Dear friends, Rich Dauenhauer and I have been rebuilding my 914 and swapping chassis. He named this post so I'm dedicating it to him. I will be documenting all the weird screwball hillbillly mechanical abnormalities that we've come across tearing apart my 71 914. Backwards suspension peices, welded throttle and clutch cables, hundreds of random ground wires and all. This one was some hillbillly mechanics way of securing the throttle cable. It made us both laugh so I'll share. Everyone should feel free to add any of there own hillbilly mechanical fixes that they've found on there 914s. I think we will all get a kick out of this!!

Click to view attachment

Now I wish I had taken a picture of the huge stack of washers that someone used on Babydoll to get the clutch cable to fit. (I ran a die down the cable end to make more threads, rendering the inch thick stack of washers unnecessary.)

Wow!! They welded that right to the intake runner. I love how they couldn't bend a single piece of metal and had to fasten it together with a nut and a bolt.

Here's what the PO welded to the clutch cable tube when the firewall imploded.

It had sort of a "foot" which was braced against the surrounding steel.

Click to view attachment

DAPO's!

Or, for the sake of argument, a proud owner who did whatever he could to keep his prize Porsche on the road.

Yes true. A proud owner did this to get his car on the road but if he was a true proud owner he would fix it right when he had the chance to do so.

Amen brother amen

Most of you don't remember when 914's were new but the general perception was that they were fancy VW's not the exotic 911. So people treated them like a VW in regards to servicing, meaning as soon as the car was out of Dealer Warranty Maintenance they did it themselves or some local shop did or not at all.

Baling wire, chewing gum, duct tape. 220, 221, whatever it takes.

Maybe rename the thread Hillbilly Mechnix 101 ??

Jack / Jaxdream

Here's how the DAPO secured the clutch tube.

No, wait a minute, I cannot tell a lie; I did that.

Click to view attachment

But that was only a temporary measure until I was able to fix it correctly. It looks like this now with 2 layers of 14ga steel:

Click to view attachment

Years ago I bought a '75 and looking at it on the car lot I noticed that there was wire tied to the top of the acc. pedal. Well, I knew what was going on. The master cyl. had leaked on the pedal assm. and the bushings were swollen. So, you could push the gas pedal down, but to deaccel you had to pull on the wire.....
I picked it up with my trailer and replaced the mc and put bronze bushings in the pedal assm.....

Rename. We all have great stories, along with yours. Keep posting. I doubled up in laughter seeing your pictures. My PO used garden hose for the shifter bushing at the firewall :>(

Hey! I did that from a suggestion on 914club (no world at the time). You callin' me out McCoy?

Now here's some real Hillbilly repairs! A new lower firewall!!
Click to view attachment

Right rear longitudinal repairs!
Click to view attachment

Now that's real fiberglass in there, not just bondo!!
Click to view attachment

Ummmm Is this an Adobe style 914?

(and I'm talking about the building style. Not the computer software.)

I painted my 39 chev 6 valve cover white with a brush when I was 15. I did clean the grease off first. I did my first dual points in that motor. I just mounted the extra points so they opened later than the stock set, it looked like what they did on the corvette 6. The two coils into one wire really looked good at night, that was a experiment I guess, it didn't last long, I couldn't get a good splice on the lead to the distributor cap. The worst experiment I tried was drilling the jets out on my two two's, they backfired and caught on fire, if it wasn't for the guys at the airport and their extenguishers it would have been bad I guess. The deal is everyone does what they have to to get by, the level of expertise comes from redoing screwups either those done by the new owner or the original repairman. The shody body work in my opinion comes from not being able to afford a good repair and needing to get their money out of the car. I do love to see short cuts though, it's amazing the materials that show up on cars that the repairman gets at work.

said in your best Michael Keaton voice

Jim

This guy should work for Leno...

http://s97.photobucket.com/albums/l237/big...nt=MVI_1862.mp4

Was that you Jim? I thought it was Doug (the guy who built Babydoll's engine) since he was the last person to have his hands on her when I saw that.

Yes, that's how I treated my first 914. But it probably was Doug who re-installed the washer stack since he removed the drive train so it can't be blamed on me in the end

this is on my 70 /6

I guess the factory mounting system for the rockers was not sufficient and did this on both sides at the leading edge and here in the middle Nice brackets Huh Just more holes to fill

Floor board repair...

http://www.tampabay914.com/4742911495/DEC2002.html

-- Rob

Click to view attachment


For those who can't tell, that's a nail used to fix a broken accelerator cable.

Not to mention a sorry excuse for a carburetor to fix a fuel injection problem.

The Cap'n

Beats me why the stack was needed in the first place though. It's like the part was designed not to fit right. I shouldn't have had to modify it by adding threads.

All the exposed wires in the dash was a nice find. Or the main electric line rubbing against the alternator.

On my orignal six when I took off the rocker panels the DAPO used the redneck longitudnal fix......welded angle iron on them.....

ahahhahah omg that is seriously hilarious!! good times goood times. These threads make me so happy, very glad I started this!