I found a 914

[WizPorsche944]

Hey everyone I found a 914 and only 15 minutes from my house. Its sitting at a junk yard and from the way it looks still in fair shape. Im going to look at it tommrow. Now my questions are..

Anything special I should check for ?
Any year or motor to avoid ?
What should I be expecting to pay ?

[lapuwali]

Rust, and I'd expect to see a lot of it in a junkyard car. Unless you're very handy with welding gear, fixing this will cost way more than buying a restored car. Any rust at all near the rear suspension and/or under the battery and/or under the doors should disqualify the car unless you get it for nearly free and you have excellent metalworking skills.

The 2.0 engine is considerably more valuable than the others. Look for three studs holding down the intake manifolds instead of four.

Price is going to depend a great deal on condition. Under $1000 for a parts car up to $10K for a show-quality car.

[mustanggtboy]

Ok so you are sying that to repair the rust damage will cost what?

6-7K? Or more? The actual pieces seem pretty cheap, so the cost is the labor, or renting the frame jig? For a complete, battery box, floor boards, consoles, rockers etc...

What in your opinion is a restored car? When someone mentions a restored car to me, I think of the Barret Jackson auto auctions, where every little bolt and sticker are new. Those are restored cars.



gtboy

[lapuwali]

"Restored" doesn't have to mean show-quality. Simply having all of the rust fixed properly and new paint can be adequate. Buying a 914 that's had all this done can run you $6-8K, depending on geography and how lucky you are. Just getting a decent paint job alone costs $3K. Having the car stripped, sanded, new metal welded in, and ensuring everything is straight can cost you $3-6K. So, figure you can buy a car that someone else has done for $6K, or you can buy a $1K car that needs all of this and spend $9K to get it to the same condition. Such is the economics of restoration.

However, if you have the ability, time, and inclination to do the stripping, sanding, welding, etc. required, and you're lucky enough that the frame has enough solidity that it's still straight afterwards, then you can buy a $1k car, do about a year's worth of work on it (spending about $1K on materials), then spend the $3K on the nice paint job, and be ahead of the game (as long as you don't have to do any engine or gearbox work, which is unlikely).

[peter carroll]

Take off the rocker panels and look at the longitudinals before you buy any 914. I don't care how nice it looks. Amen

[yousaidpoo]

If you are planning on doing the welding yourself one thing i would suggest is learning (or teaching yourself) how to weld with stainless. I had to put a few small patches to cover rust under mine, and i would STRONGLY advise using stainless, since it wont just immediately rust again, like many other welding processes will, even if you put a "rust-proof" coating on them.

[lapuwali]

Welding and forming stainless is quite difficult, and welding stainless to non-stainless is VERY difficult. Doing so structurally is not something I'd recommend to anyone learning how to weld. Stainless is highly subject to embrittlement during the welding process, and using it structurally is NOT for amateurs. Mild steel, however, is relatively forgiving of indifferent weld quality, and is much less likely to fail later even if the weld isn't perfect.

There are weld-through primers you can use for protection, followed by more primer as soon as the welded part cools and is cleaned. You've got several hours of leeway here with mild steel. Even if some light surface rust develops before you can get the primer on, it can be easily sanded off before priming.

[yousaidpoo]

That is true about stainless being a little (ok a LOT) tough to do, but it worked for me, and i have done it one some other cars as well as my teener with no problems. I used .030 stainless MIG and it worked pretty well, just had to make sure both surfaces were ultra clean. I would have really liked to stick weld it with a 6010 rod though, to weld neatly through any crud i wasnt able to get all the way off, but i dont think the metal (especially my small patches) was quite thick enough to be able to get good penetration and not burn through.


BTW, with the stainless, i only did the underside. That way A) it wouldnt be as susceptable (sp?) to rust and B) shaping the metal wasn't an issue. Because yes, stainless steel is a big pain in the bumbum to bend/shape/cut/etc.

[silver2.0]

I have to agree with lap. I have been welding for about 12 years now, and if I have learned one thing, it's don't weld stainless to anything but stainless if you want it to be strong. It may look like it has been welded, but the strength, and fatigue resistance isn't there. It will tend to crack after time. I would just use galvanized myself. Just polish off the zinc coating where you are going to weld, wear a gas mask, and go to town. And of course por 15 it. Just my $.02

[914GT]

My preference is plain cold-rolled steel, 20 or 18 ga. depending on what needs welding. Galvanized just asks for trouble. It'll cause welds to spatter if you don't grind it all off, and that just thins out the metal. The zinc fumes can make you sick, and it's a pain to wear a respirator under a welding helmet. The welds need to be protected anyway, so a metal-prep (phosphoric acid) wash followed by 2-part epoxy primer is the best protection (or self-etch primer). POR15 is fine but I'd never use it on any painted body panels. That's my $.02.