1974 Porsche 911 DIY Budget Build - Rust Repair

[JP911]

Thanks for the welcomes everyone!

So first obvious thing was to try to fix the sunroof. It was so seized it wouldn't even move. I have never worked on a sunroof before so this was a first - and one hell of a learning experience. First step was to pop off the actual roof piece, held in place by 2 screws on each side. Under is this frame thing that actually slides on the rail. Looks like someone already tried repairing this before. Everything was caked in old grease which is what probably caused it to seize.





SO much crud everywhere.



Essentially all the old parts out. Had to really figure out how everything worked. Essentially two long "toothed cables" slide on channels and a single gear drives them both in and out of the channels. The ends of those cables are attached to the sun roof.



The tired looking single gear that drives everything. This single drive unit new from Porsche is 600$



Found out this wasn't the original sunroof. It used to be yellow. Huh.



Repained parts that needed paint. Polished all the parts then added a clear coat.



Re-glued the headliner with a two part epoxy.



All put back together. It was less frustrating now that I understood how it all went together and stuff. Headliner was super tight and looks great. Slides back and fourth - still with effort but better than before.



One thing I never noticed was how the rear weather seal is sitting. Ignore the dust - I took this picture recently after it was sitting for a bit.



The seal is sitting a bit wavy near the back - Ill probably pull the sunroof off again later and re-seat the seal. I really want to drive this car a lot in any weather, including rain.

[SebastienPeek]

Welcome to the club man!

I got myself a '74 911S just a few months ago.
Glad to see someone else is doing a thread at the same time, can't wait to bump ideas off of each other and definitely encourage the rabbit hole.

Turbo widened would be super sweet. I'm definitely jealous of the 3.2l in the back that you have, I'm very tempted to go down a similar route in my narrow body. Can't wait to see this come to fruition!

[LCG]

subscribing

[laextreme5]

Everytime i see one of these older 911 build threads pop up my lust for one grows more and more. One day, one day. Excited to see where this goes.

[190Evan]

Oh this is exciting

[I_Haz.:R32]

Nice! I love 911's, hopefully you can bring this thing back from the grave!

[JP911]

Hey Everyone.

This isn't my first build - if you want to see my B18C Mini you can read about it here, I sold that car to essentially pay for this one:

http://www.16vminiclub.com/showthread.php?t=26349

Started a thread on Pelican, but since they're all older guys I thought it would be interesting to drag myself over here and see whats good. I've been a long time lurker, Im 24 so likely more closer to your demographic

Since I was a kid my dream was to own a 911 - I even used "911" in all my usernames to remind me to never give up on chasing this stupid dream. I had the opportunity of a lifetime to purchase this 74' 911 for a stupid price - it was in the mid teens, and I instantly sent the guy deposit over the phone without even looking at the car. It was sitting at a dealership for some reason, so no one knew the real history of the car. I have the paperwork for it though, so I can likely contact the real previous owner. I've been slowly fixing all the big problems with it which is pretty much a can of worms. Funny story about this car, its the first time i purchased a car sight unseen because of the price. I figured I would at least do fluids and get it running then sell it - but since I sold my Mini I will try and keep this guy. My god your parts are expensive though. "Porsche Tax" is certainly a thing. Other plans include driving it across the country since I want to move to BC, Im located in Ontario, and this car was originally located in BC. Lets see how far this goes! Bets on how many times it will break down! Hah.

I like making build threads because I do all the work myself - I don't care how big of a job it is. It saves costs, and helps me learn and understand my car. my previous build I did all the work except for the exhaust, and I learned so much from it. I document it more for myself, but it seems to help others when they see the mistakes I make. Feel free to ask questions, and help me out - Ill need it lol.

Anyway heres the car! All the info I can find on it so far is that its a 911s from 1974, a 915 trans from a 1972, 3.2L from a 87 SC. It drives, but I only drove it around the block, since I didn't want to push it. Someone has previously flared it out to Carrera fenders which is now rusting. Haven't decided what I want to do with the car yet but its a bastard for sure. Not as scared of hacking this thing up since nothing is original.







Biggest problems I initially noticed - Sun roof jammed. Gear just skips, its seized completely. The rust on the body seemed surface. You can see where they mated on the rear fender to extend it to a Carrera width. Looks like they didn't weld it though... weird. It rusted on both left and right side and paint chipped off. I want to convert to Turbo width and turn it into a super lightweight IROC homage. Ill see!





Disgusting rats nest. Some wires were so frayed and melted. Stupid alarm systems, sound systems, all junk. Clearly needs to be rewired. The Smugglers box was filled with nut shells. I guess it must have been used as a home for a squirrel for a few months. There was a can of something inside too. Gross.





The beautiful '87 3.2L. no way of finding out how many KMs on it. Ill do a compression test and monitor how much oil gets consumed. Paperwork says the engine was put in 5 years ago and was purchased from LA Dismantlers. Not optimistic since they have a bad rep but it looks clean. It ran before I drained the fluids.



Gauges. Pretty good condition. Clock doesn't work. odometer doesn't work. Only 5 digits too - can someone chime in? Were older G series cars not rated for more than 100,000KM?



I've already worked on this car for a bit so Ill continue a bit more below. Thanks for reading.

Jeff