I bought this from a younger guy who's relatives had the car so it was in the family for a good amount of time. He DID take care of the car BUT I noticed he did or at least tried to do some maintenance on the car himself. He was not mechanically inclined, less than me even . When putting the stock steering wheel back on I noticed he did not have the momo aligned right so one direction light did not cancel. I put the stock wheel on aligned so they both cancel. Also he must have at some point tried to set the timing as it was retarded causing it to run very rich. My mechanic advanced it 5-8 after the electronic ignition was installed and now I don't get that massive rich gas smell. I heard it was not always easy to set timing on these for beginners unless you're a mechanic. He MAY have not even used a timing light. My Mechanic told me to set the idle down if I wanted was 16, just did to about 11. I might set it down further in the next couple of days, want to drive it tomorrow and observe.

Once I had to correct someone who put an "009" dist on a D-Jet car they couldn't get to run. Sigh, it's that some folks just don't know.

Your Mech sounds like they did the proper L-Jet procedure for setting timing assuming your 914 is still FI.

That's not much to complain about.

On my 73 2.0, previous owner(s) either did or paid for sh*tty collision repair, "fixed" floor rust with random pieces of sheet metal and fiberglass, sprayed undercoat all over the inside of the passenger compartment, front trunk and rear trunk, punched holes in just about all interior panels (for wires, screws, or whatever), and did lots of small half-assed repairs.

I once bought a car that the seller said had "new floors". When I got to his house and looked at the floors, he and his son had spent several Saturday's with small puddy knives, spreading roofing tar over the whole floor, so you couldn't see the rust. It was like a new floor he said. I just groaned....

Carbs on a stock 2.0. Instead of trying the dist from a Ljet system, owner used one for Djet. Ran like crap.

When ever I go into a new job, I try to remember the last person did their best with the knowledge they had, and when I leave the next person will find issues with my work. It is very easy to do, and I hope the work I did 20 years ago, is not the same work I do today.


I always feel like I could be someone else DPO

Incredibly generous of you to say that. We all have our limitations and we all started somewhere. That much is true.

The key is to be able to recognize your limitations. For me its music. Though I love music and love to fiddle with guitars and fixing old tube amps, I don't have enough brainpower to sing and play even simple guitar tune at the same time. I can't carry a tune in a bucket though I wish I could. I recognize that I'm not good at it nor should I ever subject the public to my "music".

In the same vain, there are some folks that should just never be allowed around tools.

I HAVE to take that attitude because at least half of the DAPO stuff on my car that I've had to fix were done by 35 years ago Me. I'm not the same person I was then. More skills, more patience, more appreciation of history, and most importantly... more money! Just try to remember that some of the stupid crap we see might have been done by someone trying the best they could to get their daily driver in condition to take them to work.

The other half of the stuff I've had to fix was done by professional body shops who banged dents only roughly back to shape before swiss cheesing them with holes before slathering on filler way too thick. That was pretty much standard practice back then and frankly, the car wouldn't have been worth taking it to one of the few shops that "did it right."

It all just becomes part of the history of the cars. Life stories.

All of life is like this. Much of the trouble I have with anything is due to 30 years ago Me, or 20 years ago Me, or 10 years ago Me. Or yesterday Me. Restoring a 914 is an analogy for all of life.

I see things that I did to our 914s 20 years ago, and I just cringe. It works fine, but I have to fix it because I know better now. But those marginal repairs represent the history of the car. The cars "scars" if you will. The scars on my skin represent my personal history, and I can tell you where I got each one. Consider the scars on your 914 a source of pride, representing the fact that you have kept that car running for 30, 20, 2 or even a few years. A 914 with no scars doesn't exist. They all were scrapped years ago.