I have acquired a 914-2.0 from my father which I believe is a model from 74. Its been garaged for 15 years and hasnt been started since. Its currently blocked in and covered with a bunch of old garage junk. Where is a good shop in the Bay Area to get this car road worthy? What is a guesstimate on costs? I would like to maybe drive the car next summer.

Problem areas I saw include:

Battery box rusted and area around it. Leaky battery removed 14 years ago.

Sticky creeking pedals

Grinding shifter

Passenger exterior door handle broke and removed.

Also maybe a smaller steering wheel for a six footer? The shift lever hits the knee. Ill try and have pictures at a later date once the garage has been cleaned out.

Thanks

Hello and welcome

A lot of the prestarting stuff you can do yourself: Drain the old gas, change the oil and filter, replace fuel filter, pull the fuses and clean the contact points in the fuse holder, pull the plugs and squirt some light oil in the cyl. Buy a Optima battery.

There are articles on repairing the pedal cluster.

Check the trans for fluid levels and replace it with Swepco.

Ask in the classifieds for a handle.

As to a shop...not sure, but someone will have an idea.

Post some pictures of your car.

Welcome. I am going through your same experience. I just got a 2.0 914 that was last registered in 1989! It took us about 3 weeks of constantly changing parts just to get it to fire up and Idle. Of course, there are other problems being found, like it smokes as bad as a forest fire, the master cylinder leaks, ect.

But at least my clock works.

Oh, and get new rubbers on those tires! Make sure if you have steel rims, that they are not rusted so bad that you cant put another tire back on (as I found out )
Good luck.

welcome!

impossible to tell without more info and pictures, but it will probably cost a lot to get this car road worthy. more than most people think...

that said, it is a totally worthwhile experience if you have the time and money (or just lots of time, or just lots of money)! for local shops, google "high performance house". not cheap, but very high quality work.

If you tow it to a shop, my guesstimate would be $2-6K to get the car roadworthy. It depends on whether the engine has seized or not, whether the car had any problems before it was taken off the road (usually nice running cars don't get taken off the road), and whether the battery acid rusted through to the suspension ear and/or the longitudinal.

Frankly, it's probably not worth it when you can buy a nice driving 914 for $5K unless you can start digging into the car yourself. So if you always wanted to be a DIYer now is the time to start!

At least start doing the easy but time consuming things to see if the car is worth it - pretty much everything previously mentioned (fluids, hoses, tune-up parts). You can also pull the rockers away from the car (they unscrew from the bottom) to see if the rust has rotted through the car. In fact that would probably be the first thing to do before wasting time on anything else. The other place to look is under the right side of the car, under the battery tray area, where the rear suspension arm attaches to the body. Check for rust there.

Thanks for the replies. Going to do a better rust inspection around the battery area and see how bad it is. Everything else looked ok as far as I could tell. I will try and have pictures this weekend.

i second HPH (high performance house) in redwood city. brad and rich know these little cars inside out ...

but having a shop do the work won't come cheap. post some pictures here so we can all chime in and help you out ...

oh, and welcome to the club!
Andy

Yep Yep Yep!!!!

Take it to Brad

welcome! & congrats!,,,you're a 914 owner!
you've chosen a great place to start!
everyone here is more than willing to help you,
& there is a-lot of knowledge floating around here.
good luck w/ the "rust search" i hope to see some pics soon!




the local 914 medic
e.m.teen
BRIAN

Yep. Talk to Brad (Roberts). I was in the same boat with my Dad's 74 914 after it sat for 15 years.

The gas tank needs to be cleaned / checked for rust
The fuel components need to be updated (lines, filter, fuel injector hoses)
The battery most likely needs to be replaced.
Change the oil / tranny oil.
Check the plugs / ignition cables

To keep costs down, diagnose as many of the problems yourself. Adding to the cost of getting it running can be if there was a problem with the car before (AKA- why it was stopped being driven).

The pedal bushing are probably frozen due to rust, as with the shifter. With the rust issues you mentioned, you should take a serious look at the rust condition of the car and decide whether it makes sense to get it running at all.

Post picts here. Ask lots of questions here. Talk with Brad. All this being said, 914s are wonderful cars, and any work / cash you put into it, plan to drive an awesome car for decades.

The best advice of all of this is : talk with Brad.

Im getting ready to try to get my 72 to start after years of sitting. I had to replace the fuel lines and filter and install a new fuel pump. So everything as far as the fuel system seems good to this point. I ask Santa for a new Optima Battery.

SOmeone suggested squirting "light oil" into the cylinders before turning it over. What do you mean by "light oil" ?

A squirt of motor oil should be fine. After you do that, see if you can turn the engine by hand first.

I would strongly suggest using PB blaster to spray in the cylinders "you can get this at most autozones, advance auto, etc. Spray them real good, let sit for a couple of days, then repeat. After that I'd say that you can try to crank over the engine by hand. Do not use a screw driver on the cooling fan blades, as they may break and you will have to pull the engine to fix. If the engine can be turned over by hand with no sparkplugs installed, then I would say that you should change the oil and filter. Don't use old gas in running the engine as this can cause engine damage. Goog luck if you DIY. I would suggest that you take your baby to Brad and let him do what is needed. If the car has sentimental value then you might want to fix it, if not someone mentioned that you can get a car pretty much finished for 5K.

I agree with everything that's been said, but I'd first do a comprehensive rust inspection! check every possible place,

if anyone on the board is local to you and knows 914's well, try to have them or a professional who knows 914's look at it,

if frame is rusted or if the whole car is rusted, I wouldnt bother with it, or with spending any $$ on it, unless it's a sentimental car for you, and you have big $$ to spend on it.

If the car is sound, than I'd take the next steps recommended to see if you can get it running, but it'd be a shame to spend even a few hundred into the car, and then find out that the frame is shit, and you cant drive it.

Update:

50% of garage cleaned out. This is literally a excavation project. Stuff was piled up to the ceiling! With everything covered with gravel from whoever did the roofing last

Not the best pictures.... but once more stuff is cleared away Ill get better ones.

Can you spot it?
http://home.pacbell.net/troyw/P1010049.JPG

There is a vehicle in there!
http://home.pacbell.net/troyw/P1010048.JPG

http://home.pacbell.net/troyw/P1010043.JPG

http://home.pacbell.net/troyw/P1010040.JPG

Battery Tray
http://home.pacbell.net/troyw/P1010035.JPG

More of whats left
http://home.pacbell.net/troyw/P1010047.JPG

Again
http://home.pacbell.net/troyw/P1010039.JPG

http://home.pacbell.net/troyw/P1010044.JPG

http://home.pacbell.net/troyw/P1010036.JPG

you got some serious rust, my friend. sorry


if it's confined to the tray area (VERY unlikely), you may be okay. chances are, however, that the right-side long has rusted as well. can you weld?

pop of the right-side rocker cover and shoot some pics. pay attention to the right-side jack point.

nice interior, though. and a 2.0. and, what appear to be fuchs (hard to tell). go for it!

Nah, I dont weld. Could not get to the rockers yet because I was tired and I broke the garage lights moving junk out.

It just looked like the box was rusted to hell but the frame looked fine from the flash light view. Everything else looked fine but just dusty as hell. The current pictures dont show it well.

Couldnt get to front trunk and rear one didnt open with provided keys.

More later when I can roll it out and maybe get it on some stands.

Thanks

Take the car to Brad!

Simple as that in the Bay Area as HPH has the most parts and the best service. Brad and Rich know there shit when it comes to these cars.


Geoff

Finally got it out. How bad does this look? The tray almost came out by itself. There were just two holes and the rest seemed solid and just surface rust. Hrmmmm is this car Delphi Green?

http://home.pacbell.net/troyw/P1010203.JPG

Battery Tray Flakes™ which I later used the vacumm to suck out.
http://home.pacbell.net/troyw/P1010197.JPG
http://home.pacbell.net/troyw/P1010203.JPG

Hole
http://home.pacbell.net/troyw/P1010200.JPG

Hole under box
http://home.pacbell.net/troyw/P1010201.JPG
http://home.pacbell.net/troyw/P1010175.JPG

Trailing arm mount
Bad pic but it wasnt ate up
http://home.pacbell.net/troyw/P1010176.JPG

Congratulations on the car! My '73 2.0 spent 16 years in my fathers garage undisturbed. Last registered in Nov. 1988 - so long ago that the VIN dropped off the DMV database. Cost me about $120 to reinstate the VIN and tag. Cost about $2K to get it running again - most of the cost was replacing the leaking fuel injectors. Tony Heyer did the work since he was closest. I was fortunate in that the car has very little rust so it was worth the cost to get it running again.

I recommend the following:

1) Buy an Optima 34R battery. "R" indicates reversed poles - something that I wish I got so that the cables line up nicely. Also, be sure to get the Optima-supplied plastic battery hold down clamps.

2) Replace the brake rotors, pads and fluids. Yours are probably rusted and it doesn't "burn off". Don't ask me how I know.

3) New tires. Search this site for recommendations based on your needs.

4) All of the other recommendations from the others on this thread are good ones.

I hope to see you at a 914World.com gathering!

Happy Motoring!

go for it!!!!

'74 2.0 is a great base to start from. By the way, did you ever say how many miles?

Keep us posted

i suspect that rust goes farther. From the pics, it doesn't look to bad to fix. but you are in California, and people out there dont like to do rust repair they just buy another car but i agree with all of the other responses. Another area to check for rust is behind the seats. pull the seats forward, and remove the small piece of carpet. The rear window leaks, and rusts out the floor. And pop the rocker covers off. you might not like what you find. one more thing, WELCOME!!!

it looks fine, I dont see any rust problems there...

Put in a new tray and battery...and drive it till it breaks...

Rich