my grandads '74 restoration project Options

[_stickykitty79_]

just want to say hi to all you crazy people trying to revive these things like me. this is a bit of a sentimental project as its been in the family 3 gens now. was a Michigan car, suffered the consequences as the pics show, trailered it to california where it will remian.
my plans are to address all the obvious rust issues and do some fun upgrades along the way, some chassis stiffening, some minor engine tuning. (webers instead of fuel injection...yes i know the forum doesnt like it but it was always a disaster and carbs just sound better)
im a realist so heres what im prepared to face:

- tons of welding, i can do and thanks to Restoration Design i have plenty of metal to purchase as i go
-spending a few thousand here and there to do this right and time to do it. its a passion project and im in no hurry.
-building a chassis rig as i tear into the longitudinals, along with temp supports in the door jams.

i know this will seem daunting but i also dont think its at the point of scrapping based on what we can buy, and what im willing to do.
thanks

[FlacaProductions]

Seriously fascinating!

[wonkipop]

Seriously fascinating!

and your double emission sticker is very interesting too.
because thinking about it for a day or two i agree with you flaca.
someone restoring the car or refreshing it is hardly going to stick a new one over the top of the old one. they would go to the trouble of removing it before placing the new one.
it just does not go with the mindset that would put a new sticker on as a clean up.

also it looks slightly careless in that factory or distributor/dealer way in terms of its placement.

there is a lot of mystery around the EC-A and EC-B engine that is simply not accessible or known any more.

a lot of history skips over the EC engines and just says that it is an engine that was universal across the entire USA - california included.

it was not until we started digging in with a bit of research prompted by jeff bowlsby that we stumbled over the fact that the general history did not stack up with the cars.

the first and main point to make is that the difference between an A (California) and B (49 states) is pretty minor. its just the hook up of the hose to the vac advance can side of the dual vac can on the dizzy. thats all it is. no difference in anything else except in the throttle body. the parts book implies that the throttle body on an A is different than on a B. has a different part number. but the closest i have come to sighting what i think was an A throttle body was a photo of another members car here. that throttle body had the vac port on it same as the B but it had a little rubber plug seal over the end of the port and was still set up as per an original A in terms of vac hoses. that could be all it was.

now if that was the case that the throttle bodies were the same on both versions and all they did was plug the port that would mean at the main distribution centres or even at the dealer ships they could easily turn an A into a B or the other way around a B into an A.

and for most of the model years the cars had an emissions sticker that did say if the the engine was an A or if it was a B. and it also said in both cases that it was USEPA certified and California certified. as if it was a sticker that would cover both cases - all you did was connect or disconnect hose.

but there is one problem. the CARB certification said strictly it was the A for california. and the A only. ie it had to have that emission sticker. the certification also described that the distributor vac advance was disconnected. so a distributor or dealer could have pointed to that description in CARB documents and shown the engine bay with the hose disconnected as a way to put a B on the road in california.

anyway all that is the case until around may and june of 74.
right then and there the emissions sticker for the B suddenly changes and notes it is only USEPA certified.

anyway. thats all a bit long winded. but there is something funny going on for sure with the USEPA and CARB and VW north america. and i am sure it was some kind of strategy to have flexibility with stocks of the cars in north america in terms of being able to send them all over the country if necessary including california to satisfy any customer who walked in off the street and wanted a 914 a particular way.

and.
so.
your car might have been an A with an A sticker and they stuck a B sticker over it and made it into a B. without the original engine we can never know for sure.

its not clear to me exactly when and where those emissions stickers were stuck on the cars. was it at the factory or was it done at the USA distribution centres after they had arrived at the port of entry. but what is absolutely clear and is verified by the data is that the engines were identified as either an A or a B at the factory in hanover where the type 4 engines were made. so even before the engine gets shipped to osnabruk and the karmann factory its marked as one or the other. the 3 digit paint stamps went on the engines at the end of assembly in hanover. so the cars were definitely built either for 49 states or california delivery from the factory door. (however as i remark above it was not too difficult to make one into the other even at the dealership point of sale).

i have a feeling that at some point either the USEPA or the CARB (california air resources board) put its foot down over the emission stickers and this happened late in the model year. somebody in the bureaucracy probably spotted that they were not distinguishing the cars with the stickers or were failing to state that a B as set up as a B would not pass CARB smog.

anyway its esoteric stuff .