After working out a deal with Craig at Camp914 I borrowed a trailer and drove down to Portland and back yesterday with this 75 1.8. I think this is going to be a more solid foundation for my project than the last one I looked at.

Craig was excellent to work with and a wealth of information, I also bought some chrome bumpers that will eventually replace those rubber impact items. Figured I should just pick them up now and save myself the shipping hastles from somewhere later.

I should have one of the other cars out of my garage in a week or so and then I will get this car up in the air and post some questions, although the car is in pretty good shape there are a couple of areas that need attention but it is a 30 year old car.

Engine needs attention but that is on the list of things I had planned on doing anyway.

Just let you guys know this forum has been great for gaining knowledge for a newbie.

Cheers

Chris

Cool.

Nice work.

Amen on Craig. That would be the P-mystique.

Welcome! Nice ride. I love the color.

(IMG:style_emoticons/default/welcome.png) Looks like a cool project. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/beerchug.gif)

Looks nice, looks like a solid car. Not too crazy about the wheels, at least not in gold. I used to run those wheels, but I painted them silver, they looked so much better. I like the color of the car though...just in time for Halloween!

(IMG:style_emoticons/default/welcome.png)

Great looking ride you got there. Well I should say great looking RIDES! What years are the 928s?

My 87 5spd which was my project is next to the 914, the red one is a 90GT which I have been working on for a local owner. Waiting for the rebuilt gearbox to come back.

Chris

Some observations and questions



Anyone guess what the black button does?? I worked at it for a while, turned on ignition and then it started the engine !!

Presume the red LED is for an alarm or something aftermarket? There is a toggle switch on the fuse box also.

Where is the odometer reset?

Is there a dimmer for the instrument cluster?

Chris

What is this connector for in the trunk?



Chris

The passenger door is stiff to open, the first picture shows the bottom of the door sitting proud of the rear fender at the bottom. The second picture shows the panel gap getting tighter towards the top of the door, the gap between the front fender and the door looks good. Any ideas?




Thanks

Chris

Hey Chris,
When I got my car it also had the "starter" button. It basically bypasses the start position on the key. If you look under the car back where the starter is located (up behind rear left wheel, under the rear trunk ) you might also see a little relay intercepting the solonoid. That is a "hot start" switch system. Basically what someone did to your car (the same as a PO did to mine) is they decided to bypass the whole starter electrical circuit. In my case it was because some of the wires were hooked up wrong and fried.

Congrats! I was secretly pining for that very same car, always thought it looked sharp on camp914. Good choice in my book!

The same setup was is on my car too. It's a system that is always hot and will always move the starter even though the ignition is off (on mine at least) the small LED on mine was a 'fake system' it just sat there and blinked. I was surprised how many people it fooled because everyone at work was asking if my car had an alarm!

Does that door being tight at the top and loose at the bottom imply you have some chassis sag? did you look behind the rockers? Is it rusty back there?

The dimmer for the instrument cluster should be the light switch(twist it) although i've never had an occasion to think the guage lighting was SO bright that it affected my night vision, and I doubt you will either. I leave it full bright.

on my car, the odo reset is under the dash, right in front of where your right knee sits when you're driving the car. should be a twisty knob. if you find it and twisting it makes miles appear on your odometer, you'll be taking it apart soon (IMG:style_emoticons/default/smile.gif)

Seems a hot starter is a common feature, key works just fine so a little weird.

I drove it at night briefly when I got home as the kids wanted a ride and the instrument cluster was barely legible, thanks for the tip.

The odometer and mileage appear to be dead, looked under the dash but did not see anything but will check again. Speedo seems woefully optimistic too.

As for the rust the car is pretty clean, but there is some rust at the right rear although the longitudinal looks good. When I get it up in the air I will take some pics and post.

Previous owner had $1200 of work completed last year, one of which was to replace the fuel lines but I have a feeling something need tightening. Inside smells a little of gas maybe from near the gas tank. No drips.

Chris

Chris

Your speedometer IS woefully optimistic. That car has 50 series tires, and that means that the rollout is at least 9 percent off. That's the problem with sidewalls that small on this car. The good part about that is that you have essentially a short-ratio gearbox now because of those, great for AX, as I'm told.

Go to pelican parts for their tech articles for how to rebuild your odometer. It's actually quite easy, i've done it myself and then you can roll that puppy back to 0, which is what i did (IMG:style_emoticons/default/biggrin.gif)

The gas smell could be an evap line loose. Once you get the car on the lift you can take the belly pan off and look up into the hole under the gas tank and see if your fittings are leaking. Mine are, but at a rate so slow that it's not worth pulling the tank to fix. I'll just deal with the smell

Awesome info thanks !

Close ratio gearbox is cool but the weak 2nd gear synchros make it tough to make the most of that feature.

Chris

I would appreciate some input on these photos, these were taken from the passenger side and may explain why the door is sagging. I prodded around in the hell hole are below the battery and managed to create a small hole towards the bulkhead.



There was just a hairline crack and I helped it with a screwdriver.

uh-oh, we've all seen that. Have you taken off the rocker covers? you may find some more surprises there.

Just got back in from the garage, took both rocker covers off, removed the battery and for some lighter entertainment I removed the nasty impact bumpers. If anyone wants anything from those let me know otherwise they are heading to the dump/recycling.

Anyway first pic is from the rear floorpan, I removed the passenger side interior to see what was hiding.



A couple of areas of rust penetration on the inner longs.

Another nasty shot of the inside



OK, to the outer long. This is the only hole I could find and there was a LOT of earth debris in there. I removed the passenger long in the garage, the drivers side I did outside.