A little backstory on my 76 914.

I recently shipped my 914 to Texas so that I can get her back on the road. The motor has not been turned over since 2002. I was actually the last person to drive it regularly when I was in HS. The motor was rebuilt in 99' and only driven for two years.

I just pulled the motor to install a webcam (the motor has webers). Being a bit naive I was hoping this would be an easy clean up and cam swap type of job. What I found in cylinders 1 and 2 was a lot of rust. It looks like it entered from the intake and down into the cylinders.

I have some pictures attached below. From these pictures what would you guys recommend? Thanks!

Yieks! If it hasn't eaten into the surfaces yet (pitted) you *might* get away with blasting it with a soft material, like soda.

Looks like you are buying new pistons and cylinders?

Marcusw,
I am up in Boerne if you need some help. More fellow teeners in SA. I have a set of Euro Spec 2.0 I just pulled off of a 75 2.0

210-262-4226

I'll contact you about those P&C's.

Is there anyone in the area that can work on these heads or do most people ship them out?

Ship them out to HAM (Hoffman Machine).

Agree. I shipped my '76 heads to HAM. They were in good shape for rebuilding--looked like yours--and had them back in 4 weeks as I remember since he was moving and snowed under with backup work. They run at 300-325 degrees in hot OK summer weather with my Raby cam kit. 35K miles on it now.

Good luck. It'll be a fun build.

HAM is no longer taking in Type 4 Heads as it isn't financially feasible for them anymore.

I wound up taking the heads to Jones Autowerkz in San Antonio and they did a great job cleaning everything up.

The motor is about to go back together, just waiting on the windage tray gaskets. Don't ask me why I tossed them =/

I had some rust in the battery tray area and had someone weld a new tray in. The hell hole looks ok but I want to get your opinion on what I should do to clean the engine bay up. Strip everything down and repaint it. Something I'm willing to learn but have no real experience with, or just clean it up (naval jelly rust remover?) stick the motor back in it and not worry about it.


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I'm in the same boat....pulled the motor to replaced the battery tray and found some pin holes, and some rust under the sealer by the heater tube under the battery. I would wire wheel the area real well to look for rust. I ended up replacing some small pieces of metal, ospho'd the area, epoxy'd and reseam sealed. I still have a bit of cleanup in the area before I put the motor back in....

Fix the problems now, once the motor is in the car and its moving you wont ever go back to fix it.

Do or die.

Now is certainly time to clean it up, inspect, patch, and paint. That certainly looks like rust in the hell hole and while it may "look okay" now, it will only get worse with time. Fix it and be done with it.

What??? I thought HAM was the go-to guy for the type 4 heads...

They do not do used type 4 heads anymore, too many issues with 40 years of heat cycles and abuse.
For a while they would look at a set and might do them if they looked OK, maybe they still do this for some?

You can still get a set of heads from them but they start with new AMC castings and rework them into the pieces of art.

Jim

I'll try stripping it down and seeing how it all looks.

HAM recommended the reworked AMC heads. I think they saw too many bus heads.

My answer to your original question about the motor would depend upon your budget.
It's pretty easy for folks to spend other people's money here.

Try some pbblaster and some nylons brushes to see how much you can get off first.
Clean up everything before you make a decision, that rust does not look like a total loss to me, but you need more inspection to make a decision.