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> kook story, or why you should never throw out an original part.
wonkipop
post Dec 29 2020, 02:16 AM
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this kook story begins 20 years ago in the far off inverted kook world of aus.

1974 L jet kook 914 belonging to upside down aus dickhead, which everyone says, you are a mongoloid (dips hat to devo) for buying one of those, developes a hole in the muffler.

kook and kook's mechanic try to work out what to do, approx about the time the milleni-hum ends.



kook's mechanic who knows a thing or two about 914s, 911s and vws of post war era says thats a kombi (bus in usa speak) muffler. whew!, says kook owner, since at that time on primitive internet devices etc and usa mail order, fax in organisations there appears to be no muffler available for kook 1.8.

mechanic orders in muffler from vw parts supplier at reasonable cost - on par with vw everyman budget. all looks good until realisation hits that the whole thing is upside down compared to a kombi muffler. the dual exhaust inlet flange to take the pipes and the gasket is the one bit that is upside down compared to your standard old kombi muffler.

oh well.....fark etc. kook and mechanic cobble up an arrangement and rework tail pipe to exit out rhs of car for now.

"for now" turns into 20 year eternity, D I V O R C E etc. two decades lost in swirls of time. but the kook 914 stays safe. put away out of harms way. sans a dent from a broomstick aimed right at the drivers door handle (to join the other scars). nice. patina i think its called in rusty clear coat kombi land?

anyway. the problem got returned to this year. the problem of the almost kombi muffler and the tail pipe on the wrong side. and as you often do in aus, far from anything, you just think it out reverse engineering style and get it right again.

so the muffler we already had. the vw kombi muffler. and its a 914 1.8 muffler in all but its inverted coupling flanges to the tailpipes. we cut them out and did a bit of internal surgery. you have to dig in and reweld a few things just inside. and we had a 914 muffler again.

made a nice stainless steel tailpipe. i know its not original material. but its original shape.

and now i know why a 914 1.8 muffler has the stoopid dents in it which appear to have no logical reason when you are looking at where it is on a 914. but if it was on a kombi or a 412, the dents are there for the fan shroud sheet metal to fit the two things together in close proximity, since the kombi and the 412 drag their arses and would suck the heat straight into cooling fan from the radiating exhaust. and its all a tight fit in those arse draggers, pretending as they do to have a pert rear end.

its fantastic seeing just how rationally, irrational, the germans were, rummaging around in their parts bin.

i'm happy. i've got an original exhaust in aesthetic terms. its a good thing i kept the original muffler to hand across to my new mechanic so he could readjust and remake the kombi exhaust. he is a master. he likes all porsches. and he liked working on a 914, which is rare to come across in aus. and he is young. so knowledge gets transmitted.

i could have bought a dansk, yes.
but by the time i landed one in aus it would be close to AUD $1000.00. no joke.
customs. goods and services tax. shipping. and coverting aussie pesos to the us dollar. etc and wheres the fun in that. so you just go mad max but within boundaries.

there is an awful lot of stuff on 914s that are just slightly adjusted (or not adjusted at all) vw parts. you just need those part #s and something physical for a reference. the muffler is not one of them. but its secret is not that hard if you are handy with a grinder and a welder.

....never throw anything away that comes off a car. you never know when you might need to stand there and work out just where its available from - or available from what?
or why?

image shows kook 1.8 at turn of century with emergency kombi muffler first hack at it.
Attached Image

original muffler (kept in box).
Attached Image

reverse engineered to --- something close to original?




Attached Image Attached Image Attached Image


keep on trucking and keep those german arses pert.

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Ansbacher
post Jan 8 2021, 12:35 PM
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As Winston Churchill once said - "Two peoples separated by a common language".

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wonkipop
post Jan 9 2021, 05:35 PM
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QUOTE(Ansbacher @ Jan 8 2021, 12:35 PM) *

As Winston Churchill once said - "Two peoples separated by a common language".

Ansbacher


yes - he had a few good sayings.

as a post script to a subject that is in the end just history now.

from what i can work out, earlier 14s did share exactly the muffler set up from the vw 411. at least in external terms. 411s had a lhs exiting tailpipe with a small "hot dog" muffler after the main muffler.

later the 412 switched to a rhs exiting tailpipe. (though not consistent when you look at old sales literature as it looks like sedans might have had lhs exits and variants and fastbacks had rhs).
the kombi/bus when it went over to the type 4 motor had a rhs tailpipe muffler. these mufflers no longer had the "hot dog", its all a one piece with the tail pipe out the end of the muffler.

we did not get 412s in australia, only type 4 kombis. there was a batch of 411s brought in for market assessment and they ended up in the hands of enthusiasts. have not seen one for at least 30 years now.

why they did this switch on type 4s i don't understand, i guess there must have been a reason. but given that the exhaust connection of a rear engined vw and a 914 is similar, ie a trapezoidal plate with two bolts on the low side and one on the high side, it meant that the 914 which retained its lhs tailpipe had to have those plates welded on inverted when compared to the vw 412/kombi version. when you look at a 411/412 or a kombi there is no impediment to the tailpipe exiting either side as it does not run through any notch or hole in the underside of the rear bodywork.

in the 914 parts catalogue it notes that the later muffler for the 1.8s supercedes the earlier muffler as the replacement part. i think because of this and the requirement that 914s were fixed to a lhs tailpipe due to earlier cars and the rear valence with the hole or the cut away, the 914 had to continue to have a special muffler with the altered plates so the tailpipe remained in original position.

i now think there were also different kinds of factory mufflers internally, but can't find out anything in detail about that and its pretty esoteric at this point half a century later.

i have looked closely now at the original muffler that came off the car. i am not certain its the original first muffler. i can just make out the brand name LANGE on it, and Made in W Germany. along with what looks like it could be a date. 1983. i think its a replacement but a genuine VW part as LANGE along with a couple of other german brands were OEM suppliers. what is interesting is that inside the end sections of the muffler there are no dual inlet pipes that lead into the central section of the muffler from the heat exchanger/manifold inlet pipes. instead the end sections are empty chambers that feed into the central section through an inlet hole in the divider plates. and there is no trace of ever being inlet feed pipes in the end chambers so they have not corroded away.

the kombi muffler i had modified to finally fit correctly is a 20 year old item. made of 409 stainless. i can't see the brand on it at the moment because i think its on the top surface, but i think it may actually have been australian made. we were still making stuff for VWs through the 70s and 80s as there was a VW factory here through the 60s and to mid 70s. I suspect my mechanic at that time had contacts to find a good quality muffler sitting on a shelf somewhere. that muffler is more like the mufflers you get on a standard type 4 VW. there are twin inlet pipes each side in the end chambers of the muffler that feed into the central chamber of the muffler which has all the resonators etc inside it. i think it is what is known as a standard quiet muffler.

The LANGE muffler that was on the car when i bought it in 89 might be a kind of factory variant "sport" muffler to give a louder or lower tone. not really sure. but it is different. I guess it is possible that all 914 factory mufflers of the single muffler type replacing the earlier ones had these empty end chambers.

my thought being not only did they have the manifold connection plates welded on the other way around, they also had empty chambers? when compared to standard type 4 mufflers. all that would be lost to the mists of time now and not relevant to anyone these days. i see there are some very good stainless systems on offer by a member of this site that look like really good items.
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Pat Garvey
post Jan 16 2021, 06:52 PM
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Great story!
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