So I met with a man last week and put down some money on 1972 1.7L 914. the body is in excellent shape, all the carpet was removed which made it easy to see any ares that could have been reusted out. minor rust in the lower crease in the rear trunk. the battery compartment and under the batttery. He told me it won't start due to a starter issue. the injectors, plugs and wires are all new. also has brand new empi wheels and tires. I'm picking up the car on friday and plan on spending most my weekend on getting this car running again. So im sure i will be spending alot of time researching possible starting issues and cleaning fuel lines.

Welcome to the team. Ask questions. Remember check the brakes and make sure it will stop before you make it go

Congrats & post some pics when you get it

Also check how old the gas is in the tank - varnish is not good for new injectors!! If you don't know - drain and refill before running the fuel pump -

Also - since it has not been running - I'd be inclined to throw an oil change at her as well.

good luck, have fun!!

td

not to be a negative nelly but, when I bought mine, I thought I was going to throw in a motor and go.

6 months later I was able to drive it....LOL

Post the symptoms if you can't get it started so the group can get you running. Starter issues can be tricky to diagnose, but relatively simple to fix.

Pictures on Friday, right?

Excellent- it is always good to have a plan.

Please make sure you flush the brakes if the car has been sitting, check the fuel tank for stale fuel and change the oil and filter. Check all the vacuum lines, hoses, etc. Have a fire extinguisher on hand just in case and start the car outside (not in garage). Good luck.

Until you get good at searching this forum, check out Pelican's Tech pages.

http://www.pelicanparts.com/914/914tech_articles.htm

Jeff Bowlsby has tons of stuff on his site too.

http://bowlsby.net/914/Classic/TechNotebook.htm

Take it slow, take pictures for us and for yourself. You take things apart, it makes it easier to put them back.

You are correct that with the carpet out, you can get a good feel, but look real close. Porsche covered the floors with tar then painted the car, so at first glance everything is whole. If you poke around with a screw driver you might find more.

Water can get under the tar, behind the engine pad and the interior pad, it pools up at the pedal cluster which is behind a pedal board.

Fuel, Power, and Brakes, check, clean and replace what is needed.

Good luck, have fun and welcome to the greatest car forum in the world.

Haha same here, but I'm now 9 months down the road and have just finished removing the "no rust" and began welding in the new pieces.

Welcome to the Madness!

Welcome! ...and PICTURES, PICTURES, PICTURES!!!

PS, the 72 1.7's are the best ones.

Can't believe I was the first to say....

and

Well he says he had the tank cleaned out and refinished, and i think it'll be dark before i get it home so i don't think i will have any pics tonight but saturday probably.

good news, is i bought it and its now in my possession, bad news is, virtually everything is disconnected so i'm getting very intimate with the schematics right off the bat. vacuum, fuel, air, brakes, and transmission linkages.

some initial pics

and some more

It looks like you may have some lang repair ahead of you! I would pull off the rocker panels and look underneath. My guess is you'll be getting to know the guys at restoration design really well!

Welcome!

I agree that you likely will need some new sheet metal in the hell hole and passenger side long. However, when life gives you lemons make some kind of alcoholic beverage and relax. Take the opportunity to drop the motor/transaxle and clean stuff up while the engine is out of the car and that way once the metal repair is done you can paint the engine bay nicely. Be sure to tape everything off so it looks factory when done. Oh and while the engine is out you could re-seal it where it is leaking and do a valve job. Might want to go ahead and do cylinders, pistons and rings...you get the idea. This is a slippery slope for sure. Good luck and document it all with photos for us to enjoy too. PS- thanks for taking the rear spoiler off. Don't forget to seal those holes up if the car sits outside. Personally, though I understand the purpose, I have never cared for the trunk spoiler look.

so after spending an weekend getting intimate with trying to figure out what is going on with this car so i can try and get it running, im slowly piecing some of the main engine bits back together and establish a starting point. unfortunately right now i need this to be a running project. I had it turning over very slowly on the started that was in it and i picked up a new one and put it in but it wont turn over at all now. unfortunately it got dark right as i finished up so i dont have time to mess with the car till tuesday...any ideas or advice at this point. then next on the table is trying to setp fuel lines and hoses in the engine compartment which im still working on unnderstanding.

Obviously make sure your battery has the amps needed. You should be able to get a 13mm socket with short extension on the bolt holding the fan in and turn the crank by hand with the plugs out. If if won't turn easily, don't try too hard and twist that bolt head off. It's a pretty small bolt for a crank. If it's seized, you're looking at an engine rebuild. Good luck and welcome to the forum.

Things to check:

- Battery: is it flat? Usually a reading over 12.5V between the battery posts is a charged battery.
- Ground strap between the trans and trunk floor: Is it hooked up? Clean connections on both ends?
- Ground to the battery: Are the connections clean?

--DD

the engine spins pretty easily, cleaned up and re-installed the trans body ground and the battery ground then realized i connected the started wrong, but its still turning over super slow and not nearly enough to start.

oh and battery reads 12.7 volts

Perhaps your starter is on the way out. Is it getting really hot to the touch after a couple of cranks? I took my original starter off the '73 to have it rebuilt and the shop found out it was less expensive just to replace it. New starter and alternator were about $250 total.

well its the second brand new starter that has done the same thing soim ruling that possibility out... im not expecting it to actually run i just want it to turn over properly.

Spent another week troubleshooting the slow start and found my battery lead to the starter had a nice whole in it as pictured below, not its cranking almost fast enough. so i decided its time to shift focus.

I plan to install an inline fuel pump in the front trunk i just want to know if anyone has any ideas or pictures of how they replaced their bad fuel pumps, and if their are some things i should look out for, i also would appreciate some decent pictures of 1.7L engine bays with each leg of their Djetronic lines highlighted so i can ensure im hooking up things correctly. unfortunately everything was unhooked when i bought it.

There is a 1.7 hose routing diagram on the Bird Board (Pelican Parts).

I moved my fuel pump to the fire wall about three years ago with no problem.

The reason I did this is that it is just for maintenance reasons and to get the wire connectors away from the heat exchangers. I wrote a thread on it awhile back.

That location the engineers decided on always befuddled me along with the spare tire for the windshield washer pressure.

Good luck with your project.

That does not even look like the right kinda wire. I am no electrician, but the wire should work even with the cover torn. The cover keeps it from touching anything and shorting out and also keeps the wires inside clean and conductive.

IIRC I went to Autozone and got a heavy gauge wire, might even be called a starter wire. Maybe 4' long. the insides should look more like this:

Click to view attachment

you could use red if you wanted. ignore the arrows. Just showing the big fat red wire. It will come with connectors on both ends. This photo from pelican:

Click to view attachment

well tomorrow im rebuilding my through my tunnel and into the engine wish me luck hopefully i can get this done without any huge delays... i only have a couple weeks before I'm out to sea again.

replaced my plastic fuel lines with stanless steel today now on to finishing up the rest of it and buttoning it up tomorrow hopefully.

so this summer has been monetarily challenging but I have slowly been working on the car I pulled the motor out and noticed that there is debris and general junk all throughout the cooling ducts... also it seems like all my internals are really gunked up needs lots of TLC and now I'm looking into modifying the 1.7 but don't really know enough to know what parts I should look into buying to increase performance a bit... also I am not really a fan of electronic things so I want to move toward carbuerators.

"internals gunked"? maybe that is why your starter is having trouble. take the plugs out to relieve some suction pressure and turn it by hand.

With the engine out, you can remove the cooling tins easily and get the crap out from under the tins and in between all the cooling fins. take lots of pre-removal pictures to help with re-installation. You can clean and even re-paint the tins, get new cheese head screws, check the T-stat and flaps, pull the clutch and flywheel, replace the seal. There is lots of stuff you can freshen up without cracking the case. In order to beef up the power enough to notice, you will have to open the engine.

Did the PO say the engine ran when parked? If so, you may just want to get this 1.7 running again and drive it awhile before you start really digging in to change the crank, the cam, the P/Cs, rockers, etc....

Folks say that if you change to carbs you should also change the cam to get the best running engine.... it is deep inside the engine. 2ndly, carbs may not be electrical, but they require lots of tinkering, so you might want to stick with the FI and learn about it. This forum will help you with either.

Welding wire is the way to go. I use it in all my cars. I always replace the old wire: often fraided etc. The welding cable can take a lot of current and is very flexible. On top of that: it's in black and red.

Menno