Restoring my first 914

[Darren C]

Interesting Andrew,
I bought mine a few months ago, but unless he’s done something proactive with them it may be a new batch. Will be an interesting thread to see if anyone has fitting issues once some are sold?
Peter,
Yes there is a U channel edge seal with a fuzzy moulded on the side which fits the top of the door inside the car.

Today has been very busy.
Over the last few weeks I’ve been viewing cars for my 17 year old son and today we found a little gem. He wanted a Morris Traveller (not my choice, but I’m happy he wanted a classic car over a modern tin box) We got up at dawn and drove up to High Wycombe to view a one family ownership car with ONLY 54000 miles from new.
It was absolutely fantastic condition, and the history was amazing (little hand written notebook, browning edged pages in lovely handwriting listing every oil and parts change on the car). We just had to buy it. Both my son & I had great beaming smiles as we drove it home 100 miles without missing a beat this morning.



(Wood sheet only placed under the car as a test for a couple of days to see if it drops any fluids)
Anyway moving on, I have many classics and one I took out last week had a failed otterstat (something that most aircooled owners need not worry about) I’d shorted the switch to get home and a new one arrived in the post yesterday so after getting the Traveller home I drained and fitted the switch to the other car.

Determined to work on the 914 everyday I then continued with operation dash stripdown. The top vinyl directly by the windscreen had shrunk and the glue failed. Its folded around the dash frame and glued on so unfortunately the only way to really recover it properly is to take the dash frame out.
After a couple of hours which involved figuring out where all the fixings were and how on earth I was going to reach them I managed to get it out.



When I first got my car I’d mentioned to Kev that the dash was green when looking up and underneath it. He’d said that the dashes were painted with each car, but when they came back from trimming (even with the chassis numbers written on the back) the factory simply put them in the first car they came too.
On the reverse of my green dash is the chassis number of another car….anyone on here?


Once the frame was out I relocated everything back to my sheds for storage and working on this week.

[914 KEV]

When I first got my car I’d mentioned to Kev that the dash was green when looking up and underneath it. He’d said that the dashes were painted with each car, but when they came back from trimming (even with the chassis numbers written on the back) the factory simply put them in the first car they came too.
On the reverse of my green dash is the chassis number of another car….anyone on here?

The number on the reverse side of the dash frame is the Karmann Body Number, not the Chassis Number.

I’ve checked the number to your Karmann Body Plate and the number matches!

[Darren C]

Thanks again Kev,

That makes sense that it’s the Karmann body number….Doh…..why didn’t I think of checking that!
So my question is…why is it green when my car is blue?
I may answer my own question here….looking at the crayon, it is definitely written on after the dash was dusted with green paint, so maybe it got “allocated” to a car after it had been trimmed?

Anyway on to today’s escapades.
I got up before sunrise and pushed the car out of the garage much to the surprise of a Fox that shot across the rear of the car as it rolled out. Scared the living daylights out of me!
I managed to get a good two hours cleaning the floor before breakfast this morning. Again with no power I had to do it all by hand with wire brushes, scrapers and a brush and dustpan. But I got it pretty clean. I started by the windscreen and worked down, brushing all the dust, fluff and grime out the wiring and on to the floor before cleaning that.
At lunchtime I called in at the powdercoaters and picked up the seat runners and rear tunnel cover plate. They look like new!
Spurred on by them when I got home this evening I had another final clean up and decided to put the first coat of paint on the front half of the floor.
Just managed to finish before it got dark again.



If only I had lights in this garage…..I wouldn’t need to sleep when it got dark.

[Darren C]

Today I have been mostly cleaning stuff.

This morning I started cleaning up the wiring loom across the front half of the floor. Individually cleaning the cables with a rag soaked in cellulose thinners. I cleaned all the plugs and connectors that feed the gauges and heater indication in the centre console. Finally I cleaned the black plastic sleeves that go over the loom clamps on the centre tunnel before refitting them and putting the loom back in place before going to work.
During lunch I called in at the trimmers and collected the first completed seat and the centre console arm rest. They look superb!

Hopefully the second seat (half done) will be ready by the end of the week. Everything except the face of the basket weave has been renewed due to sun bake damage. Even the sides of the squabs (side of basket weave panels that’s smooth) has been replaced along with bolsters, headrests and backs.
Even though you can buy basket weave by the metre its not heat pressed with the parallel lines like the original and very hard to replicate. Fortunately as it’s a different type of plastic/vinyl to the smooth grained sides it seemed to retain its suppleness and not be as brittle as the rest of the trim. Must have better UV properties?
I also called Southbound trimmers and after taking measurements of the various basket weave panels that make up the dash this morning, I ordered enough new material to re-trim it. (The existing had some cuts and marks in it so had to go).

Anyway, after work this evening I continued the cleaning and sorted out the windscreen vents.
They were full of sand and had sun bleached to a nasty faded patchy white/grey. Against the planned new black vinyl on the dash top they would look awful. I decided to clean them up, degrease them and spray them matt black. They seem to be made of some sort of bakerlite/fibre/plastic, and the original colour is unique. Matt black seemed to be the least conspicuous and offensive colour choice and certainly looks a million times better than the patchy white.
Following the vents I noticed that the extended lip around the windscreen was originally painted black where the dash to screen rubber seal fitted, plus a narrow line of black around the rest of the frame. I carefully followed the existing line with fine line masking tape and repainted it black. This is probably to ensure you don’t see body colour when looking in through the screen between interior trim and the side of the ali windscreen surround.
Finally this evening as it started to get dark I washed a few bits of interior trim for around the rear window and gave them a good Cif cream scrub.

[Green Ernie]

When I first got my car I’d mentioned to Kev that the dash was green when looking up and underneath it. He’d said that the dashes were painted with each car, but when they came back from trimming (even with the chassis numbers written on the back) the factory simply put them in the first car they came too.
On the reverse of my green dash is the chassis number of another car….anyone on here?

The number on the reverse side of the dash frame is the Karmann Body Number, not the Chassis Number.

I’ve checked the number to your Karmann Body Plate and the number matches!

Hi Darren, I had my windscreen removed last week (in one piece ) and the windscreen chap asked me if the car was originally red as the dash board frame is red and my car is palma metallic green! The original colour is palma metallic green as confirmed on the Porsche COA. I now know why it's red, Thanks Kev.

Matt

[914 KEV]

Even though you can buy basket weave by the metre its not heat pressed with the parallel lines like the original and very hard to replicate.

From the start of production until half way or so through the 74 model year all the seat inserts fitted were stitched regardless if vinyl or cloth were used for the inserts.
Then they changed to heat pressed lines on the seat inserts and it continued through the 75 and 76 model year. If cloth inserts had been ordered, they continued to have the stitching added as before.

[glovebox]

The reason the seals grab and jam is that you/we have the WRONG seals. It’s obvious when you hold them side by side.
The seal on the left is the 914 seal, the right is a 911 seal.



As you can see the left hand one is shallower & shorter and has an extra part that reaches down by the “bulb” locating strip to stop it “rolling” into the glass.

I fitted the correct left hand seal tonight and the windows wind up and down with ease, just as Porsche intended.
The answer isn’t talcum powder, its fitting the correct seal.
The confusion is that 914rubber and other vendors sell the 911 seal and list it as a 914 seal.

Hi Darren,
This is not correct.
The seal on the left is not for the 914 door to window glass scrapper, it looks more like the repro seal from inner windscreen seal to dash top.
The 914 factor window scrapper does have a lip.
One thing I did mention to you was that there are three seals on the door to side glass. Have you replaced the outer inner fuzzy strip that slides into the seal mounting gutter?

I'm confused now !! I have to agree with Kev!! The one on the right is correct! I bought from 914 rubber and I think from roger bray in the past and they are definitely the ones on the right! My question Darren is where did u purchase the one on the left ??

Keep up the great work

Mark.

[914 KEV]

I'm confused now !! I have to agree with Kev!! The one on the right is correct! I bought from 914 rubber and I think from roger bray in the past and they are definitely the ones on the right! My question Darren is where did u purchase the one on the left ??

Also have a look at the wind scrapper thread.

viewtopic.php?f=4&p=459878#p459878

[Darren C]

Thanks Mark,

Take a look as Kev says at the dedicated window scraper thread, I'm just as confused as you

[Darren C]

Today I have continued cleaning up interior parts.

The dash frame was stripped of foam & glue on the top and the basket weave panels.
The double sided tape residue from the panels was also scraped off and the whole thing washed and scrubbed within an inch of its life.
The basket weave material was then stripped off the metal backings and all glue and double sided tape cleaned off.
I then took the whole centre console apart, all screws, staples and clips removed so its in a dozen flat pack pieces along with the armrest cubby that’s in another half dozen parts.
I started to clean up all the angle bracketry that holds the console together and also the short piano hinge for the armrest.
After which I washed and scrubbed all the vinyl parts with Cif and a toothbrush to remove 40 years of grime, sticky gooo, hairs and spilt coffee & sugar that had got into all the joints…..nice
Before laying them all out in the heat to dry.
While the bucket was out I also cleaned the cover plate for the pedal assembly and the trims that go around the rear window.
In between all the cleaning I visited the trimmers today and dropped off the padded trim that goes on the front of the roll bar around the roof clips. It’s in about 6 pieces (split in half down all the fixing holes by the heat & Desert sun)
They asked me to put it in the skip when I left! But after a little calming down I got them to try and do something with it.
If anyone has or knows of a good spare I’d be interested.

[Darren C]

This morning before work I carried on cleaning up parts of the now “flat-pack” centre console and general interior parts before laying them out to dry in my kitchen.



Over lunchbreak I tracked down a pair of new speaker grilles to replace mine that have cracks right through the screw holes and have corners missing. I also found a really nice original Blaupunkt radio for sale and after some deliberation I ended up placing a best offer for it.

This evening when I got home from work I carried on cleaning up the dash that’s now stripped bare.



In the left hand corner under the dash top foam that I removed because it had gone all powdery a little of the black paint had rubbed off when I was cleaning the glue residue off.
It was then I noticed some hand writing on the dash top. Written on it when it was all green and sprayed over black and buried under the foam and vinyl never to see the light of day again.

Over the years restoring cars I have found many signatures, doodles and writing hidden away in old cars so I was keen to find out what it said.
I spent a good hour tonight with white spirit very carefully cleaning off the black paint to reveal the whole word.



Only when I figured it out did the penny drop and it certainly made me smile.

“Sambesigrun”

[Darren C]

Today I collected the second seat from the trimmers and picked up a piece of vinyl and thin foam to redo the dash top over the weekend.
The seats look great but I need to give them a damn good clean. Although they’ve replaced all the smooth vinyl, the basket weave is still original and they haven’t cleaned it. Its still full of sanding dust from the paintshop, Desert Sand in the pattern and against the new vinyl it looks filthy (which it is) so tomorrow I need to give both seat inserts a good scrub.
After searching now for almost 6 months I came to a blank on finding a good or NOS dash top so I did a bit of reading up on which dash cap is best.
Well I ordered one off German ebay that was from a company called Motorform. Their ad and description made a big deal about it being made in Germany to match the existing texture and a high quality product.
It arrived today in a big box with Motorform printed all over it.
3 pages of instructions in German and one in English.
Reading down the page it said that Palco Industries Inc warranty this dash top?
Reading on it said for any defects or warranty please contact manufacturer Palco in Nevada USA!
So much for a dashtop made in Germany!
Being lied too and mislead by businesses really gets my goat. Why do they have to deceive you? There is nothing wrong with the product and I intend to fit it, but the good feeling has gone from the purchase now.
Anyway rant over.
This evening when I got home from work after food shop, I finished off cleaning the dash before respraying the satin black facia.
I also cleaned up the glovebox door and resprayed that. While the paint was out I sprayed the previously cleaned piano hinge for the armrest lid.
Leaving them to dry in the evening sun I moved on to cleaning up all the screws that hold the centre console pieces together. Most of the heads were showing marks and some rust staining so after screwing them all into a block of softwood I wire brushed all the heads and painted them satin black with a modellers brush.
The silver angle and brace brackets were then cleaned up and waxoiled followed by the hinge screws and all the speed nuts off the dash.
Before I knew it it was getting dark again.

[Darren C]

Today the morning was consumed by preparing one of my other cars for MOT and taking it down to the garage in the village. After which I just managed to make it to the motor factors to pick up some scotchbrite before they closed at noon.
When I got home the post had been and my roll of basket weave vinyl had turned up from Southbound trimmers.
I started work on the 914 today by assembling the centre console with the nice shiny cleaned up parts.



I’m really pleased how it came out considering how tired and dirty it was.
The dash cap was the next job on the list. After dry fitting it a few times it was obvious that the dash top needed to be on the dash to give it some rigidity for fitting the cap.
As well as the cracks across my dash, the top of the binnacle/brow that covers the gauges had drooped down in the centre by a good ¾”. It was heat baked in that shape so the dash cap wasn’t fitting well and didn’t have enough strength the pull it back level. The only way to cure it was to cut several fan shaped cuts into the dash about half way through it so that it would bend easily back upwards.
Not for the faint hearted this!
I view the dash cap as a looks presentable “stop gap”until I find a good NOS dash top and to be fair the original dash top has had it, so cutting into it was an easy choice to make.
The dash cap is only thin vacuum formed plastic so even though I’d cut the dash to allow it to move back to shape it still had little strength.
I had some aluminium U section in my metal rack about 12mm square. I cut off a length to match the horizontal brow of the dash and cut out and inset it into the edge of the brow held in with lots of tiger bond sealant.
With this in place I shaved off a few bits of the dash surface to get the cap to fit as best it could before bonding it on over the top of the aluminium extrusion.
The dash cap itself is not the best made thing I have seen, but with a bit of fettling it fits in a just ok kind of way.
Preparing several clamps and bits of timber cut to length, and scotchbrite-ing the dash top and underside of the cap prior to bonding, I had everything to hand to clamp it down as soon as the adhesive was applied.
Once on I left it for the rest of the day outside to cure.



While it was drying I carried on cleaning up parts from the seat runners, detail wire brushing and waxoiling all nuts, bolts, washers, brackets, springs and levers. I found the centre console to underside of dash bracket in a parts bag too, and the black paint on it was a bit bubbly and flaky so that was all sanded off and etch primed before calling it a day.
The dash was carefully carried indoors, clamps and all. They’ll stay on over night so hopefully everything will be good in the morning.

[Darren C]

This morning I planned to have a lie in until 7am, but I was woken by the telephone just before 6am. It was work. A critical production machine had broken down at 3am, and the guy’s had waited until just before 6am to call me as they knew I’m normally up then.
Unfortunately they couldn’t fix it so I had to go into work this morning to sort it out.
I didn’t get home until noon but started on the 914 straight away.
The dash top was taken off again and flipped over so that I could inject bonding agent into all the gaps I couldn’t get at when it was the right way up. Afterwards I carefully rested it upside down in my conservatory to dry.
The seat runners I picked up last week from the powdercoaters needed assembling, so I did those next. The height adjustment coil spring tension is held with the roll pin that goes through the lever & catch. What a fiddle it was to get them back in!
In the end I used a tiny deep socket and fed the pin inside it. With the extension bar on the end I had some leverage to hook the spring, feed the roll pin in and under tension, lift the extension bar to locate the nose of the roll pin in the hole and tap it in.
The runners then went into the shed to await fitting to the car after the back window and trim go in. With them out, its much easier to sit, kneel or stand in the car. Better left out to make life a bit easier.
With the dash top still drying I decided to put back the new padded vinyl panel on the dash nearest the screen.
The old foam padding under the old vinyl came off in a thousand bits so I had to make a template for the new foam.
Using the old vinyl sheet that came off the dash I drew around it onto the new vinyl I’d purchased. I allowed a little more material around the edges and cut it out.
Once I was happy with the new vinyl sheet top, I used the old vinyl to make the template for the foam. You could clearly see the shape of the foam in the old vinyl so I carefully cut off the perimeter and checked it against the dash top. A little trim here and there and it was a good shape.
This was drawn around onto the new foam sheet before cutting out.
Next I masked off the dash with newspaper and spray glued the top and the foam with high temp impact glue before carefully fixing it in place.
The top vinyl was next. It glues on only onto the metal, no glue on the foam. To achieve this I used brush on impact glue and carefully trimmed all the material to allow a good inch to fold over and glue under the dash by the windscreen.
Finally I bolted the dash top back on (bonding agent dry) to clamp down the glued vinyl between the dash top and metal dash, before bringing it back into the house.
Looking for more to do, I took the vents out of the previously removed knee roll.
They were pretty manky so I carefully took them all apart and after a soak in a bucket with a sprinkle of washing powder I set about them with a toothbrush to get 40+ years of grime off before calling it a day.

[Darren C]

Today I have mostly been continuing to work on the dash cap.

I called in at the trimmers today and matched some vinyl to the grain cast on the dash cap.
The fit of the cap only wraps around the first ¾” of the brow on the original dash top. As the cap is about 2.5mm thick, it ends up with a step along the edge under the brow in front of the gauges. This looks worse at the bottom of the brow, just above the basket weave panel so I wasn’t happy with it.
To get the brow back into shape before fitting the cap (it had bowed down over the gauges) I had to make cuts in it. When looking up above the gauges under the brow you could not only see the step on the cap edge but also the cuts.
The answer was to trim it with a layer of new vinyl that meets neatly with the cap edge, so as to make up the 2.5mm thickness.
I carefully selotaped two sheets of A3 paper together end on end and used them to make a template of the underside of the brow. Rubbing over the paper held in place made and impression of the cap edge which I cut out with scissors.
After trial fitting and trimming the paper to a perfect fit I was ready to cut out the vinyl.
Masking taping the vinyl on dry to get it on square and tight to the dash cap edge, I then undid half the tape folded it back and applied impact glue to both surfaces. Once tacky I carefully rolled it into place guided by the other half being taped securely. I then repeated the process for the other half to get it stuck down neatly without risk of getting it out of line.
At the bottom of the brow above the basket weave I cut a few bits of vinyl packing and built the old dash up to be just one vinyl thickness shy of the dash cap.
A final full templated sheet of vinyl was then glued over all other pieces to make the finished surface flush with the dash cap.
After a cuppa I then rubbed the whole dash cap down with scotchbrite. The plastic surface the cap comes with looks waxy/glossy and a bit cheap. The grain is ever so slightly more prominent than the original but the “cheap” plastic finish was not to my liking.
After keying and degreasing the surfaces I gave the whole thing a coat of VHT Vinyl Dye in a satin black finish. This looked the business as it took the nasty gloss look off the dash cap and toned it down a little. It also dyed my vinyl insert under the brow to match the cap perfectly.
I let it go touch dry for ½ hour while I cleaned up and then brought it indoors to dry overnight.