Project Blue Book

[LMR]

Splendid work!

So, how many hours have you spent in the garage just admiring the paint?

[chief]

A number........

Lucky for me Mark wants the car in before Christmas!
UN Lucky for you Mr Phil I will need help fitting bearings and bushes in double quick time

[LMR]

My international man of mystery trip is close to ending and will be back to potting shed devotion from next weekend. Are you / we putting new suspension on to get car moved?

Did Mark say which Christmas he wants the car in???!!!

[chief]

Yes sir!

[chief]

Okay, the following pictures do not look so good, but they always look worse before they look better. Looking closer it appears that the car had been used as some sort of storage bench on and off over it's career as a automobile












"Don't worry it can all be sorted out with some bondo fella."
Is what someone said to a previous owner.....

[defianty]

I'd usually comment with 'looking good Chief', but let's be honest it doesn't really But we both know it will look great again soon. Look forward to the updates!

[KS]

Just found this thread and read it from start to finish - what a great job! Look forward to seeing the completed work.

[chief]

Stephen, you’ve been there and we’ve both seen that and then some!
I won’t lie, it’s nice to have some room in the garage again, especially with the loom to sort. Again you’ve been there!!

KS
Thank you for your kind words sir. I am a reader of your great magazine.

[chief]

Whilst the car is away into paint, it has given me the opportunity to refurbish a lot of the smaller components.






And after some cleaning, machining and passive plating.



Door check straps done.
Then onto the heater controls.











Cleaned up and ready for plating.









Just the face plate to sort out now. Not sure which direction i'm going in with the dashboard, so am leaving it for now.





All dashboards came in odd colours. I believe it was just down to what was in the gun at the time.



Found some interesting grafity that Hans at the factory did.



The dashboard front has some thin soft metal that is covered in fabric from the factory. This has various holes cut out for switches and would depend on the specification or customer order. It is then stuck to the dash with double sided foam tape. As usual, I don't want to do this!



After some considerable time with a file, I got the gauges face plate to sit flush with the dashboard. This will all become apparent later, honestly!











Holes now removed that I will not be using. These would normally be covered over by that trimmed metal mentioned earlier.



Some cleaning up and tin bashing saw the glove box lid fitting properly.



Just need some filler where the various spot welds from the factory are. Then I can look to paint.

A few photos to show how the body is coming along.











And finally. The door lock mechs back from plating.



There we have it for now.
So long everyone!

[defianty]

Nice, nice, nice Chief! Your custom tweaks are looking good.

The dashboards were painted whilst fitted in a car and then removed to be painted black, and possibly fitted out. However they never made it back into the car they came from hence them all being the wrong colour. Some have the Karmann number written on them of the chassis it was removed from too.

[LMR]

Loving the amount of 914 plating going on

Primer on the body this week?

[chief]

Loving the amount of 914 plating going on

Primer on the body this week?

I’d like to think so, however we both know how long these things take

[Darren C]

Hans's Graffiti is the paint colour

They wrote in sharpie on the dashes of the 14's (when in primer) the colour the car was to be painted as it went down the line.
After painting the dash frame (which travelled with the shell) got sent for trimming.
When they returned to the production line it didn't matter which dash got put back in which car.

Your graffiti is what remains of the word "Signal" indicating the shell it was painted with was Orange

If you look back to my 14 resto thread theres a picture of my dash paint colour noting Green (my car is Alaska Blue)

[chief]

Thanks Darren, that is great information

[nrc914]

Looks great Chief. I'm really enjoying these 914 resto threads and the attention to detail and quality of workmanship is amazing. Keep it coming.

Cheers