Project Blue Book

[stichill99]

914

Agree with above :thumb:

 

[Chief]

I'm sorry but i do have to say once again .. your abilities are astounding ..

I can spray paint / body repair to a commercial level but the roof panel is what i would expect out of our next door body shop !

I have the very same clamps you have and i use them for similar purposes .. i have found clamping a steel ruler under them a better method as it leaves less marks in the leather / fabric .. the longer the ruler and the better .

Outstanding young man and sorry to repeat myself but i appreciate excellent work and this is it .

There must be some formal training here surely ?

Thank you so much for your humbling comments both. You could knock me down with a feather!
Just for reference I have no formal training, just a good ear to listen and learn. As they say "Every day's a learning day".

Thank you again, it's a real boost. I post stuff up to help future searchers find info that might help. I get little response which I put down to these fantastic little cars no being on people's radars currently, but give it a year or two and i'll be famous :grin: :grin: :grin: :grin: :thumb:

 

[photek]

Phew, I just spent two days (on and off) working my way through this amazing project - well done Chief on your amazing work!

It already looks great, but it will look stunning when completed :worship:

 

[photek]

S**t....just followed you on instagram, now I need to start from the beginning again

 

[deMort]

I Think you need to look at the number of views of this topic compared to the comments ..

Pretty much 150K views .. 150,000 views .. that says how many people have looked at this topic .. most of us can't answer as there is nothing we can say .. hence base your popularity on the views .

Trust me i have posts on what i consider pretty important info that have 100 views lol !!!

Hence .. you are certainly reaching a large audience !

 

[Chief]

Phew, I just spent two days (on and off) working my way through this amazing project - well done Chief on your amazing work!

It already looks great, but it will look stunning when completed :worship:

Sorry......
Photek, thank you for giving up your valuable time to have a wander through my thread. I do appreciate it :wink: :wink:
Sorry about Instagram also. I do just put highlighted photos on there and people give you less that a second before they say 'BORED!' swipe on :grin:

Engine mock-up next before it goes off for a massive build along with the gearbox. I want the car a bit further along so I can sit back a just post up pictures of someone else's hard work uh:

 

[Chief]

I Think you need to look at the number of views of this topic compared to the comments ..

Pretty much 150K views .. 150,000 views .. that says how many people have looked at this topic .. most of us can't answer as there is nothing we can say .. hence base your popularity on the views .

Trust me i have posts on what i consider pretty important info that have 100 views lol !!!

Hence .. you are certainly reaching a large audience !

deMort,
Not having a winge, just a reflection of the state of play of the little 914, but I appreciate your point, very valid.
People are getting more interested in this forgotten little gem. I do see more and more of them popping up on Intagram, so fingers crossed 8)

 

[Chief]

Firstly Merry Christmas to one and all!
I have been busy with the little Fourteen of late but not go around to updating this thread, so apologies for that...
We left it with the 50 year old Targa top sort of painted with the Raptor Bed liner. After leaving it for a goodly while to realy harden off it was down to sound deadening, seals and fittings. The latter were a cause of concern as there is not a lot still available for repair.











Some time was spent cleaning the stainless strips and I sadly chrome painted the fitting screws as they were zinc and yellow plated originally.
Sad I know....
Sound deadening fitted well as I have not done this before and was concerned how flat I could get it. This just had cheap gey trim fabric glued in place from the factory. The roof is like a big drum skin so I was keen to try to reduce the noise. I am aiming to do something a bit fancy with the covering that will go over the deadening material (more later).

You can see the rear clip fitting here that I refurbished and painted eveything satin gloss black to give it a bit of a pop.
This is how it used to look!



The front clips were next on the 'To Do' list...















A bit more like it. I appreciate that a lot of this is not that visible at first sight, but I feel it's the attention to the detail that will pay off in the end.

The rear Targa clamps were a head stratcher until good old 914 Rubber came to the rescue with a part refurb kit. You have to re-use the finger leavers but mine were in a sad state as you can see here.



They are plastic dipped which I cannot replicate. The plastic had holed in places and was rusting.I ended up cutting the plastic away with a Stanley knife.



Also in this image you can see I have started to clean the 'Hook' which pulls the rear of the top down to the Targa bar. These have worn out of shape and are part of the kit supplied by 914 Rubber (USA). I was thankful for this as I thought I might have to weld and reshape.











So repainted with (yes I know) the famous crackle finish. I built a few coats to try and thicken them up a bit like the original plastic.











Yet more crackle finish on the plastic cover so that it matches the vinyl. The factory ones are just poor looking plastic, can't be dealing with that!!!

The rear Targa pad is also a reproduction from 914 Rubber. Mine were cracked and being in the Californian sun for 50 years had given up.
I spent a whole day trimming and fiddling to get this to fit nice and tight. I am really happy with the outcome. The front one again from them needed trimming and gluing into place. This next ugly photo shows the effort you sometimes have to go to...





This is just being finished now, but I couldn't resist fitting the roof just to see what it will look like.









I like big butts and I cannot lie...



Next task is to assemble all the engine bits and bobs to check everything fits in place before going off the Angus to be rebuilt. I thought I clean the geabox up as well as I hate the thought of taking dirty stuff to someone and just expecting them to do the dirty work. Sets a bad tone in my mind.







I cut some threadded rod and made a safe assembly to put onto my engine stand.











I have loosend all the nuts and threaded inserts with heat and patients and loosley put back. the gear cluster looks good but the diff bearing race tracks look a bit worrying. The diff will be changed for one that has the narrow splines to take 911 flanges. This keeps the whole driveshft set up the same as I have gone five stud for the outers.
Well that's me for now. Thanks for looking in and I wish all a healthy, happy New Year!

 

[Wh1t3Kn1ght]

Excellent work chief - those shots of the car with the roof look amazing :worship:

 

[Trantorman]

Great work and thanks for sharing your journey, what did you use to clean the gearbox casing?


Thanks again.

 

[kurlykris]

Fantastic work as usual chief :thumbs:
I look forward to seeing her in the flesh when she is finished mate

Just a note on the plastic coating you had to cut off on the roof levers, it can be replicated a home with a blow torch and and plastic coating powder dipping, we used to do this when I was at school :grin:

https://www.plasticcoatings.co.uk/plastic-coating-processes/thermoplastic-dip-coating/

 

[giraffeinbath]

Converting the engine to a 912-911 fan set up.

I've not commented before but I've been a long time follower, Project Blue Book is one of the best project threads on 911uk, the quality of everything you've done is absolutley amazing.

I wondered how will you be machining the breather tower to accomodate the 911 fan?

 

[plavix]

Just read this entire build so far! Totally amazing :worship:

Any updates regarding engine and gearbox?

 

[Roast Beef Racing]

This is one of the best threads on here! Following with interest.

 

[Chief]

Firstly, sorry for being away for a while. There was good reason. however, thank you for all you encouraging comments. They really are appreciated and give me energy to carry on. Some interesting work has gone on with Project Blue Book just now. But where to start....
We left it with cleaning the gearbox and having a little nose inside to see if there were any issues. So I attached the clean shiny box to the engine for mock-up.

Next task was to get it into the car so I could start checking the tinware and making up the fuel lines.



I recon that took 20 minutes to do what with having the ramp. The gidt that keeps giving!

I was pretty sure that the tinware would fit apart from one piece. I painted all but that one. and started to assemble in situ.


Yes, yes I know more of that crackle finish. But in my defence it just suits the whole 70's feel.



This last picture is with the modified 912 Air Clearner in place. I just needed to see it the height was right and that i could still shut the engine lid.
I was a bit nervous in truth, but measure twice cut once and all that.
I needed to just re-shape that last unpainted piece of tinware a little just to be right. Once that was done I cut the holes for the heater blower and to match the holes in it's sister piece.



You can see a sneak peak of the AN fuel lines fitted here. But here are a couple to show the detail.


Hopefully the stealth black hides them against the Air Cleaners. I need to fabricate a nice bracket to secure them onto the fan housing, which I will do soon.
Next job was to design a throttle linkage and cable routing. I used a deign from Tiawan and modified it to suit my application.



What I wanted was a system that could be used from the back of the engine and not have a throttle cable coming over the tinware and fan shroud from the front. This would look untidy and couldn't live with that now could I?



I created a throttle tube and associated strenghtening that comes from behind (Gearbox side). It is all linished down and is practically invisible.
I painted the back tin, but forgot to take any pictures. The reason for this was that I was under a bit of time pressure....
I measured the dimensions for the throttle cable and have had this fabricated by 'Speedy Cables' in Wales. A very, very professional outfit. I can highly reccomend them. Nothing was too much trouble, so I thank them, top job!

Time to sign off. I've bored you all enough for now...
All the best everyone and "Good luck England!" for Saturday.