Hi Everyone ! I just picked up my first 914 yesterday ! I've wanted one since I was about 10 and there used to be one ( growing into the ground mind you ) a few houses down from my grandparents.... its a 73' 2.0L .. Its definitely had atleast one body job done to it but it will need some more work... so far, my list is..

pass. door not lined up right but the window is.. I figure its the inner rockers..
weather strips all around...
cup sized hole in drivers floor and one in spare tire well..
headlights like to wink up and down (sometimes, not always )
no turn signals..
have to bump start it as turning the key does nothing...
breaks..
tranny bangs into each gear... ( might be clutch cable adjustment i hope )

The ignition is the most interesting one... I have started the car up atleast 3 times over a couple days looking at it and talking with the previous owner and it fire up immediately same with other people that went to look at it... Sure enough... Thanks to murphys law, when I go to fire it up and leave... nothing... we put a screw driver over the selenoid terminals and up she went... so I'm thinking it might be the ignition switch..

I just ordered catalogues from Auto Atlanta and need to stop in at Restoration Design in Guelph ( since they're only about 30 min from me )

whenever the last body work was done to it someone put a very liberal ammount of tar-ish stuff over all the metal unerneath so now I cant really tell if theres rust under it ( I'm sure there is )...
battery tray has been replaced for sure, but the engine shelf doesnt look too bad..


All in all.. its the best 914 I've looked at for less than $8000 I' ended up paying $3800 for it and drove it home... Now I just have to sell my motorcycle to uphold my end of the deal with my wife ..

I'm going to get a binder and lots of paper today and start making a list.
First objective... get the electrical issues sorted, breaks and try adjusting the clutch cable.. if I can get it to pass saftey first, then I can tear into the rest of it..

Thanks for letting me lurk for a while..
Mike

I'm try to upload a pic with no luck yet....

!!!

Where in Ontario? There are several members here from Ontario.

I'm in Cambridge.. about 45 minutes west of Toronto...

Looks like I have to resized the picture to upload it.. hmm gotta figure that out too.. lol

Many ways to resize pics. I use Paint and in image/stretch/skew I change each pic to 24%. This makes the pics about 640x480 and makes the World happy to accept your pics.

About your issues, welcome to the 914 world. All 914's have issues. Best thing to do is to work on the issues one at a time. Sounds like the starter thing is your biggest issue.

Tadaa !

Good luck with it! Car looks like a good start. Remember, the Restoration Design guys are now conveniently located just down the road in Guelph. Mike's 914s out in Port Hope is a great guy to deal with and has a surprisingly good stash of parts. Nineapart up in Orangeville is a huge Porsche dismantler; he has some 914 stuff though most of it is 911, 944 etc. And our own Mark Henry in Kingston - who will no doubt chime in - is a wealth of mechanical knowledge.

Of course Dave (Balljoint) might chime in too. He has great beef jerky recipes. .

keep us up to date as you progress

cheers, mike.

Congrats!

Good looking car

Nice car. Electrical problems come with these cars it seems.
The starting circuit is a popular problem, but have no fear, it can be fixed. Just need to do some troubleshooting. If you have a voltmeter in the console, what does the voltage do when you turn to start?
While the key switch is often bad, the no start is caused by the long and multiple connections for the starter circuit. There is the key switch, seatbelt relay, 14 pin connector and 12 pin connectors on the relay board, and the large yellow wire at the solenoid. Sometimes just removing and cleaning these can make it better. Pay paticular attention to the connector at the solenoid. Corrosion here will cause a bad connection.
Tom

I've talked to Mike ( Mikes 914s ) prolly 5-8 years ago back when he was in Ajax ( or that area of the GTA).. He's in Colborne now, not port hope.. But I will be haeding there sometime to pick his brain and buy parts n services for sure... Us Mikes have to stick together if we're going to take the world over someday..

I've never done much electrical diagnosis on cars before, so I picked up a multimeter today and I'm going to have a look at it once I get off this computer.. myself , nor the PO had the seatbelt engaged when starting the car so I'm thinking that may have been bypassed at some point. I'm looking for some elecrical diagrams to print out right now..

I'm going to see about visitng the guys at restoration design tomorrow... The rockers are puzzling me right now... The drivers door opens and closes just fine.. Gaps are good. Passanger door sticks a little and has no gap at the top of the door, however the window lines up perfectly with the seal in the B-pillar... So i'm wondering if when a PO did the body work/paint, they fixed the rocker but didnt have it jig'd up right.. Either way, a set of stiffners are in order at the least.. Can those be put on overtop of the inner rockers or does the whole thing have to come out ?

Anyways.. I'm going to head out to the garage and tinker on er'

Cheers!

Welcome to The coolest Forum in the WORLD

Nice looking car too.

I do have the center console in my car... the volt and oil gauge dont work, but the clock does...

My volt and oil guage work, but my clock dosnt.

Tradesies ???

good to see you want to fix it, get teh haynes repair book, it is of great help and shows where a lot of the stuff is and has electric diagrams. not all incluseive but a must have book for 90% of the stuff

send some photos of the rust and tar areas so we can help give an assesment of the damage. many folks here have been there done that with rust and can lend some good advice

do a general tune up of the wires, clean the ground contacts (there are several thuu out teh car) push on and off the relays clean the contacts, (buy some radio shack contact cleaner, some pipe cleaers and tooth bruch fine scotch brite pads)
remove and clean all the fuses (or replace, they corrode) make sure you get the correct values in the right place, the 914 had two varations fo fuse size location, so make sure yours is right for your car. clean teh fuse contacts, and retension the lose clips, do that kind of stuff lectrically, be sure to ohm out the spark plug wires while your at it, be sure to wiggle them when you test.

have a fun one,and bye the way welcome to the trials and tribulations of the 914

Good to see you're accounting for rest time in your project. I'm a fan of beer breaks, but lunch breaks are also nice.

What are those wheels?

I have no idea what the wheels are.... maybe from a beetle ?

SO... I go out to the garage after posting here... take my brand new multimeter out of the packaging and put in a couple batteries... stare at the car and the multimeter thinking.. danm.. I have no idea how to use this thing.. I've never used one before.... hmm ok... I'll try the key one more time.... sure enough.. fires right up... Too good to be true??? i started it over about 5 times.. wokring fine right now... maybe I scared it into submission ?

Oh yes... many breaks required for beer and food...

I will try to take some pictures of the underside , batter tray area and right rear wheel area tonight... after trick-or-treating with my daughters is done..

Soo... With Trick or treating done for another year I fired up the heater and went back out to the garage... I figured for sure I'd be taking off the outer rocker cover and prolly welding in some new metal in the rockers.. but the rest of the body from the outside looks good.. and the battery tray doesnt look too bad, so i figured I'd get away with not having to cut the rear quarter out.... WELL... after poking around a bunch more and sticking a screwdriver into the metal that has all this black tar on it.. i found a hole... a hole that means I wont be driving this car in the spring prolly... Here's some pics...
Hole under the spare tire... no biggie

booty fab'd battery tray and support.. the black tar stuff makes it look worse than it is on pictures.. It seems to be pretty solid around here, but I'll know more once the engine is out ( danm i didnt want to do that just yet ) and that tar is all cleaned off.

Here is the kicker... two pics.. before and after i pulled off a loose piece of rust that was all tar'd over..

soo now it looks like the engine long, perhaps wheel house and inner rocker sections... going to have to cut out the rocker panel on the outside... drop the motor , pull out the rear suspension... as well as fix the rockers and put in stiffners..

I think I'm going to be a pretty decent welder by time this is all done...

BTW... Thanks again to everyone on here.. I've been reading through past posts for days now and I have a bit more idea where to be looking for stuff and I know now more of what I'm getting myself into... Still tho.. I've wanted a 914 since I was a kid and it looks danm sexy in the garage begging me to work on it... My wife is super supportive of all this which is great...
Its a little daunting to say the least, the ammount of metal work that will need to be done here, but its STILL in better shape than most of the 914's I've looked at.. even if it was a couple grand more..

I hope the boys at Restoration Design are in tomorrow.. I'm gonna pop by I thinks..

Just picked it up and already digging in! I'll be looking forward to your progress, good luck.

Good luck on your car. Your first 914 and you are learning already, . The next 914 you want to buy, if it has tarry stuff in these areas, it is to cover up rust that someone doesn't want you to see --RUN away. I hope you are able to make it into your dream car. Have patience and ask questions here.
Tom

Went up to Guelph and chatted with Mike and Peter at Restoration Design today.. decent guys with lots of knowlege.. and parts too looks like my christmas fund will be spent there this year as I'm going to be digging into HELL soon..

Now.. I just gotta sell my motorcycle so I'll have soom to put the eingine when it gets dropped