certainly wouldn’t of wanted a car sat under them like that.
After more spider eviction and brushing down I mixed up some sand & cement and went around the base of all the walls, filled and pointed all the gaps flush to the floor.
After getting the oily sand up yesterday I cleaned the floor with cellulose thinners and wire brushes to work it out and mopping it up with rags. I did this about 3 times during the day until most of it was gone.
Next I started cutting in all around the walls and crevices with the white masonry paint. If any of you have tried painting the inside of a concrete slab garage you’ll know its like trying to paint a very absorbent Swiss cheese. Bloomin hard going trying to work the paint into all the nooks and crannies; seems to go no where.
Anyways after 12 hours in there today I’ll be ready to get the paint roller out in the morning and paint the bulk of the flat area of the walls.
This evening I received an email reply from Auto Atlanta with the measurements for the engine lid PORSCHE script, hopefully tomorrow while the garage paint dries I’ll get a look at them.

[Darren C]

Today I got up at dawn and walked over to the 914 garage in the rain. The good news is that it was at least dry inside. This was the first day of rain since drawing the key so I had no idea what I’d find.
I continued to paint the inside walls with a roller today having used a brush yesterday to get into all the fiddly bits and edges. As predicted the wall soaked it up straight away. It will need a second coat tomorrow but it’s getting there now.



After finishing with the roller & tray I took it home and washed it out and made breakfast.
The rain stopped by 8:30 so I finished my breakfast cuppa and went back to sort out some roof gardening.



Full maintenance rental agreement my ar*e. It must have taken a couple of years to grow a jungle like this on the roof. I started by hacking off what I could reach but soon realised that with a non-load bearing roof this was going to be a nightmare to sort out. In the end all I could do was gaffa tape a rake on to a broom handle to get twice the reach and drag and push the growth from over my garage. They’ve let it get so bad that only with a powered cherry picker will you get at it properly now. Anyhow I took a load of photo’s so I’ll be raising a maintenance request on Tuesday. In the meantime I spent all morning trying to hack it out the way.
While I was up there on my ladder I saw that the very deep wide gutters were absolutely chocked with mud and weeds. I spent another two hours digging out the gutter over the front of my garage and half over the garages each side. What a nightmare job, ¾ of the gutter is under the roof sheet so you can only reach in part way. You can just get your hand in, but make a fist holding dirt and you can’t get your hand out. It was 5” deep so I doubt it had ever been cleaned in the life of the garages. Anyway I got my bit clear and revealed for the first time in many years the top of two down pipes either side of me.



It was mid afternoon now and walking back home with my ladder I went to put it in my shed and the painted render on the side of my house caught my eye. For a while now I’ve been meaning to strip off the flaky bits for a repaint but have never gotten around to it, so with a ladder in my hand and a scraper from cleaning the gutters in another it was silly not too. So I found myself up a ladder another couple of hours scraping the house. But it didn’t end there…..I saw some moss on my conservatory while on the ladder so I ended up cleaning the conservatory roof until I could barely walk. Trainers and ladder rungs are not a good combination and I only stopped doing more from the aches and pains.
Clothes into the washing machine and a quick bath, I then started on the engine lid PORSCHE script. Auto Atlanta sent an installation guide with measurements on it but to be fair it was pretty useless. Very vague and without a clue of where to take measurements from. End of letter? Start of letter? Middle of letter? It just didn’t show you anything worth while. I’d done a google search and looked through several forums late last night and found a much better guide.
With these measurements in hand I set about laying out and marking up. I used some masking tape (as its easy to write on) and set a strip parallel to the front of the grille at 81mm down. The mesh is formed evenly in line with the front edge so a good check was to make sure the tape cut the diamond holes in the same place all the way across.
Next I used the measurements found on line and marked them out from left side to right. Starting as follows. P 53mm O 222mm R 391mm S 560mm C 729mm H 898mm E 1067mm.
This is the distance from the left side of the grille to the start of the letter. The 81mm is the distance from the front of the grille to the top of the letter.
Now that’s all fine and dandy in theory but the letters have pins on the back that have to fit through the mesh and you just cant get it exact as the pins throw you off course.
That said I did a dry run and got them all within about 4mm which is not bad considering. Some were spot on and the others you just have to get as close as possible. I found that if you got the distance right the letters sat high or low off the tape and looked awful. It was better to get them spot on the 81mm tape line and accept a couple of mm out on the spacing.
The letters came with mastic filled genuine Porsche trim nuts. Now…the letters are plastic so I used an 8mm socket and extension bar, but NO RATCHET. I just tightened them VERY gently until the letter stopped wobbling by hand. In this way none of the plastic pins sheared off. Result!

[Darren C]

Another very busy day. Up at dawn to give another coat of white paint to the garage walls with roller and cut in all edges a second coat with brush.
Late breakfast at 9am followed by visit to B & Q to get some timber. Mid morning until late afternoon stripping down garden fence to replace rotten post. It’s a proper made fence with feather board and arris rails, so every board had to be gently pried off and all the nails knocked out, old post out, new arris rails cut in and jointed new post in and all back together. I had to replace 9m of rotten arris rails so it was a bit of a task to do in a single day but by working like a madman and missing lunch I got it sorted with just one featherboard casualty.
Just need to paint it all again now, so if the weather stays dry I can do it this week in a few mornings before work.
I then went back to the 914 garage (walls now dry) and put a second red oxide coat on the roof steels and neatened up the edges where it meets the white walls. (A bit of paint therapy to chill out with after the fence)
Next I swept and swept and swept the floor ready for floor paint.
Cutting in all around the edges first with a brush to get a neat line, then finishing off with a roller. Floor all painted it was just starting to get dark, so back home to clean up.
Dinner in the oven I decided to strip the beds and do a couple of washes, sheets then working clothes. As I made my pack up lunch for tomorrow it started to rain and I heard a drip, drip, drip from the conservatory!
Hey ho, ladder out again and stripped the UPVC trim from the underside of the roof frame to see where it was getting in. Looks to be on the apex somewhere, so all I could do was put a bucket under it tonight as it was too dark and wet this evening to do any more. Besides it’ll be light about 5:20 tomorrow so I’ll take a look before work. I ve now got an interesting evening ahead sorting out paperwork for my tax return (a task I really hate) so another late night to come.
But at least this weekends efforts have made a nice home for the 914

[Darren C]

This morning I got up before dawn with the intention of looking at the conservatory roof, but unfortunately it was very wet & windy so I delayed the investigation. Strangely it had stopped leaking and the rain was far worse??? Don’t you hate it when things like that happen!
Anyway so as not to waste the morning I decided to put another coat of paint on the garage floor before work. Looks quite good now with two coats on everything (I even washed the inside of the door down) and a much nicer place for the 914 straight out of the paintshop in 4 weeks time.



Lunchtime was written off today as I had to go see my accountant to drop off last nights homework for the dreaded tax return, so this afternoon I was itching to get home and start on more car parts.
First job tonight was to put all the internal trims back on the inside of the conservatory roof. Bucket was bone dry despite raining until noon.
I then started on the door glass runners (the metal bits) The front was carefully cleaned as its anodised ali and anything abrasive would damage the anodised protection. Soap & water on a sponge and a bit of Cif cream on the stubborn bits, plus tooth brushes to scrub out the window channels once the old brittle trim was pulled out. Next a brass bristle brush of the bracket at the bottom and the one half way up to remove sand and grime. Quick rinse off and left to dry out side on a very windy evening. I then did the same on the rear steel channels which are BZP coated gold colour. Fortunately most of the gold finish is still there and with a good clean they came up really well. Looking only a few years old not 41 years old. Finally I used a little white spirit to clear a bit of impact glue residue from all the channels.
Next I used my tap & die set to clean up the threads on the bottom adjuster (the one with the slotted head & collar). The 4 cross head M6 bolts that hold the rear channel in from underneath also got a good brass wire brushing as did all the washers before a final coat of all fixings and adjusters in waxoil.
I’ll coat the rear steel runners and the 2 brackets on each front runner tomorrow when they’ve had a good 24 hrs to dry having been submerged in a bucket of hot water.

[ollieg]

I had to do much the same to my garage when I started my 914….there's a lot more to restoring an old car than just the car itself! Nice one.

[Darren C]

Cheers Ollie, there certainly is.

This morning I got up a ladder and sorted out the leaky conservatory roof before work. Bloomin moss that I’d scraped off last week had found its way into a narrow channel in the aluminium extrusion and caused water to back up. Well that’s what it did with a watering can so a quick poke with a screwdriver and it was clear.

This lunchtime at work I ordered a spray can and a tin of brush on high temp impact adhesive from Woolies. Hopefully be with me tomorrow ahead of the grand assembly.
I’d been meaning to call into the paint shop last Friday as I know Stuart said he’d have most of the car down to bare metal by then, but I ran out of time. Anyhow today I managed to call in and take a look.



They’ve got about 80% of the paint off the car now. Too many previous dodgy peeling paint jobs to just paint on top of it yet again. It had to be done properly. I spent a good while looking it over and to be fair it was nice to see absolutely no rust. Just a few old knocks and scrapes from general carpark damage (doors opened onto it and all that) They’d started to fill a few tiny dents in the rear quarters and despite my best efforts on welding in the front side marker blanks there was a tiny bit of distortion that required the smallest amount of filler there. Inevitable really unless you could get the wing off and roll it properly. But all in all I’m very happy with how it looks and amazed at the condition for a 41 year old car, its very straight under all that nasty paint.
There’s a bit more paint to get off the valances, in the nooks & crannies and A pillar (where the door hinges go) but after that it’s pretty much ready for primer. Besides you can't leave it too long in bare metal before oxidisation begins.
For this reason Stuart primed the bonnet, boot, engine lid, doors and pop up headlight covers yesterday afternoon. These were all stripped down to bare metal on both sides before primer went on. They’ve taken photos for me and I’ll get copies at the end of the job.
I went into the booth and checked out the removed and freshly painted panels.



Once the main outer body of the car is primed and no ticking clock on it going rusty they tell me they can concentrate on prepping the inside of the bonnet and boot. I’d maybe have done that first but they assure me that it will be top coated and lacquered in the bonnet and boot first, allowed to dry, masked up then the outside done in colour. In this way they say no unwanted, unavoidable dry overspray when painting the car as a whole would build in the bonnet and boot. This should give a much glossier better finish in the bonnet and boot than the factory finish where the shell was painted whole. They can also concentrate more on the internal area’s which normally people wouldn’t take notice or care with. Sounds like a good plan to me!

So after work tonight I was spurred on to work on a few more parts. I finished the door glass runners. Steel BZP ones got a coat of waxoil (externally only, not where the rubber channel goes as I plan to glue that in) and the Aluminium ones got the steel brackets waxoiled too. Next I bagged up the fixings for them and moved them to a safe place to dry.
I then started on the body shell aluminium trim strips that hold the weather seals for the door glass. A pillar & Roll bar located. They had that bloomin awful caulking all over them so I had to scrape it off first. I used half a cloths peg (the one with a metal spring that you can take apart easily) Since the trim is Aluminium and anodised I didn’t want to scratch it. The half a wooden peg worked a treat. Again another wash in white spirit with an old toothbrush and they came up spotless. The rubber seals slide into them with a T shape moulding, it looks like at the factory some one bashed the T slot closed in the trim with a glorified screwdriver or similar to “clamp” the seal. Not sure if this is factory or over enthusiastic PO, but one things for sure, it’ll all need opening back up to slide a new seal in easily. Fortunately its only bashed in on the edge of the T slot facing into the car so it won’t be seen behind the seal. Running out of light and needing dinner I called it a night.
Something to sleep on and in the morning I’ll have devised a method of getting the crushed trim back to shape.

[Bruce M]

Curious... do you use black waxoyl or clear for your general purpose anti-corrosion / lube coating? I have both kicking about and thought I'd give your technique a trial.

Your white spirit bath is similar to mine I guess. I have a large lidded ikea tub that I use as a parts washer with Parafin. As it is slow to evaporate it can sit in the tub for days and it separates out (dirt fall to the bottom). I then strain it through a few paper coffee filters and re-use it. The parts get a final flush with brake cleaner (using a wurth pump spray refilled with 5l bottles of brake cleaner).

[914 KEV]

The rubber seals slide into them with a T shape moulding, it looks like at the factory some one bashed the T slot closed in the trim with a glorified screwdriver or similar to “clamp” the seal. Not sure if this is factory or over enthusiastic PO, but one things for sure, it’ll all need opening back up to slide a new seal in easily.

Darren this was done by the factory.

Very good news to hear there was no horrors hiding under the paintwork!

[ollieg]

I spent a good while looking it over and to be fair it was nice to see absolutely no rust.

Wow, you got a really good one! Not even any blistering on the Sail Panels, around the windscreen, boot seal channels..?! Phew….

[Darren C]

Hi Bruce, Clear waxoil, not the messy black version. I also do the same with straining and re-using the white spirit. Top tip that.
Cheers Kev, yes no real nasties at all. I was aware of the numerous carpark dents and had briefed the bodyshop that I wanted as best a flawless finish as possible, and they marked them up and filled as they stripped the car so even the slightest one didn’t get missed (hopefully!) There was one surprise on the passenger door that I hadn’t seen. A small scrape at some time in the past that had been filled and painted. Only a light scrape but enough to need a ¼” wide strip of shallow filler in it to hide. To be fair I got off really lightly and most of it was pure luck and a bit of instinct when I bought the car.
I’ve kinda learnt over the years that not all that glitters is gold. A bit like Indiana Jones again when the knight asks them to choose the cup of Christ. The car looked very plain and sorry for itself in the pictures on ebay, certainly no tarting up for sale or fresh concealing paint job had taken place. I much prefer to go this route as what you get is what you see. (Plus the price is cheaper!)
Ollie, the sail panels are perfect, not even a trace of rust around the trim strip clip holes! This goes for the bonnet seal and windscreen surround too. In doing my homework I checked the geography of the sellers location Desert Hot Springs California, and the average temperature and humidity. Average Relative humidity 26% and average rainfall less than ½” (well it is a Desert) and with it being a 1 owner car and 41 years in next to zero humidity (compared to the rest of the world) I knew I should be on a winner.
Anyway moving on, today I cut up some steel plate before breakfast to fit inside the aluminium trims (about the same size as the rubber T).
When I got home this evening with the aid of pliers, cold chisel, mole grips, hammer and the metal insert I set about getting the cripped sections of the trim straight again to accept the new rubber.
What a job that was, they had really stretched and cut the metal by crushing it. I got all the crimps out and plan to “lightly” crimp the new seals in so that hopefully in another 40 years they won’t cause too much grief.
Finally I cleaned up all 4 pieces with a light brasso. Not too aggressive as it would risk cutting through the anodised coating, but just enough to clear the water stains and limescale off them.
Placing them carefully back into my storage shed I next took out the set of trims that go over and around the Roll bar vinyl. The two small top pieces have old double sided tape underneath that seemed very stubborn to remove, so as not to risk damage I dropped them in the faithful white spirit ice cream tub to dissolve the glue over night.
I then took a look at the very thin trims that fit along the bottom of the sail vinyl and noticed one side had 4 clips the other had 3 and out of those 3 were damaged. I tracked down the part number tonight and it looks like they are widely available at the usual US vendors and some refer to source as Porsche, so armed with the clip part number (which also refers to early 911 door trim clips) I’ll check Porsche Centre Portsmouth tomorrow.