Since some of us are nuts and drive our 50 year old cars on lengthy road trips, I thought I would start a thread on car problems. Maybe this will help us figure out what spare parts to bring:
1. Spare Tire
2. DME relay for 3.2
3. fuses, wire, volt meter, crimp-er, connectors, Electrical tape
4. spare ignition switch
5. Clutch and throttle cable

Trials and Tribulations:
Before the trip, I changed the oil and looked the car over for loose bolts, etc.
A week before the trip the steering wheel would shake abruptly, depending on the road surface. I noticed the right front wheel bearings were loose. Tried tightening the nut and it made no difference so I changed the bearings, that problem was solved. Took it for test drive it felt better.

Six hour drive to Rennsport, the steering wheel still shakes at times. Keith (914toy) said that's definitely a wheel/balance issue. I found an American Tire store in Salinas. They said the tires are 7 years old and down to the wear indicator, so they replaced all four tires. No more vibration. It also rained on my parade lap on Sunday and the lead car was taking the corners at 60 plus, so I was glad I had new tires.

Also over the weekend my brake light started flashing. It was the master cylinder. I pushed in the button and it stopped for a mile, but the light came back on. Brakes are fine and no leaks, so I disconnected the wire. Problem solved for now.

Drive home... I had a full tank, played cat and mouse with some newer 911's up to 130. I was very surprised how my 3.2 with stock gear 915 wanted to fly to red line in 5th like there was no wind resistance. I backed off around 5500 rpm's. I thought I would refuel around 1/4 tank. It got to a 1/4 tank and then the reserve light came on. Oh crap!! I drove at least 20+ miles to find a gas station. Car took 13.8 gallons. I thought the tank only held 13? Besides that drama... the car did great, glad I brought it.

Funny, but I drove the same car to the WCR in Tahoe a couple of months earlier with no issues. That was a 9 hour drive. I also had no issues going to previous WCR's. 12 hours to Petaluma and 6 hours to SLO.

I also read John's Elvira thread, but who else had drama with there car?

1. Spare Tire - You also need a jack, wheel chocks, a lug wrench, and if your spare is a steel wheel, proper lug nuts. Verify you can get your nice wide tire and rim in the trunk so you don't have to leave your wife/girlfriend/SO on the side of the road to take the flat tire with you.

2. DME relay for 3.2

3. fuses, wire, volt meter, crimp-er, connectors, Electrical tape

4. spare ignition switch - tools to change it?

5. Clutch and throttle cable - You also need the clevis, nut and spacers for the clutch cable. Inevitably the clutch cable breaks at the pulley, and the clevis assembly falls on the road and is lost. If you have a six, you also need the ball end and jamb nut for the throttle cable that attaches to the bellcrank on the transmission.


I would also include CV joint gaskets, bolts, schnorr washers and the proper triple square tool. And a torque wrench for putting them back in.

A spare fuel pump. I would include extra hoses and wires (With fuse) to power the pump out of the car. That way you can transfer fuel to your car if you run out in the middle of nowhere.

Towels. Never leave home without your towel. They are userful for all sorts of things, like protecting your paint, or your bod from critters and hot pavement.

Thanks Clay! I didn't list my tools, but I do have a jack, torque wrench, etc. The 915 clutch with horseshoe spring does not have a clevis, but that is a good reminder for my 914-8 that still uses a 914 gear box. Good advice about the pump and CV. I will add that for future trips.
Regarding the ignition switch, I found I can just remove the plug from the back of the ignition switch and plug in the spare and start the car with a screw driver. Good enough for emergency's.

Great to hear you are driving it so much, i am committed to driving my car more and towing less, I would add having AAA with extended towing, you can ammend it for longer trips, had that happen and i had to have my wife drive 3 hours and bring the truck to tow home, that issue was due to a bad relay board, i dont have a 3.2 but for the 2.0, i carry all those things you and Clay mentioned, with a pump, distributor extra MPS , fuel pump, fuse board , relays wire connectors crimper in the box, extra ignition switch, and jump wire now as well, so that if the ignition goes you dont have to push start you can jump it to crank the starter, we had to do this at Okteenerfest, Clay helped me help another member that had this issue.
- also checking those bolts and lugs before leaving is a good idea, i found a loose CV bolts right before the okteenerfest trip, lucked out on that!!
- hose and clamps too, i had a gas leak a couple years ago and luckily i had extra fuel hose. - oh and extra distributor, i have a 123ignition but the spare with new triggerpointst plate and petronix in it too, and a coil!!.
at Okteenerfest we had one failed ignition switch a bad starter and a bad coil.
most of all that fits under my tire board! but get that AAA with extended towing i found that Haggerty took too long and didnt tow far enough.

A 914 fuel tank is 14.6

So you had a tiny bit left

Seems like everyone has a great list of stuff to bring on a longer trip. I usually roll the dice with a solid tool bag, some common spares and hope for the best. I had a much shorter drive from East Contra Costa County, only about 2.5hrs but still had my share of general old car issues.

Found out that my windshield wiper motor has either burned up or the switch had failed the day before leaving to RR7. No matter, it’s not supposed to rain much at all and outside of the windows I’d be driving in…. It rained pretty much every time I got in the car including, as mentioned earlier, on the Sunday parade laps. Ugh.

I’ve got an annoying miss at cruise situation related to the D-jet TPS, despite having replaced the board ~1k miles back. Unplugged it for the drive home and the miss went away.

Finally, I noticed a decent amount of smoke coming from the passenger side rear fender. Looks like my valve cover gasket decided to let go and was dripping a sizable amount of oil all over the heat exchanger. Time to get the car back on the lift and access that as well.

It’s all part of the fun/frustration of these 50 year old machines, made well worth it for the enjoyment of taking all of the backroads on the way home.

Thanks for the feedback. I do have a AAA card with long distance towing. I did have to use it for RR6 five years ago. I was stupid and installed a filter before the pump that I thought was a fuel injection filter, it wasn't. I made it two hours from home and the filter broke. The car would drive a couple a hundred feet and then the guts of the filter would block the inlet to the pump. Had the car towed back home, jumped in my Toyota G86 and doubled back to Rennsport. Still had a great time.

Not my 914, but an almost equally old 930. I had the same wheel vibration issue, I think I threw some weights while I was up there, drove it home, but it was like I was holding a massage gun all the way home…

Lights lights lights, driving Carmel Valley in the dark on a damp sat night made me want some leds up front…. H1s and stock fogs were not bright enough.

I did have extra cap, rotor, and coil, tried to get it to Elvira but we figured out it’s the wrong cap (rotates opposite direction).

Flat towing with a 4WD truck is my preferred method of long trips with a 914. I can carry some tools and spares in the truck. If I can't fix the car, I just drag it home. Weather is less a factor. And if it can't roll the distance, U-haul trailers are usually available within 100 miles.

Thanks Gint!! As i get older and want to retire, I also do not want to put a ton of miles on an expensive motor. Towing would be the way to go. I have a 3.6 going in over the winter..

thats what i am doing for the long trips , flat tow is the way to go!!!

For those of you that flat tow...

What do you do for a failed axle or wheel bearing???

You can always drag it up on a trailer even if the wheel bearing is frozen solid. You can't flat tow it with a bad wheel bearing.

in the highly unlikely event this occurs we can still rent a trailer . i have borrowed trailers, rented U-haul trailers, and even owned one at one point , and flat towing advantage is that there is less weight and drag, much smoother, with just a 914 its almost like its not there, gas mileage only drops 1-2mpg vs trailer towing was 5-6mpg worse.

I have been there, and done that. Stranded on the side of the road in rural Tennessee. Had to get towed to a U-Haul place in the middle of nowhere at the end of a dirt road. The place was a backwoods stereotype, complete with a 3 legged dog and a wasp nest in the office. Spent the whole time wondering if I was going to leave alive. Ended up renting the biggest truck they had to drive empty and pull a car trailer.

I would rather not risk that again. And I use the trailer all the time locally for other things.

Kudos to you for getting out and driving that car!

Thanks for sharing your experience and list. This is a good reference. Are the spare you carry just to cover for older used parts?

I hope to shorten my list by having a number of new and rebuilt parts on our car. Time will tell if my optimism is misguided.

Dennis you bring up a good point. It's smart to have a list of what has been changed and when. I have had my car since 1986 and parts I have changed over the years are starting to die. If everything is relatively new, then keeping spares you haven't changed can help. My original ignition switch died a couple of years ago, but luckily I was local when it happened. Same thing with the horn ring at the Mammoth WCR, but I ended up just pulling the relay so I didn't set off the horn turning the steering wheel, but scared the crap out of me being next to a semi with no horn.

Years ago I looked into this and learned, IIRC, 914's have a 16.3 gallon tank. Same size as my 986 AND the "reserve" light comes on around the "3 gallons left" mark on both my Boxster and my 914.

I remember seeing 16.3 with a good running FI, you really have a lot of range. On my 1.7 I was getting 38mph on the highway.

Edit - photo added

You must have a different tank, when my reserve light comes on, it means find a gas station NOW. I tried to push it once and had to suffer the indignity of calling my wife to bring a gas can. Fortunately I was only 3 miles from home.

When you find a perfect way to carry a 914 around under any circumstances, let me know. I did say, "And if it can't roll the distance, U-haul trailers are usually available within 100 miles."

Not my 914, but I picked up a nasty flat on my 991 on the first day heading west. That led to a 48 hour delay for a new tire. At least my 914 has a spare.

I posted a bit about this in another thread. 4 of us drove 3 74 914s and a 75 911 to Rennsport. 2,500 mile round trip. We arrived home yesterday. Ironically, about the only thing we didn't take was a spare cv joint. I had a couple of spares after putting new ones on my BB. We got lucky and someone stopped who had one at home.

We did take and use extra oil, wire and wiring bits, tools, jack, jack stands. I had a jumper pack. One of our guys installed a hot start relay he pieced together from parts at autozone. We basically had to push start him at every fuel stop before that. We also used plenty of towels, window cleaner and fuses.

We took and didn't use a spare fuel pump and MPS. Extra spark plugs, relays, spark plug leads, distributor cap, condenser, points. Spare voltage regulator and many other things. It was too much in the end. My whole rear trunk was full of tools and parts.


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