kook story, or why you should never throw out an original part. Options

[wonkipop]

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.


original muffler (kept in box).


reverse engineered to --- something close to original?







keep on trucking and keep those german arses pert.