For the past several months, no work on the car has gotten done.

The shop in VA that I have been working at moved to a new location, and so from the months of May - July we have been packing boxes, moving shop equipment, tools, 10 years of build up stuff, and cars.  The new shop is slightly smaller, but WAY better.  We moved out of an industrial park about a mile down the road to a new, private location in Charles City, VA.  Cuts, scrapes, a LOT of sweat and swearing, but we got all three bays cleared out, cleaned up, and moved to the new shop by Midnight July 1.  For the "work weekend" in July, we went shooting.  And I'm guessing for the work weekend in August, I'm guessing it will also NOT be about cars - maybe a James river float or something else relaxing to do on a hot, humid Virginia day.  

In June I picked up a set of Alpina wheels (for free) and a spare set of axles from a friend who was also moving and needed to clear stuff out of his garage.  SCORE!  I'm not sure if the wheels are 5.5 inch wide or 6.5 inches wide.

I have been thinking about the build quite a lot.  The rust is extensive, yet fixable.  And I've already tackled some of the bigger areas.

Now that the front fenders are off, I found a small patch of rust on each side going into the cabin that I am guessing is pretty common.  A patch will fix it.

I'm going to replace the front fenders instead of trying to fix mine.  There is not that much wrong with them, but I'd really like to just be able to bolt on new ones instead of cutting and welding and cleaning the old ones.

The rear fenders both have rust in the arches that was hidden.  The arch panels will fix it, but are just as expensive as fitting in flares.  Man, it is really tempting to flare out the car and run some wider tire with a little spacer to push the wheels out.  But this goes against my desire to have a basically stock car.  Going down this route is what has kept me from driving my heavily modified 914.  Though if the wheels I got are the 6.5 inch wheels, I may have to flare it out for them to fit right.

Once the rocker panels are fully welded closed again, the next BIG task will be the trunk.  Its daunting, and will probably be several weekends of effort to clear and repair.

The reality is that almost every panel of this car needs some sort of rust repair.  That the shock towers are solid is some sort of weird godsend.

When I did my 914 the first time, it took me three years from buying it to the first drive, and that was with the car in my garage, here in York PA. I have started thinking about dragging the BMW home to work on, but I enjoy and need the break from life to go down to VA and work on it once a month.  I've had the BMW now for just over a year.  Hopefully its not another 2 years before I am able to start it up for the first time and drive it around.

Zach