Engine Bay

With the asthmatic 1.8 making way for the WRX motor there is a lot of cleanup that can happen, i.e. items removed are never going back. To begin with though the main effort is to start cleaning it all up and taking a really good look at the infamous hell hole.

To begin with this needs to come out !!

Did not take too long either although it would have been nice to have an extra set of hands when this was all balancing on the floor jack.

So one of the 914's issues is for the battery acid to be washed with rain water onto the main longitudinal creating havoc, there are horror pictures all over the web and a lot of 914's are cut up due to the damage this can cause. It definitely contribute to the issues seen on the 1st car I bought, an optima battery will be placed in the front trunk so the battery tray can be removed.

It looks pretty fragile but it was a pain to remove due to the angles of the spot welds and the lower support, I ended up cutting it out leaving the last remnants to be removed with the sport weld cutter.

Lots of surface rust but the longitudinal is solid, there are some small perforations on the bulkhead which will need to be patched.

Here is a nice piece of work, the hinge plate for the trunk has come off (hence the hole) and then this bodge was welded in. It will be removed and I will put these in and weld the hole up.

This is what it looks like after some initial clean up, not too bad although I need to find a tool to get in the awkward areas. Like the interior I intend to get some POR-15 in there.

Finally welded up the hole where the old trunk hinge pivot used to be.

Decided to remove some of the sheet metal in the engine bay as the Subie engine is not going to need it, also cleaned up some areas and get it ready for some primer one bit at a time.

More updates to come .....