well, after some time and having found out that the guy who supposedly "rebuilt" my motor skipped town and is currently MIA , whereabouts unknown, with quite a few folks with bats trying to locate him ( name is Mike Windle- heads up as he is sposed to be in the LA area) ive began to find/notice a few things that show he basically re-used all the old gaskets/seals etc


for a start , the 1.7 that my motor "suddenly" became after it was removed from my 1.8 car, which the mech himself IDed as a 1.8 motor, leaks oil. excuses i was given by the mech included " well its probly just overfilled " "the dipstick probably isnt the right one for that motor " "thats just because the oil level gets sloshed up into the pushrod tubes and it finds its way past the seals " these coming from a guy who claimed to know the secrets to rebuilding these motors to NOT leak oil at all .i know, most of these old motors tend to leak at least part time, well after several attempts to slow it down to a few drips i think ive got that to a point i can live with ( the mech tried to re-use original PR tubes with old seals til i handed him new tubes and new seals to install , also he torqued the head to somewhere around 35 ft/lbs, would that push the tubes in too far? )

well now it seems to be burning oil now thru the motor, which i think can be fixed by a valve adjust ( needs it anyways )and maybe rebiult dual carbs ,but when i start seeing the smoke from the tail end ( not oil burning off exhaust ) i see that my oil pressuse seems to have dropped considerably. and a while back while trying to climb a hill to a family members house in Squaw valley it started pouring out smoke onto the HEs , pressure dropped thru the floor below 0 lbs and the valves/engine started making some very scary noises. decided to turn round and head home at that point since it would be mostly a downhill coast if anything went south , meaning a lower towbill lol.on starting pressure climbs to bout 50 psi and normally stays at about 25 or so til the engine warms up to hot , then it sorta drops to bout 15 with it coming up with rpms to bout 25 max

was reading the manual and started wondering if maybe oil pressure prob could be like bad seals in the oil cooler or?

turns out the "good, used head " he charged me $150.00 for isnt what he said either. granted the area round the valve seat on the original was beyond repair , but ive since found out that this head he included at his cost , was never sold to him .the yard he was sposed to have gotten it from sells these heads for 1.7- 2.0s for only $50.00 and the owner told me he never sold mike the head. so not only was i overcharged, i was overcharged for a head that was never bought. i DID check tho to make sure the head was ACTUALLY there , hehe.

mech stripped half the exhaust studs out of both heads and left the pipes just hanging on what was left, which as you all can guess, started shaking itself apart. not to mention he basically destroyed the heating system and to fix ill have to either pull the HEs off and repair or just try to find a solid used set locally and re-assemble the heating ducts etc so ill have heat this winter.

i noticed right after i picked up the car from him that the e brake cables are now routed under the front engine member , and im pretty sure they should go over right?
seriously , i love the car, and really want to make it nice once again, even planning on building a better engine for it as time/money will allow.daughter wants one now and am sorta looking but have a ? about transmissions- i know VW made/makes an automatic , would one be adaptable to the 914? or would it be like untold dollar amounts to make it work?

personally, i think he pulled my 1.8 motor, and then swapped it for a 1.7 that he cheated in rebuilding, which i wouldnt mind that much if he had done a decent job with.am awaiting word from all P/Os as to whether the original 1.8 was ever removed , so far ive traced it back 2 POs prior to myself and they both swear the motor was never removed.

at this point any help would be greatly appreciated.

thanks in advance,
Lincoln

And this is why I do the work myself...

With the help of the good friends I have met on this club site.

At the very least PLEASE ask for help on aquiring another reputable mechanic from the members here.

If I were in your shoes... My next call would be to a lawyer...

Or a big guy named Bubba.........

Twystd1

PS... You can put a factory Porsche 914 automatic in your car....
Didn't say it was cheap or even reasonable. But it can be done...$$$$$$$$$$$

i'd skip the automatic or at least until grasshopper has done his installation. yea, you really need to do it yourself because you will do it right, no guessing.