Yet another barn find, Yet another barn find Options

[adolimpio]

I'll apologize in advance for the long story!

I was in San Diego on business and was talking with some guys about cars at the bar one night. I mentioned that my favorite car was the Porsche 914 and one of the guys said that he had just seen a barn-find on eBay. I checked it out and it looked great, and it was in Portland. So I change my plane tickets and went to Portland to see it.

Some guy had started to restore it for his son in 2001, but in about 2006 his son decided he wanted a 911, so the guy just let it sit until he sold the farm, and the buyer found that in addition to the farm, he now owned a 914.

The guy had replaced all brake rotors, springs, shocks, torsion bars, rebuilt all calipers, replaced bushings in front swing arms and rear trailing arms with the bronze bushings with grease fittings, and replaced the gas lines with stainless. He also rebuilt the transmission and replaced the original 1.7 with a 2.0.

It's a 1973 and there is virtually no rust. I had bought a 73 in 1978, and in those 5 years both jack posts were gone, the battery tray was gone and you could see the road at the bottom of the hell hole. But that was Scranton PA with tons of salt on the road. This is 44 years old and no rust - just amazing!

When I got there it did not run since he had no fuel injection or carbs, and the new owner had no idea what the background of the engine was. Based upon the looks of the heads and other components, it obviously was not rebuilt.

He also had the original 1.7 with FI and exhaust system, 2 transmissions, extra muffler for the 2.0, many many boxes of parts, and a set of shop manuals on CD.

So I bought it, rented a U-Haul with a trailer, loaded up the car and all the spare parts and drove it home to South Carolina, through a treacherous blizzard in Wyoming and Nebraska. What a ride!

When I got it home, I clean it up, replaced the oil, adjusted the valves, check the compression, threw on the fuel injection andf ignition system and it started right up.

So I took it out for a ride and the first time I hit the brakes I heard grinding. He apparently stopped working while he was working on the left rear brakes, because there were no pads installed. Never thought to check something like that. Luckily I caught in time so I did not damage the pistons or the rotors.

With the brakes fixed, it runs absolutely great. However, there is a whine in the transission while cruising which I will discuss in another thread.

There are a few disappointments. Heat exchangers are not stainless, mirrors were replaced with after market with additional holes drilled in the doors, and positioned so poorly that they do not cover the original holes, rear valance and skid plate covering steering rack are missing.

Enough of the story, here's some pictures: http://914.dolimpios.com/

[krazykonrad]

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That's a great find!

Konrad