Derelict 914 - k24 powered

I got so wrapped up in the failure of the seat I forgot to update about the dash surround. My associate has some limited design knowledge with 3d printing so he helped me get this thing printed. It's split into two pieces since his printer can't go as large as needed, but once it's glued together and painted it will work great. I am planning on adding some signal lights as well as high beam and an oil pressure on each side.

Now what it's like in the car....

With steering wheel in place I think I have some good visibility of the dash. I may try to use some anti glare coating on the screen itself, but haven't dug too far into that yet. I've got an aftermarket wheel hub that should arrive any day now that is the proper fitment for an early 914. The one that came with the car is for a later model so it doesn't fit the way it should. Still looking for the perfect wheel though.

I think once the cover is painted black it will look like it belongs.

That looks great!

Haven't got much if anything done on the 914 for what seems like forever. The wife played bumper cars with the Scion XB which required my attention. I'm no bodywork guy but I got it done cheap as it's a rebuilt title and not on a full coverage policy. It turned out decent and I ended up with four cans of 2k clear leftover. Maybe I can find a use on the 914 for them. Also lots of family stuff or climbing and biking which I don't mind. It's been a nice break but after this weekend I should be diving back into things.

I did however snag a steering wheel after months and months of looking for the right one. I wanted a 4 spoke design similar to the stock wheel but a beefier padded ring. Lo and behold there was a Dino wheel with hub on ebay. The hub looked like early 911 and even came with a Porsche horn button. For $100 all in I got what I feel like is a damn good deal. A couple weeks prior I bought a used Luisi hub and the proper signal cancellation ring for the early model column. So other than needing some new hardware to mount the wheel I have exactly what I wanted. A 4 spoke wheel, thick padding, a fraction smaller than stock, and it's period correct. Looks great too!

Alrighty. I've been MIA on this for too long. Lots of stuff going on in life lately and yet nothing really keeping me from doing some form of work on the 914. I just needed a break I guess. The time away has given me a chance to rethink how I want to continue my approach on the project. I have decided to prioritize getting it running and driving right now with any other finish work or planned mods to be set aside. Roadkill style. It's criminally close to being a living breathing project. My goal was running/driving in June which is obviously next week and I have the ability to make that happen. Ideally it would be best to do a lot of stuff now while things are apart, but by golly a running project that gets finished without being garage art sounds way more fun. Otherwise I'm going to just try and make everything perfect when good enough will do. It is a crusty 914 and I have to start reminding myself of that more often.

Items required to get me to driver status:

brakes and brake lines

e-brake kit welded to trailing arms

clutch line

shifter mount

driver side seat hinges replaced (future sheet metal replacement is here for driver crossmember and passenger floor repair but it can wait!)

tunnel fuel lines installed

drop engine/trans to install new oil pan and finish weld engine mounts

finish weld intake box brackets

install flywheel/clutch assembly

finish weld exhaust

chassis wiring installed

merging chassis harness to engine harness

Next week I have Wednesday all through Sunday to get things checked off the list. I'm fairly certain I can get a large chunk of the list done with the time I have carved out. The wiring is pretty well mapped out but the final connections will be fiddly work so I'm saving that stuff for last. Once it's drivable I'll turn to suspension and steering refresh. Then on to interior sheetmetal patchwork. Then I can start the process of refining all the little details I've been planning since the beginning.

Yes. Push it through, make it run! Does not sound too much work if you have parts and tools ready.

I got some time today to get started on the brakes before I head out of town tomorrow.

Just look at this pile of stuff I've been collecting.

The front driver side got to be first in line and it brought me some issues to solve. I kinda figured it wasn't going to be a simple bolt in process so this wasn't a big deal. When I bolt the caliper to the strut housing it isn't centered on the rotor. Brand new pads won't slide in unless it's pretty damn close to center so this has to be solved now. I found some washers that worked as spacers but only had a couple on hand. No big deal I can grab some more later for any others that happen to be problematic. Then I realized I'm missing two brake line clips so those were added to the list. The pins that came in the brake pad kit won't work with either the front or rear calipers. Luckily the ones that came on the car do, however the normal pin hole to clip the pins in place doesn't line up. I think I have a work around for that but once the spring clip is in place they don't want to move anyway.

With the pads installed I started tweaking the hardline to fit up properly. As it came with the car you can't remove the top caliper bolt because the line is situated right in front of it. No biggie, a little more bend here and there got us good to go. I ran in town for more washers and the brake hose clips. The universal ones worked a treat.

I then spent a few minutes bending up a new line to connect to the master cylinder. Due to the VW MC I'm using the factory lines wouldn't work. RockAuto had NiCopp lines with proper fitting stupid cheap so I bought a bundle of different lengths for this very moment. I had to shorten this one a few inches but my new flaring tool works so good it went flawless. We can now consider the driver side front brakes done!

Before calling it a day I spent more time than I'd like to admit bending and shortening to length the line that connects the rear brake circuit. It ain't pretty but should do the trick.

I don't think I'll be able to start on the passenger side until I get back in town but I'm pumped to be working on the 914 again. Feels good.

I managed to carve out some more time for the passenger side. I spent way more time sanding the stainless washers to center the caliper but also concerned the rotor either needs turned or replaced. For now it's there, so when it's on the road I can determine what needs to be done. The small hard line from caliper to soft line probably should be replaced. I will probably pick up another short line at the parts store when I get back to bend up. 

The main line to the master cylinder took about 3 minutes to bend into place which was awesome. 

I can't find the spring clip for the pads and the pins don't fit as well as the driver side. I'll need to just source new hardware at this point which isn't the end of the world. Concerned I might run into the same issue with the rear I spent a few minutes test fitting everything on the caliper and am happy to report things are all good there. While I'm out of town I'll order the hardware or track some down.

Glad to see some action in here!

Day one went okay. Not great but okay. I knew there was some work to be done to get the rear brakes set up since I'm switching to 911 parking brake implements. This is required when ditching 914 calipers since they have a built in cable operated parking brake. I can't afford larger bore 914/6 calipers, so the 911 calipers are put in place to get the proper brake balance.

First thing first is to fit the backing plate of the 911 parking brake. In order to do that I need to pull the hub flange. A little hammering and the hub is free.

While I was there I wanted to replace the wheel bearing so out it came.

I needed to cut off the dust shield tab as well as grind more room for the backing plate to slide flush. You can see the tab in the pic above.

Now the backing plate slides in place and can be bolted up. To keep the shoes from spinning when the cable is pulled there must be a stop welded to the arm. I bought a full conversion kit from Tangering Racing so I didn't have to do guess work. The instructions weren't the best but I managed.

Here's the stop and where it needs to be.

Now welded in place. Still not a fan of this welder set up on MIG. I feel like I could lay good beads all day with flux core but just suck getting things to flow correctly. Oh well. It's glued in place and isn't going anywhere even if it's hideous.

Backing plate now installed.

Next up is cutting off the old parking cable bracket so it can be reloctated.

Then cleaned up and welded in place along with the cable adapter from Tangering Racing. Now the factory cable can pull the cable you see here for the parking brake.

The new bearing was installed, but pretty sure I borked that up. I used my hub bearing tool but didn't realized I wasn't supporting the center section of the bearing when pressing the hub back in. I guess we will see if it sounds like trash when it's road bound but will do better on the passenger side.

Just like the fronts, the caliper didn't center in the rear but my washers are too thick, so I'll need to get some thinner ones.

To wrap things up, I bent, cut, and flared the new hard line to the new soft line.

I need to see what Tangerine recommends to connect the two cables as the stock pivot pin is too large. I imagine a small bolt will do the trick.

Tomorrow I'll tackle the passenger side in hopefully less time now that I know what to do.

Solid progress!

In reply to Lof8 - Andy :

The list is definitely getting shorter. Hopefully I can keep up the momentum.

Saw this online .... unborked instructions there too: 

https://www.pelicanparts.com/techarticles/914_five_lug_conversion/914_five_lug_conversion2.htm

More productive work today. I jumped straight into the passenger side to repeat the parking brake shenanigans. 

I finally realized my wire feed was way too low. Once I turned it up, the welds began to improve. Of course most above were not until after this discovery. Since I had to remove the exhaust to get the hub flange out I started welding it up. Then ran out of wire with about 4 inches of weld left....

Not to be stopped I ran and grab a new spool while grabbing a bite for lunch. Of course as I was finishing up I started noticing the welds were getting more difficult to control. What do you know, I ran out of gas too. So hopefully I can get the bottle refilled tomorrow.

When installing the passenger rear bearing I managed to get it installed without any play so the driver side will indeed need replaced. It's wobbly when it should not be.

I may still go back out in the garage later but figured it was time to take a break.

In reply to TurboFource :

That's exactly what I did today with the passenger side. I still used my bearing press kit but this time supported the inner race like I should have yesterday. Fits and feels great so I'll get a new driver side to redo it properly. There's too much play in the hub right now.

Excellent!

I got an early start this morning and since I don't have any gas for the MIG I focused on the clutch hydraulic line. I drilled a hole for the 3AN line to fit into the tunnel.

A 45 fitting was used to get the proper entry to the tunnel. It was a pain to get this situated and tightened properly with the swivel. Unfortunately I had to install the fittings and line after the master cyclinder is installed due to packaging. After 20 minutes or so of fiddling I got it in place.

To keep the hose from sawing it's way through everything around it I sleeved it with some heater hose I had leftover from a previous project. It's bigger than I needed in ID but should work just fine.

The slave cylinder is being swapped out to one that can use threaded fittings for the hose. 

I have a couple ways the hose can be routed in the engine bay but if I need to pull the engine, I can just unbolt the slave and leave it pinned out of the way so no need to disconnect.

Then I ran into town to swap out my gas bottle. That became some drama on it's own. My XJ front driver caliper was dragging so I dropped it and my trailer to borrow a buddy's truck. Luckily that went fine, bottle swapped, and then back to the house.

I cut out the old seat hinge on the driver side that was broken off.

The seat frame was installed to position the new hinge.

Zip zap zoop it's welded in place.

AND NOW I CAN BOLT IN A SEAT!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

This was the last step before starting shifter mount fab. I'm taking the rest of the today off to climb and get out of the garage for a bit. Tomorrow morning I'll start figuring out the beginning of the shifter mount.

Well I didn't do nuffin Saturday or most of Sunday. I kept walking into the garage and then turning right back out. Didn't feel motivated and was kinda struggling to decide how I wanted to mount the shifter. I have other stuff on my list but this one is at the top and I want to just get it done. So about an hour before I headed to bed Sunday, I started sitting in the car placing the shifter where it felt most obvious it should be. The problem with the placement is that I'm unlikely to be able to use the stock boxster cables. I think I can fashion up my own cables so I've decided to lock in placement and deal with the consequences.
 

After whipping up a quick template, I transferred it into steel. Nothing fancy. It will cover the stock shifter hole, yet also provide attachment points for the front two mounts of the shifter. The rear two will bolt directly to the seat crossmember sitting on top of the tunnel. I need two 1/2" spacers to set the front mount height level with the cross member. So far I haven't come up with a reason it won't work other than having to figure out shorter cables. The shift knob is aligned with the steering wheel and currently feels like the perfect height. If I want it to go up I can add spacers all around.

Currently I have a couple nuts doubled up to space the front two holes while I wait on the real ones.

I left room for the heater valve lever that will be used at some point. I want to be able to keep cabin temps down in summer and even better I can use stock parts to adapt it. Once the shifter is fully bolted down I can see if it's at all possible to use the stock cables. If not I'll start taking measurements to try and make my own "push/pull" cables. 

Who sells the shifter? That's pretty slick!

In reply to MiniDave :

It's from Numeric for Boxster applications. I got a great deal on it from the guy I got the flywheel and adapter from. Otherwise it wouldn't have been in budget anytime soon. Also the knob he 3d printed which is the perfect height.

Whew! You weren't kidding about the spendy part! Certainly not in my budget..... 

In reply to MiniDave :

I paid $200 if I remember correctly which was impossible to pass up at the time. 

I spent time last night finishing the shifter mount since my spacers have arrived.  After locking it in place for good, it did not appear that the stock shifter cables were going to work. So I spent a ton of time today measuring and trying to build my own based off what I think I'll need. I thought I had them all figured out, but then realized the lengths for the bulkhead fitting to joint connection would be too long on both ends even with all of the adjustment. This is with off the shelf cables from Midwest Control and I believe they can make me custom ones. So that's on pause.

When I got home from work I wanted to measure the ACTUAL throw length of the cable vs what the cable is capable of. Also I had a suspicion there was a better way to route the cables around the header instead of in between. So I routed them in a nice and wide loop. Much to my surprise I now have a working shifter!!!!!!

These will be heat wrapped. I also think there's more room than before between cables and exhaust.

AND WOULD YOU LOOK AT THIS

After rowing through the gears for a while I found it requires a much shorter range than expected of cable movement. 1.75" on fore/aft and about .875" left/right. For now these cables will work. I'm super stoked about that, but I still want to order some that will be the shorter length with fresh components.

Up next I'll tackle the brake/clutch reservior mount and frunk vents.  

Hell ya!

In reply to Lof8 - Andy :

You can say that again! I spent more time rowing through the gears adjusting cable/lever positioning. I forgot that the Numeric shifter has lots of movement where the bulkheads are placed as well as the adjustment at the connector. I'd have to measure, but there may be enough space to make the off the shelf cables through Midwest Control work. If not I now know a stock set of cables will work just fine which is probably the best solution anyway. I also may move the shifter base up another 1/2" or so and see if I like it more.

Routing of the stock cables looks great to me.   Cross that one off the list and move on!  No need to spend money on custom cables :)