DDK - Die Deutschen Klassiker

Today was definitely Friday. Mad panic last minute dot com day at work. Suffice to say I had a real headache by the time I got home!
In the middle of the madness I did manage to call in at the powdercoaters and pick up the gauge dash panel and the centre console bracket. Then moved on to the trimmers to collect the last parts I’d dropped off on Monday. Unfortunately they hadn’t done them yet, but I managed to pick up a metre of vinyl off the roll to make all the sections that fit over the cross members under the seats and console this weekend.
After work, food shop and calling in at B&Q to get some more white spirit tonight I got home and mowed the lawns (which had missed a week because of rain) before starting on the 914.
I tapped out the holes in the powdercoated bracket, then cleaned up a few more parts including the odometer trip reset cable that I found behind the dash disconnected?
When I took the dash apart the panel that I’ve just had powdercoated for the gauges had a real mix of screws holding it in the car (presumably lost over the years) and replaced with whatever came to hand. I sorted through them and worked out what was original and managed to find some similar headed screws in my shed but the two I needed were supposed to be countersunk, so had to put them into my lathe and turn a countersink on the rear of the heads to make a matching set. Finally I cleaned up the old and new screws before screwing them into a piece of softwood and repainting them satin black.
A few other dash fixing bolts, nuts & washer got cleaned up and waxoiled before I called it a day.

Today was one step forwards two steps back!

I got up bright and early to fit the new washer jets and hose while the dash was out as mine are all perished and split. I also planned to fit the new plastic grid and surrounding seal to the top of the fresh air box under the scuttle slotted opening.
To do this the air box has to come out and to get it out you have to take the fuel tank out.
Having done this before I was well versed in getting the wedge blocks and hoses off and the tank was out in about 10 minutes.
This revealed a whole load of paintshop dust over the area that I’d previously cleaned. No problem I thought, when the air box is out I’ll give it all a good wash and polish in there.
Anyway, when lifting the blower box out I saw something jamming one of the butterfly flaps up inside the tube where the hoses fit.
I took the box outside and gave it a good shake……rattle, rattle, rattle
Time to unbolt the fan off the bottom and take a look.
OH DEAR



So full of sand it had locked solid the fan impellor and when the PO had tried to turn it on the whole thing had shattered and the motor brushes had got so hot the holders had melted and run into the windings. What a god awful mess.
The only thing I could do was split the housing and take all the debris and sand out then order a new fan assembly.
After that set back I thought I’d at least get the rest of the car cleaned up behind the fuel tank and removed airbox. More sand and paintshop dust, but after a couple of painstaking hours I got it looking nice and clean.
Unfortunately as I was cleaning I noticed the wiper motor wobble?
Hmmm, what’s going on here then?
On closer inspection the motor was loose in the housing and the 3 bolts that hold it in place were partially unscrewed?
So out it had to come to allow free access to tighten the bolts up as you cant really get a swing on them in situ.
Once out I had to give it a good clean up which took another couple of hours after which I cleaned and lubricated the joints and spindles, working them too and fro with the motor off while being cleaned.
To be honest I should have done it earlier but it had just fallen off the radar. Anyways with the wiper motor out I gave the rear of the bulkhead a good clean behind it before refitting the wiper assembly back into place with the new 914rubber grommets on both sides of the scuttle.
The time was now 6pm and I’d been at it for 12 hours and finally got to fit the washer jets and new hoses, carefully cutting them to factory length, placing them in the original fold over securing tabs and installing the check valves. The hose was then fed through the bulkhead grommet and labelled ready for when the steering column goes back in.
Finally I cut to length (and at a matching angle to the body panels) the two rubber trim infill strips that go between the scuttle and wings at the base of the windscreen pillars. This was a 5 minute job I’d been meaning to do for a couple of weeks, having had them sat on the dining table far too long!
Finally I filled a bucket and dropped in the blower fan housing for an overnight sand soak just as it started to rain.
Some days don’t always go to plan, but I’m glad I found the fan & wiper problem before putting the dash back in and limiting access to that wiper frame retaining nut.

3 forward, 1 or 2 back is the normal route these things take, but you are very resilient, so 2 back is really 0.2 back!

Great updates, keep them coming, nice to see the detail of a 914 for an early 911 owner who has travelled the 3 forward/2 back so many times!

Today I made up time from yesterdays woes.
Starting early I prepared and trimmed the dash panels with new basket weave that I got from Southbound Trimmers the other week. Very carefully I covered the main steel panel either side the steering column and left spare material by the radio plate. Enough to be able to cut the material with a Stanley knife from the rear and trim the radio panel with the “off cut” so that the basket weave pattern was an exact match along the join.
Next the radio panel and glovebox panel were covered, replicating the fold over at the end of the radio plate where it meets the glovebox. The glovebox panel folds over on each end and a flap along the bottom glues around and onto the back of the door.
The new basket weave material was white on the reverse so at every cut on the edges you could see a white dotted line. The only thing I could do was with a modellers brush, paint the edge of every cut, hole, opening and end of the material with matt black paint.
While all the glue & paint was drying I made a card template for the chrome Blaupunkt face plate. This took me a good while until I was happy with the fit.
This was then transferred to the material and painstakingly cut out so that the weave pattern was all in line, straight and true to the panel. Very carefully I masked up the chrome surrounds on the radio face plate and applied impact glue to it and the rear of the material.
Taking great care I fitted the basket weave into the face plate.
Now some of you may wonder what I’m doing here with the radio?
Well, most people who care, fit the radio like they would in an early 911, by just having the square tuner and the knobs poking through the basket weave. I’m sure some Porsche dealers did this, and fitted Blaupunkt radios.
However I wanted to be a little different.
In the Porsche 914 hand book on the page showing the dash with all the switches and gauges labelled there is a picture of the radio. It has a face plate on it!
After speaking to a few old radio Guru’s it looks like the radio in the Porsche handbook is a VW branded radio. I’m also told the face plate is black plastic with a silver painted rim to mimic chrome. I can see why they chose that; it matches the chrome surround on the heater/fan controls.
I wanted a quality radio, so opted for a Blaupunkt Frankfurt, but in wanting to create a look to match the handbook, I thought I’d do it in a much better quality way. I had offers of buying a black plastic silver rim painted face plate but opted for a metal chromed version to fit the Frankfurt that matched the plastic face plate exactly (including nice radiused corners) that was deep enough for a material insert.
I also managed to combine this with the large rubber knobs to fit the Blaupunkt, but look like the VW ones in the handbook.
It’s taken me a good few weeks to sort all the radio parts out, but the end result should hopefully be worth it.

So after a dry run to check and adjust the radio fit with the dash out of the car, I set about glove box assembly. Cleaning all parts so that it all looks like new, the hard to get at bits and bobs got fitted while the dash was out.



So, with dash built up I fitted it back into the car this evening.

It was a bit of a fiddle doing it single handed, but with the blower box and tank out it was far easier to get the 4 x M6 nuts on under the scuttle. Next I put back all the heater/blower hoses in each corner under the scuttle (removed to access the M6 nuts) and the wiring loom was all laid back into place and the securing tabs folded over.

The 3 light switches to the left of the column were put back in and the cigarette lighter wired up before I called it a day.

Today I carried on cleaning the blower air box up ready for the new fan that’s currently in transit to me.
The casing of the blower motor box is made of the same thermosetting plastic as the rear light housings, so I couldn’t resist the Brasso tin coming out after I’d washed the plastic and spending a good few hours polishing it up to a high gloss shine.

I took out the blower fan speed control resistor/thermal link block first and found the 2.5 Ohm coil resister (looks like a spring) completely missing?
It wasn’t in the bottom of the housing with all the debris so it must have been long gone. So after cleaning up the cables and thermal links, heat shrink shrouding the female spade; I tested the resistance on the medium speed resistor. It should be 0.75 Ohms but it tested out at about 0.9 Ohms so close enough for medium fan speed. The 2.5 Ohm one is for slow speed, so if anyone has a spare resistor in an old block please let me know and I’ll give it a good home.
Next I cleaned up the link rod, removed, cleaned and greased the Bowden cable and took the butterfly valve flaps apart. The foam seals had crumbled in each butterfly so I cleaned up and repainted the metal parts and cut some new circular seals from some foam rubber sheet I had in my shed.
While all that was drying I started cleaning up the light switch knobs (taking out the lenses/icon discs and checking the tiny lamps inside before reassembly. Finally I polished up the cigarette lighter end and cleaned the knob and icon disc.
After nearly 24 hrs not seeing the car, I had withdrawal symptoms and instead of calling it a night; I went out to the garage in the dark, torch held in my teeth and fitted the 3 light switch knobs (minus the icon discs) and the cigarette lighter. Carefully screwing in the switch knobs until they came to a stop. Only then did I fit the icon discs so that they are all upright level and true.
OCD at its best, but wonky icons on the switches would give me a Herbert Lom twitch.
Just need to sort out that slow speed fan resistor now.

I've got a spare fan unit Darren - I will have a look for the resistor for you

Thanks Stuart,

Its part of the fan speed cable terminal block (where the loom plugs into the fan housing), two slot head screws hold it into the casing, the wire comes from the other side of it to connect to the fan motor. The resistors are crimped on and not supposed to come off. I'd be very grateful if you have one.

Cheers
Darren

is this what you are looking for Darren?

Oh YES

Mine has one of the spring resistors missing so would only run the fan in two speeds not 3

I'll pm you my details, let me know what you want for it, or I can donate to a charity of your choice.

Thanks so much for this Stuart.

Today I carried on cleaning and preparing the fresh air blower box.
At work today I had a delivery from Euro Car Parts. The new blower fan motor and impellor that I ordered on line on Sunday night arrived. Looking at the box it seems to be OEM supplier too (There is the standard Porsche sticker with bar code and part number on it, right next to the Euro Carparts sticker with their code number on it)
The fan is part No 911 571 320 32 and Euro list it as Porsche 911 1969 to 89. They were on offer at £130 inc free shipping. A lot of money for a small fan, but although you can buy just the motor, I had no choice in the matter as I needed an impellor too, so had to bite the bullet.
I’d searched earlier for the speed control spring resistor block but hadn’t been able to find it just on its own, so Stuarts find is most appreciated.
This evening after work I started to assemble the butterfly flaps (now the paint on them is dry) with the new rubber seals. I can’t fit the new fan motor and close up the casing just yet as the resistor block has to be fitted to one half of the casing first.
In the meantime I took apart the top section of the fresh air blower box which is the induction side of the fan (under the scuttle grill). It’s held together with Omega clips which need circlip pliers to remove.
Looking in the top of the box where the mesh fits, I could see plenty of blue paint. Not from the recent job as it was masked off, but from the PO poor respray. Taking the box apart revealed far more blue paint than I’d expected. This needed cleaning out (along with yet more sand) as with a new black plastic mesh fitted all you’d see is blue overspray through the colour contrast of the black mesh.
Unfortunately the plastic the box is made from is dissolved with cellulose thinners, so using it to clean off the blue paint is not a good idea. On closer inspection the paint had part dissolved the plastic surface of the inside of the box, so the only way to sort it out was to sand it down with 180 grit, 240 and finish with 600 and scotchbrite.
As you can imagine: this has taken most of this evening to complete. After the scotchbrite I masked up the outside of the brasso polished box halves and using the plastic satin black spray I re coloured the inside of the blower box.
During the clean up, I found two hairline cracks in the short drain tube stubs on the reverse. Not visible when the box is fitted in the car, I’d not noticed them before. Left alone they could propagate and the stubs fall off completely leaving nothing for the hose to connect to.
After some thought and a rummage in my shed I found two 15mm end feed copper water pipe sockets which were about 17mm OD and fit snugly inside the drain tubes.
I roughed up the outside of the fittings with a small file and the inside of the drain tubes with rolled up 80 grit then used the polyurethane sealant to bond them into place to line the cracked tube.
Hopefully now when the drain hoses get refitted the clips will have a solid tube to clamp and the plastic will be re-inforced so it shouldn’t fracture.
Finally tonight I cleaned up the 6 x Omega clips that hold the top of the blower box together and repainted them black before calling it a night.

Hi Darren

I'm interested to know where you got the dash top from? Also, what made you choose that one over any others ?

Curious to know how it fits back in the car because wont it be slightly large with a cover ?

Many thanks

Chris.

Hi Chris,
Let me say first of all, I am not a fan of the dash cap idea. They never look the same, the fit is poor and you’re quite right, it makes the dash bigger than it should be. Re trimming in leather or Vinyl has issues with concave areas and the shape cannot be replicated without stitch lines/seams in any covering material. These can look equally odd or unsightly.
As I said earlier in the thread, this is a compromise as I couldn’t find a good original dash top for sale.
My old dash top was all cracked and very brittle. Trying to repair it may have been successful, always been visible but it would only fail again somewhere else. I’ve been down this route before on other cars. One I’ve had the dash out 3 times to keep repairing it in new places. It’s no fun at all.
Since my 914 dash was cracked I had nothing to loose by fitting the cap. I read many posts on 914 world and other sites as some caps are better than others, but opted to buy from Motorform in Germany, who claimed to have a high quality German made product to match the original dash. They have a fancy website catering for high end car dashboards and do a 914 dash cap.
Unfortunately as I posted earlier, this turned out to be a US made dash cap of “fair” quality in a German box, so you can understand my frustration in being mislead.
As for fitting, yes it makes the dash 3-4mm bigger but has Vee cut outs at each end so it fits between the windscreen pillar trims without being any wider than the normal dash.

Thanks Darren for the information. I was looking at Motorform but clearly not great then. I also saw on your pictures that the graining looks quite heavy?

I will have to have another think. Maybe mittlemotor or sportswagen Eckert do them?

Agreed, this route is always going to be a compromise. Have you seen Just Dashes in LA. They do vacuum forming of the original which looks good but very expensive and for that money it's probably worth trying to find an original.

Chris

Hi Chris,

Yes I did see the Just Dash vacuum formed refurbishment plus some other guy on 914world who’s bought a vacuum machine and is about to try refurbishing some himself. I agree at the price its worth hanging on for a good NOS one to turn up. There’s also a refurbished one going around on US ebay at a shade under £1000.
This all makes the dash cap a good compromise or as they say “space holder” until a good replacement is found. The grain isn’t that bad to be honest. Granted it’s a little coarser than original but not offensively so compared to a cracked dash. Mittel & Eckert may do them but wouldn’t specifically manufacture them, and from my little research it appears that there are only two manufacturers in the US that seem to supply everyone else. It’s just a matter of accepting a cap will never be an exact match. Despite my gripes with the motorform one, they do seem to be about as good as it gets.
Good luck and let us know how you get on.

Today I got up early and started refurbishing the dash fan controls. The panel with the levers was looking very tired. I mentioned earlier in the thread that the coloured inserts had fallen out over the years and only one tiny blue bar above the fan speed lever remained. The front of the controls had faded to grey and where the levers had slid over the years the slot was worn down to bare metal. The lever ends were very dirty and the Red end was dark brown with dirt & UV damage. The chrome surround was all gummed up with sticky goo, maybe spilt coffee and suchlike over the years.
I stripped it down to its component parts and cleaned up all the electrical contacts and tested it all with my meter to make sure it all worked before starting to restore the appearance.
After removing the lever ends, the rectangular lever sleeves and chrome surround I pushed out the light lens with “Fan” and the fan icon from behind. The two lower lenses were stuck well so rather than risking breaking them I masked them up with low tack and a scalpel.
The long script is a foil sticker so trying to take it out would also be risky, so again I masked it carefully. The face of the unit was then de-greased. (I’d actually washed and scrubbed it a few nights before) and this is basically what state it was in (minus the one and only remaining blue insert bar)



I carefully applied a few light coats of satin black spray before and after breakfast and left it to dry when I went to work.
This evening I cleaned up the chrome surround with Brasso and then started on the lever ends.
Again using Brasso I polished up the two black lever ends first. The red one which was brown and looking awful I had a little trick I’d used on previous 911’s.
The plastic its made of seems to develop a UV skin that discolours and holds grime. Using just my finger nail I gently scratched the whole surface skin to reveal red plastic beneath before finishing it off with a Brasso polish to look like new. With Brasso still in hand I polished the lever sleeves.
Over the day I’d had a think about what I was going to do to replace the blue inserts. Porsche make these out of a thin coloured plastic. It was just a case of finding some thin plastic of the right shade of blue.
Thinking all day I remembered a box that Hacksaw blades come in was about the right blue. I sort it out and sure enough it was a good colour match, so I cut the side off it.
Next I sanded one side of the plastic to key the surface for glue before it was cut to size because it was easier to do it when the plastic was 2” x 3” rather than tiny bits. With the end of a sheet of A4 paper laid on top of the now dry lever face I rubbed it to mark the paper and cut out the tiny pieces as templates.
The paper was tried in the recesses to check before being transferred to the plastic and cut out with a scalpel. Finally a few spare were made and a dry run fit carried out. Bloomin fiddly I can tell you, so only by using tweezers could I fit them.
I then cleaned out the bottom of the recesses to remove any paint so I could glue them in place. Using tiger bond and a pin to apply it to the inserts on their reverse while holding them in tweezers I stuck each and every new insert in place.
The “fan” script and icon were then glued in with tiger bond from a pin only around the frame as light shines through the rear of them and any glue over the back would stop the illumination.
The white paint on these icons and the two lower script lamp panels was a little worn so I made a simple paint pad. Using a clothes peg and a small (about 4mm x 8mm) pad of old inner tube rubber glued on the end of the peg I carefully painted the rubber with a little satin white paint from a modellers brush so as to put a thin wet layer of paint on the rubber. Simply hold it square to the icons and “stamp” the top and the icon is neatly refreshed with new white paint.
After a well earned cuppa I carefully put the lever sleeves and ends back on and the chrome surround having carefully tweaked the tabs inwards a little so that it grips better.



All restored it should look neat when it goes back into the retrimmed dash next to the super Blaupunkt radio I’ve put together.

That looks really great Darren! It's funny how something as mundane as heater controls can become things of beauty