Connecting the anti-sway bar to the struts






My 914 has an after market anti-sway bar and this is what connects it to the strut on one side. The black stuff is a piece of 1/2" thick medium hard polyurethane. It is the same material that the torque tube bushings are made from. No-one had the bushings to replace the tired ones shown here. The other set were in worse shape. They looked like the originals since they had shoulders to isolate the metal parts. This rubbery polyurethane is difficult to work with, but it's what's needed here.



I used a 3/8" Forstner bit but I didn't drill it like this. I clamped the polyurethane between 2 pieces of wood, the top one having a 3/4" hole for drill.


After centering the piece, I clamped the top piece of wood down. The polyurethane is so rubbery it's anyone's guess what can happen if it's not clamped down before drilling. Accuracy here isn't too important. The bushings will be 1.5" in diameter so making 9 of them in this 6" x 6" piece of polyurethane will leave 1/2" of waste between each one.


With all the holes drilled the next step is to scribe the circles. I used a 3/8" rod and one of the washers from the assembly to guide an exacto knife. Nothing will write on this stuff. The only way to mark it is to cut it. But it would have been really tough trying to cut out the bushings with a knife.


I cut them into squares first and made a saw cut on each side to the scribe mark. It took me about 2 Hrs to cut out all 9.




Here's all the bushings and cut pieces of 3/8" ID gas line. The assembly on the right is how it goes together.


And here's the finished product!

The last few weeks were too cold to work in the garage. In Dec. I put the new bushings on the A arms and mounted them. I learned the hard way that you have to put the torsion rod in first. I found it's easier to slide the bushings part way on the tubes first and then pound everything back with a heavy weight against a wood block. I had to make new rubber seals for the back end of the torsion rods. I still have to make 8 bushings for the sway bar.
The threaded rod for the ball joint I bought didn't fit. Could be because I had 1970 A arms and 1972 struts. Anyway I grinded it down until enough of the threads came out so the lock nut would stay on. Next step is to order some polyurethane so I can make some bushings. That's one end of the anti-sway bar at the bottom right side of the top picture.



In this picture the rubber seal at the end of the torsion bar can be seen. It was cut out of 1/4" silicon rubber.

A-Arms and Torque Rods

A coat of Rustoleum primer and high gloss black makes a big difference. I ordered a few more parts from Pelican, thinking I might as well do a thorough job. The bushings in the A-arms looked pretty tired and I thought it would be a good idea to replace the torque rods as well. The torque rods are pricey but fortunately 2 new ones came with the car. So I only had to order a set of A-arm bushings, and the threaded pins for the ball joints.



Some people like to use a torch to soften up the old rubber bushings but a heat gun is safer. It takes a lot of prying to get the A-arm to slide out. Earlier I had to use the heat gun to loosen the large hex nuts in the front. They weren't coming loose even with a 2 foot extension to the hex wrench. Instead of breaking the hex wrench I squirted them with release oil and let them sit over night. The next morning it was really frosty outside (cold for California) and almost as cold in the garage. I heated up the metal surrounding the hex nuts and they came undone real easy. But getting back to prying off the A-arm: It takes a lot of effort. I need the excercise.


A few tugs on the pry bar and the A-arm is out half an inch. The torque tube has come loose. The lever part at the end comes off easily.


Now the A-arm is almost out. All it takes is a little yanking and it's free. I used a screwdriver to pry out the old bushings. A few taps with a small hammer and the torque rod lever slid off. I'll finish painting the A-arms and then I can start putting parts back on the car! What a concept!

The left side axle has a deep gouge in it. Maybe that's why it was so hard pushing it into the garage. I've heard too many stories about people loosing wheels off of old cars; seeing it roll down the road ahead of them. The tie rod end I put on a few months ago wasn't easy to take off. I used a crows foot at first - that just messed up the boot. I'll have to get another one. Just for the fun of it I tried using a light weight puller.


Now this doesn't look like it'll work. But after I got the steering arm good and hot with a torch, the tie rod end just popped out. I should have tried this method first. I found some struts off a 1973 car and had a local garage put some new shocks in them. Money well spent for that work because they had the original oil shocks.


Here's the replacement struts prepped for some painting.

I found a can of off white spray paint at OSH that's very close to the original interior color. I also painted the air ducts with flat black paint. The IC heating system used heat exchangers built in to the exhaust pipes. Ducts at the base of each door carried the hot air to the front of the car. I plan to use the existing holes through the firewall to recirculate air.

Fixing the ventilation system

After removing the gas tank and cleaning the mess that a rat made before dying I decided to disassemble the ventilation system and clean it as well. The picture above is the aftermath. The blower had lots of leaf litter in it so I removed it entirely so I could do a more thorough job. The valves were pretty much worn out.


The black stuff is high density foam rubber. It needed replacing so I spent several hours today trying to find a piece of it. I finally found it at a foam shop in Palo Alto. A 6" X 6" piece cost $1.00 - a real bargain if I had gone there first!. The material I got is 1/4" thick and seems to be ok even though the original was 3/16".


I cut out 2 rings - 2.5" OD, 1.5" ID. Accuracy is not that important.


Here's the new gasket, looks like it'll work ok.



This is the blower motor and fan. Below the brush is a small piece of wood with some 800 grit emery paper stuck to it. I used this to polish the commutator. I wedged it against the commutator and spun the fan around. There doesn't appear to be any way of disassembling the motor without breaking something.



Here's the blower half assembled. The two flapper valves work better now. I also tested the motor. A clean commutator makes a difference.


This is the bottom of the blower. The split rings that hold the two pieces of the case together still need to be put on. When the ventilation system is all back together it won't be blowing out 30 year old dust. A dirty job but worth the effort.

New master cylinder

I removed the original rusted-out master cylinder several months ago. The fittings aren't tight because I will be removing it when I clean out the brake fluid reservoir. I also might need to get some copper gaskets for the front brake fittings. I'm definitely going to use some teflon tape.