Note for anyone stealing this guy's Porsche 914

And yet, strangely, they are referred to as “twin choke Webers”.

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That doesn’t necessarily mean the choke cable is connected to anything, believe me.
/Shudders from memory of having big round bruise on palm from trying to start horrible old BL trucks in the cold…

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Against my better judgment, we got our new driver* something German, and not new.
*(previously: [1], [2], [3])

“They’re really not that bad to work on, you can find it all on YouTube!” “Pretty soon there won’t be any stick shifts left, so now’s my chance!” etc., etc.

But, dang if he didn’t figure out for himself why the engine was misfiring – and fixed it himself, too, without much trouble (other than dropping an O-ring where we couldn’t retrieve it from beneath the engine).

The ignition switch’s tumblers are so worn that any flat-bladed screwdriver or pair of scissors will do.

My brother-in-law used to have a couple of RX-7s. The ignition on one of them got so worn down that he could start it using any key on the keyring.

(EDIT: add quote from the article, for context – forgot earlier)

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That’s the “Japanese reverse” version. “German reverse” (at least on the various VW manuals I’ve driven) is push down, move all the way left and then up.

I had to drive my old Jetta diesel wagon into the bay at the tire place before because the whippersnappers working there couldn’t manage that combination of moves. I miss that car…

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On the aircooled VWs, it’s push down, all the way left, then back (toward back of car). It was a good design because if the transaxle is worn out and it wants to pop out of reverse, you can hold that stick next to your right thigh nice and tight, preventing it from popping out of gear.

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To be fair, I never had a Porsche.

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An interesting car, very mixed responses when it came out.

“Kohlenkasten mit Schlafaugen”
Luigi Colani

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SNL: Car Heist

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Rusted out old Datsun’s engender some of the greatest moments.

Was dropping off an aboriginal friend to the Christmas party of one of the wealthiest philanthropists in Australia… didn’t realise that the drop off required circling the court yard of their mansion for a personal greeting by the family. The security guards at the gate were pissing themselves laughing as we were part of a procession of Roll’s, stately government cars and other exotic high end vehicles. The best part was having to get out of the Datsun and jimmy the broken front car seat down so our ‘guest of honor’ could spill out to be greeted by the familly.

Good times :heart:

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There was an issue of Road & Track, I think it was, from the late 1990s that had an article with a quiz to gauge how much “character” your car had. It had things like awarding points if you needed different keys to open the trunk, open the doors, and start the car. (Bonus points if you don’t use a key to start the car.) Points if you had died and nobody would be able to figure out how to start your car.

I had a late 1960s project car at the time - it had gone through many owners in its long, hard life and had developed many such “character” traits including needing a special trick to open the driver’s side door if you pressed the plunger to open it without unlocking first (if that happened you would need to roll down the driver’s side window and slide a long screwdriver down the gap to reset the mechanism - one that I naturally kept in the car at all times in case some chucklehead tried to open the door while it was locked).

Some things I fixed over time (I eventually procured a matching set of locks for the trunk and door but I never did fix the plunger issue because that was too much of a pain as it would have involved removing the door skin which I had zero appetite or skill to do), I replaced the ignition lock with one that didn’t have screwdriver damage, and replaced the entire ignition system and wiring harness so it would at least start (more) reliably. But, naturally by the time I sold it, many new “character” traits were added including most of the interior bits being confined to a couple of boxes in an aborted attempt to ”fix” it. (Unless you have lots of time, lots of patience, and lots of special tools, interior stuff is hard!)

Seems like this 914 would get lots of points based on that quiz. I wish I still had that issue or a scan of that article somewhere.

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I listened to my Dad cranking about all of the times his old fun Brit/German cars were up on blocks getting fixed, so I bought CRXs and Miatas. My current Miata is a 2002 and it’s :checks watch: 2022 now with no significant maintenance required. :+1: :+1: :+1: :+1: :+1:

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They are such wonderful little things. I wish I could have one, but it’s just not practical.

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