recommissioned., australian 914 Options

[phillstek]

some images of firewall area. tank out for remaking fuel lines recently.
some surface rust starting was found down in the v joint below the fuel tank due to condensation maybe. on top metal surface of the cavity not bottom (underside -road surface). we went back over all the welds from when i converted it and gave seams etc some love/attention 30 years on. tight fit to bring the fuel lines through to the bottom of the tank.

you lose tank connections access port (or its severely reduced in size with conversion), so back then an access hole cut in the front truck firewall hidden behind the truck carpet to assist getting fuel lines on to the tank. the tank loses about half of its lower bulb and has reduced capacity.

some images from last few months. in one of them you can see mods to lower firewall from cabin side. evident where we have been attending to seams and welds. on lh side the original firewall and floor piece for the pedal mounting gets removed and moved across to right as part of the new drivers footwell. a replacement panel is folded and welded in.

another bit of useless information, but all this stuff is sheet steel and welded on my car. would not have thought to have done it any other way, neither would anyone else in the 80s and 90s. i've seen a crayfords car up close and they were pop rivetted panels with mastic sealant!!!!! some of the panels were sheet steel but one of the firewall panels was a fibreglass moulding. no welding! the 1970s!?

Looks like you’re in Melbourne, going by your pics. Great city with arguably the best coffee in the world.


Cut my dash up into 6 pieces, welded it back up and then vacuum vinyled it. Biggest issue for me was the tank/firewall modification. Ended up with rust issues in the tank that caused untold problems with carb jets even with 3 fuel filters in line. Solved it by fabricating a new tank in aluminium.

[wonkipop]

@ phillstek

coffees just as good in sydney from what i hear.
and was last time i was there two decades ago.

love sydney's harbour and clear pacific sky. its beautiful.
i hear its a traffic nightmare these days. so is melbourne. though i enjoy driving in the lockdown. its a sunday in the late 1970s.

you can get real bad coffee in melbourne don't worry, from joints that look the look, walk the walk, but don't do the talk. its a myth. a myth from the 60s and 70s when only melbourne had real coffee.

best coffee i've had was in brisbane about 10 years ago. they try very hard to get it right.

we had to treat inside the fuel tank when he had it out for this work.
can see potential for issues as you say.
have a second filter installed after the fuel pump, only customization of the stock 1.8 engine bay. i'm looking after the injectors having managed to get a set of unopened boschs from a guy in colorado. one of the fun jobs this time around was to exactly duplicate mad tangle of vacuum hose lines etc that greets eyeballs when you flp the lid on the L jetronic. a six looks like a work of majestic mechanical art in contrast.

but i love the proto electro tech of the L jetronic. its why i went after the 1.8 back in the day. everyone thought i was mad not wanting a six or wanting to convert it to a six.
still get it said to me. "you should put a six in that". or "you know what would be good - a leyland p76 v8".

i'm a geek. i like the 1.8 for the same reason i love the lunar module. its a piece of industrial archeology. numero uno of all modern fuel injection. it makes me smile whenever i look at the part number stamped on the air flow meter. bosch xyz uvw (whatever) 001. and catch a glimpse of the computer. its probably got about as much ram as a toaster or a.i. as a head temp. sensor in a modern car.

[wonkipop]

gone geek on the tyres too philstek.

wanted the feel back. got another car i regular drive for thrills (rs clio 172).
914 had rock hard sp57s on it when i bought it back in 89. suspect they could have been originals. didn't think to keep them, could have flogged them to concourse crowd for ornamental spares?! have put some xas-es on. they feel great but are still a little waxy. the steering is feather light and wriggly. they feel pretty soft, as were i am told fresh new SP57s back in the day. my tyre man, an old guy, told me the SP57s were the first great tyre to come out of the japanese tyre plants. a really good rally tyre. must have been why so many north american porsches had them fitted at that time.
some 911 boys i know who like to drive hard with purist equipment say the xas are still a good tyre - sticky. mind you i think they run 185s and i have put 165s on. i shall see how it goes.

1/2 a century of michelins. they have come a long way.

[Midway]

g'day midway.

i lived in WA for two years 93 to 94. worked at UWA in perth when first back from usa. i liked perth, it felt remote from the rest of aus. the indian ocean is beautiful.
my 914 was with me. there was one other 914 in perth at the time. belonged to a mechanic at a VW workshop called Arnoldi's.

you are correct, doubt anyone would do a right drive 914 in australia ever again since club rego made it possible to be lhd.

Thanks for the comprehensive reply regarding the dash.
I met the Arnoldi man a couple of years ago, gave me his card. Not sure if he was the owner or the mechanic you mentioned.
My car is on normal rego.
Silver is also a good colour for a German car!
(IMG:http://www.914world.com/bbs2/uploads_offsite/photos.smugmug.com-20461-1588910565.1.jpg)

[wonkipop]

boy, thats a sweet looking car midway.
silver suits.
pedrini wheels are my favourite of the alloys.
in the 80s and 90s everyone seemed to want the fuchs on their cars in the usa, but back then those were my favourites. along with the mahles. suited the cars.

nice photo setting.
where is that in WA?
down south west somewhere?

hows the rego work in wa. probably works the same way here. only lhd 914s i've seen have been on historic plates. but that could just be because the owners want the cars on the plates for the deal on rego costs. i drove mine early on for about 18 months from time to time on temp. permits. you had to nominate a destination and the purpose had to be to seek quotations for engineering and mechanical work towards conversion. had to have a sign on the back of the car "LEFT HAND DRIVE" in letters six inches high and had to carry a passenger (presumably to look right for me). pain in the arse.

i'm guessing if you can be on normal rego lhd in WA you might be able to do that here as well, though i seem to recall that there has always been some provision for LHD cars in WA as i used to see them a bit from time to time. usually american cars from 60s and 70s. maybe off loaded by visiting us military staff at the bases up north in WA before they went back stateside.

the guy who owned a 914 in perth all those years ago was a mechanic who worked for arnoldi. from memory arnoldi himself had a karmann ghia (or two). the mechanics car was bought as a roughy imported in from cali and the guy had put a bit of time into it getting it looking clean and straight. he had done the conversion himself. i seem to remember it was over carbed and the engine was modified, he spent a bit of time trying to get it to run cleanly. but it was good seeing it around on the streets every now and then. once we drove past each other going opposite ways. probably the only time two 914s were seen on the same road at the same time in the history of WA.

[wonkipop]

ps midway,
pleased to see you running the us spec front lenses.
i went to a lot of trouble to keep the all amber lenses.
had to build the parking lights into the pop up headlights with an old school (even then) sealed beam unit with the little porthole.
there was a lot of sweaty handed negotiation with the certifying engineer and reg authorities over whether it conformed because the headlights were pop ups. but he convinced them.
i remember some archane clause was found which granted exemption from conforming, rather than them being deemed to conform. strangely the engineer was really sympathetic to the car and convinced the "rules" man at the rego board. i think he thought it was great little car, kept referring to me as the man with the funny german car.
could not keep the us rear lenses. rear indicators had to be amber period.

most others here from that time that i have seen run euro lens set up with parking lights in the bottom half of the lens.

nearly all those cars owners also shaved the side markers off too since 100% of them were repainting the cars doing a resto as well as a conversion. the cars went from us spec to euro spec. there was a bit of taste involved as well.

i was sentimentally attached to the us spec stock look and was (am still) trying to preserve the car.

[Midway]

Just saw this on Gumtree- you might be interested?

https://www.gumtree.com.au/s-ad/drummoyne/o...wner/1247285824

I'm in Albany, nice place.
Up until a few years ago the big LHD label had to be on the car here also. For full registration purposes, basically just Euro taillights and the correct headlights are the only changes I had to perform from memory. New brake hoses and seatbelts plus a bit of fiddling around getting the reversing lights going and a couple of other minor things and she went through straight away.

Car is standard and has not given any problems. I have a factory anti-roll bar to put on the front and hope to find one for the rear also. Then Koni shocks all round is the current plan.

[wonkipop]

thanks for thinking midway.

got one of those - very handy.
got a full set of factory manuals too that i have had for years.
they are super handy.

my 914 had sway bars front and rear out of the box.
makes them a lot better. about 25 years ago i drove one without them.
for some reason i don't really know (but the real history nerds on this site would) just about all the 1.8s from 74 i ever looked at back when i found this one seemed to be fully speced (apart from the engine) in the suspension department and even in terms of the external appearance package.

i've been in the hands of a fantastic mechanic this time around and get to use the workshop and work in there as well. its run/owned by a mate of mine. the mechanic in his early 40s loved working on the car. he redid the entire suspension for me. bushes, the lot. have installed softer bilsteins. konis could be real good because you can adjust. all worth doing. these cars come alive when the suspension is right. they are just fantastic. german lotus.