This thread is for things I've noticed as I restore these cars. Just little concourse weenie tid bits here and there. Some things may be incorrect, but I stive for accuracy as much as possible. I'll be adding to this thread over time. So, without further ado...

The door striker plates on a 70 914-6 were found to have mounting bolts that have small nylon locking inserts similar to the shift linkage cone screws.

Similarly, all three mounting bolts for the seat belts have nylon inserts.

How about the fact that the front top shock towers on all factory six were painted in black with some sort of thick undercoating like paint ...

Hmmmmm. And this thread had so much potential;respected contributors, subject matter pertinent to this Forum, and it's almost six years old.

So to resurrect it, I'll ask a question.

Just WTF is this "vent", "hole", "air passage" for? I've heard all sorts of explanations on this site, and I'm not buying any of it. I mean, really, just how much air could possibly get through that passage with the door closed?

Paul

Allows air to excape betweeen the inner and outer seals when you close the door?

The vents aren't really for air flow in the sense of your vents on the dash, in fact not like that at all...

Ever been on the roof of a house? There's some odd ball small diameter pipes that come up through the roof above each bathroom...the vents are for your drains and they allow air to flow freely so when you flush you don't get the gurgling of air as it passes the fluids in the pipes...the vent allows air to draw in under the vacuum of the flush and keep the pressure neutral.

The 914 vent tubes serve a similar purpose (in theory at least)...they balance the air pressure between two places (outside/inside), as air draws into the cabin via the vents in the front around the dash, it is drawn to the vents at the back of the firewall pad and out the vent tubes...

They also prevent your ears from popping whenever you close the doors.

Air flowing by the door gap is enough to draw a small amount of air from the inside through the tubes, thus helping the airflow inside the cabin.

http://bowlsby.net/914/Classic/zTN_Gen_ST71-24.jpg

I find this particulary interesting, and think it works!

Many of you are aware that I am a pipe smoker. For the first 4 years of owning my '72 it was a daily driver. Smoked my pipe with many trips, but noticed that the smoke exited (winter use/windows up) over my left shoulder & out of the cabin.

I have the hogshair filters in my rear vents. Every year or so (when I DID smoke in the car, and the last was 1978) I would pull the vents & hogshair filters, wash them, dry them & replace them.

Therefore, I firmly believe that these vents were part of the intended airflow out of the passengr compartment, in comjunction with the dash vents.
Pat

This is the filter (hogshair) and vent that I brought up. I've seen some 71's with the vent cap & no filter. Everything I've seen of 72's on had the hogshair as original.

...when I had my '73, I noticed that all of my white t-shirts had a slight green tinge stain on the left shoulder. My theory is that they are fart extractors.

...on the serious side,
my '73 had two black plastic lines running from the charcoal cannister to engine bay, down the side behind the rocker panel.
I have heard no one talk about those vent lines. One connected to the tubular fitting on the outside of the fan box,
using bleed air from the fan box to extract fumes from the cannister back to the intake via those plastic lines.

Then you're not looking hard enough.

This thread is only about 10 threads down on the main page here:
http://www.914world.com/bbs2/index.php?showtopic=108524

tks for the info, I have the same data in my 914 library. With all of the restorations going on here and on pbase, they seem to be never mentioned or covered, and yes, I missed the thread listing. I was not complaining, just making note.

My '75 has 'em.

the steering wheel is off set just a bit to the left, as in not horizontal to the dash...hard to notice but it is

Are you SURE that it is hogshair and not gray matter from some human's body? <grin>

Here one from the obscure barrel, on most early doors the vent window is secured to the door in two places.
One 10mm bolt at a tab off of the vertical Anodized frame, the other is a 2"x.75" floating tab which inserts into the rubber seal, then mounts to a bracket on the door frame with another 10mm bolt.
In later doors that bracket was left off and the floating tab apparently deemed unnecessary leaving just the seal itself to hold the forward most part of the vent window in place.

With my initials (PIG), I am certain. Believe mine to be those a a distant uncle, though DNA testing would be needed to prove it. Gray matter is more prone to degredation, rendering it very smelly and not usable within several days. No, it's hogshair/boarshair.

I was talking to a guy at the G&R swapmeet, NLA Six license plate, had a real early six, I asked him why he didn't have fresh air vents and he said really early cars didn't have them, that it would screw up the originality to put some in.

Early cars, 6 and 4, did not have the vents at the outsides of the dash face at all. They also had a center vent (additional defroster?) in the fascia between the dash and windscreen.

I think the vent in the dash is instead of the outer vents, for fresh air in.
I was talking about the plastic vent covers in the door jams.

What I mean is, there may be a reason there are no covers in there?

OK, pure conjecture on my part.......1970 & early '71s had empty holes (there's a redundant statement). Later 914s had the black plastic grilles inserted into the opening because....

A) little kids were putting pennies and pebbles into the openings in an effort to be be "cute" (rattle,rattle,rattle)

B) the factory decided that the vent holes looked cheap and unfinished and added the little grille

C)early in the 914s' existence, no one really knew what those holes in the door jambs were for, so the German engineers spec'd those little black plastic grilles to substantiate the theory that those holes were really "venting" something and therefore needed "filters" installed.

Any other theories

Paul

To keep nasty insects out. Did YOU want a wasp nest in the system?