So I just picked up that ‘74 race car and started digging into it.

First issue: water in the engine.

When I pulled the air filters off I noticed the was too much liquid in carbs to be fuel. That led me to pull the intake manifolds off the engine, and when I did that water spilled out. Fun.

So the intakes are off the engine now, spark plugs are out, and I just drain the oil in the first 90 seconds of what came out was clear enough to drink water. Never seen that before, was kind of cool in a OMG sort of way. The oil that then came out looks like it was brand new, honey golden still.

Any coaching on now what? I think I saw a thread on this before but have not been able to find it.

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Untouched or cleaned plug tips

Two were wet, but if I wiped them off they would new too.

The car sat outside for 5 months (garaged by PO before that). Wonder if the water is “only” from this week’s rain?


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So this is a watercooled 914?

Ha - and water lubricated too!

Need to do some searching on what from here...

Looks like the next step here is to change the oil filter and make sure there’s no water in the tuna can at the bottom of the engine, once that’s done I’m going to fill her with fresh oil and shoot some oil down each bore and see if I can gently rotator using the alternator pulley.

Does that sound about right?

What's it supposed to look like when it's done...

I mean that a pretty big hole in the fenders.







Since its water cooled is that where the radiators go ?

I have to say I kind of dig it with the crazy wide tires and no fenders.

This car is using transparent aluminum radiators, you have to look really carefully to see them. ;-;

I would want to open the motor up. At least look into cylinders for rust if not rusty cam, lifters, and maybe crank too.

That's all I would do.

Thanks gentlemen, let me do that and then get a borescope into each hole. I'm cautiously optimistic here, but then again you all know I am a moron.

I appreciate the responses.

Some good news to report. Oil filter was clean, only fresh honey tinfoil on that. About a half cup of water came out of a tuna can, and then a bit of clean oil.

WD40 into plug holes and intakes and the engine turns freely with no hangup or indication that this ever happened.

Some days one’s is lucky.

Good deal

Drained the oil again and it came out clean, no water or mud.

Got her to very briefly (like 10 seconds) fire off startng fluid and oil pressure came up and she sounded healthy.

I’m going to service the carbs and button her back up.

Will change the oil and filter again after briefly running her properly and at that point if it all seems good I’m going to call it good.

Got any more pics of this beast? Interior? Front trunk? This thing is actually pretty cool.

I will get some more pictures posted tomorrow. I stripped the interior today except for the dashboard. I was then able to take the sound deadening off about 75% of the rear seat sections in the passenger side looks really good. The driver side will need some localized repair but very localized and the firewall looks good.

As you probably guessed from my being able to briefly fire her up the electrical system came up and seems healthy.

Brakes are there, need to flush the fluid but they work, happy to say that the gearbox appears to be functioning properly as well.

Swapped out the dented drivers door and installed the sprayer that came with it. The phone camera doesn’t like the lighting in this picture, but in person the door gaps look OK. The door isn’t closed all the way in that picture, sorry.



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Are those biasply's on it? That's a hell of a lot of sidewall squishing out...

They are Firestone tires, vintage but I’m not sure exactly what they’re made of.

I’ve got 3 1/2 sets of those tires, including six on these vintage Centerlines.

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@craigers17

Oil cooling fan works, There’s a switch on the dashboard for automatic, presumably thermostat control, or manual.

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@craigera17

Looks like Custom ignition set up but I haven’t gotten into it yet. It works – I think I’m gonna leave it alone for an hour because I’ve got bigger fish to fry .

Rear trunk looks good, some rust on the outer corner.

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Yup... biasply. You can tell by how the tread surface sinks when there's no air in them.

Thanks for posting the pics. Looks like a good starting place for a cool street build.

I had a similar situation on mine. Car sat for a long time and got water in it.
Inspect the valve springs closely. Any rust spots and they'll break. Mine did.

When you look in the bores if you see rust in the cylinders like mine - they're ruined. Personally, as simple as the T4 engine is, I'd yank it and pull the top end. You can inspect the bottom end and refresh rings and valves. My cylinders looked like this:



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Lastly, any race car is going to have an iffy past. I like to start with a clean slate.

Thanks guys - will try to get a bore scope and pictures later today. Will pull the valve overs off as well.

My hunch is that the water only sat for a couple days (about 48 hours from last big rain to when I picked the car up) based on how it looked and how it came up.

I bought a 1.8L engine with dual carbs a while back. Engine wouldn't turn. Drained the oil and about 1 gallon of water came out first. Changed the filter and filled it with oil. Sprayed lots of wd40 in the plug holes and started rocking the engine with the alternator pulley. At first it barely moved, then a little bit more, and more, and more. Finally was able to turn it all the way around.

Figuring the engine could be toast anyway, I fired it up and it ran well. Put the engine in the car and ran it for 3 years before replacing it with a 2056.

@Spoke - I remember The thread where you first shared your experience, that gave me an approach that appears to have worked here. Thank you!

@craigers17 - here is the interior shot you were curious about.

@YeahMag - that for the tutorial on biasply tires, didn’t know that.

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Drained the oil and drop the tunic and again this morning, reconnected everything, make sure the carbs looked OK but didn’t do anything else besides making sure that they were dry and reinstalled them.

Took about 15 seconds of carving but she caught, died, and then caught again and was lumpy (likely cold and carbs out of adjustment). Some very minor tweaking and she now catches on first turn of the key.

Oil pressure looks good and I let her idle for about 4 minutes while monitoring her and all seems well.

Fingers crossed, one more oil change tomorrow...

Need to adjust the shifter linkage, but after that she should be a very scruffy driver.

There still a lot I’m learning but this looks like it needs some attention. Ha.

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Well done knew you would get there ,now change the oil again and just use cheap 20/50 and run for a while after getting the gearshift sorted ...BTW that coupler is really bad .
Change the oil again and don't forget filters as the hate water,good luck

@porschetub

Hi mate - thanks for the response. Good suggestion and I got a couple jugs of oil and filters to do exactly what you suggested.

I have a spare shift rod with good bushings at home that I will swap out tomorrow, working on the brakes and so far so good, looks like there are either 914 front brakes that were put on the rear or they’re not 11 brakes. In any case the bleed nipple rotated easily and I have a good fluid flow.

Hope you are doing well.