[Tonyakavw]

Back in February I decided to drop the engine out of my 1973 914 (the engine is a 1975 1.8) because the oil cooler had formed a serious leak. So in the process of taking the engine out to change the oil cooler, I disassembled everything, cleaned it meticulously, and replaced things such as the pushrod tubes, injector seals, and about 50 other little things. I also opened up my transmission disassmebled it, ended up buying another, etc., the story goes on. So today, having finsihed putting the engine back together I decided to do some welding. A long time ago I had noticed that the passenger side floor board had essentially rusted away form the longitudinal. So I bent up some steel to weld in. As I was welding them in today I decided to pull of the rocker panel out of curiosity, and concern, as I had accidentaly jabbed a screwdriver _through_ the longitudinal... So I pulled off the rocker and sure enough there's a huge crack in the longitudinal. I poked away with a screwdriver and the crack became nearly big enough to put your hand through... So the conclusion to this story is that I have decided to ditch the body of this car, after a lot of heartache to get it back to running shape (it was my daily driver for over a year).

So I am left with a lot of really good parts, including a whole drivetrain, new exhaust, wheels, tires, gas shocks, good springs and suspension parts, decent interior, electrical system, new brakes (320i on front) 911 M/c and so on and so forth. I suppose I am an ideal candidate for finding a rust-free roller now.

-Tony AKA VW