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A few things to know before stealing my 914

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Re: A few things to know before stealing my 914

#141

Post by rootsudo »

gkoberger wrote: post #42

This is one of my favorite styles of writing. I have absolutely no clue what this person is talking about and have no interest in cars, yet I read every single word. I love when people have such a deep knowledge of something that they can write an essay as unique and thoughtful as this. It reminds me of Kitchen Confidential, Surely You're Joking Mr Feynman!, or any rant about British politics by David Mitchell.

It's quite fun, but anyone can pick it up in a few days if you join a few great Car forums that remain, or, ick, facebook groups and reddit groups. The discord groups are more of casual conversation and making fun of each other/new people who are trying to DIY.

The BMW car forum is good, bimmerforums.com. Pelicanpart forum is good. BMW/Porsche GrassrootMotorsports is good. General racing, falls back to bmw/porsche/corvette/mazda Miata.net is fantastic. Corvette forums are great, but I can't recall them now. Subaru Forum is fantastic, humour though is needed. NASIOC.com priuschat is great, though it goes quite different from above forums. Tesla forums are good, but I can't recall any off the top of my hand. And then landcruiser ones, wrangler/jeep ones, etc.

The more less hobby a car is, the decrease in quality in forum posts, not that a corolla is a bad car per se, or even a camry/accord. It's just, different folks for different hobbies.

Spend a week on there, and you'll learn the lingo (it's universal throughout cars, especially per car generation/period, 70's/80's/90's,etc)

Then you also have other motorsports too, motorcycles and even planes, which share the same sentiment. Pilot chat/bicker is very similar. ;)

Re: A few things to know before stealing my 914

#142

Post by danboarder »

I regularly drive a 1973 VW westy (bus camper van) and it has these same type of quirks! For me they are all second nature after having the vehicle for over 10 years.

I one had to leave it in a parking lot and later have it towed while I was at work. The tow truck driver could not figure out how to get it started even with me walking him through it on the phone! The ignition is 'wiggly' where it won't start until you jiggle the steering wheel to allow the key to turn to start the car. Also a screwdriver will work fine (if you wiggle the steering wheel just right while attempting to turn the ignition). So ya, Similar quirks :).

I love our westy and usually take it to the beach to surf. It also has an old air-cooled 914 pancake engine in it.

Re: A few things to know before stealing my 914

#143

Post by londons_explore »

protomyth wrote: post #112
londons_explore wrote: post #82

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I imagine this means cars with bad emissions end up living in states with no tests...

I'm not so sure on that. Some of the states that don't test are pretty damn inhospitable to cars and bad emissions is often the first sign of the end of the vehicle.

But there has to be a pretty lucrative trade in buying 'scrap' (emissions failing, $50 for-the-steel) cars in some states, and shipping them over to non-testing states where they can be sold as 'kinda old but totally usable for a few more years, $3000'.

Re: A few things to know before stealing my 914

#144

Post by [deleted] »

ho_schi wrote: post #138
systemvoltage wrote: post #130

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> It always entertaining when Americans speaking about manual transmissions as something mysterious. It is always entertaining to see European exceptionalism schooling up people in car forums. Please tell us about diesel engines too!

Sorry my friend. I'm preferring gasoline ;)

[deleted]

Re: A few things to know before stealing my 914

#147

Post by EastSmith »

Eric_WVGG wrote: post #76
blastro wrote: post #11

In high school, my friends and I managed to resuscitate a 914 that had been stowed away in a garage for over a decade. We towed it to the top of a hill with a pickup truck and attempted a clutch start after we'd picked up some speed. None of us (especially me in the driver's seat) expected this to work, but amazingly it fired right up. One of my friends managed to jog alongside and jump into the car as I tried to kee…

My father had one of these just sort of gathering dust in the garage when I was growing up, utterly shocked when I turned 16 and he handed me the keys. I still like to casually drop "oh yeah, I used to have a Porsche back when I was 16." Although I must say it was in immeasurably better shape than this one :D I still dream of finding an old 914 and giving it an electric conversion… I'd have to do something about that…

Is the electric conversion still a thing? I want an eclectic car with no monitors, no software updates, no surveillance (none of the new electric car offers that - they are calling home for updates and god knows why way too often, and they have bigger monitors than my 14" work laptop).

Re: A few things to know before stealing my 914

#148

Post by oliveshell »

bombcar wrote: post #52
quadrifoliate wrote: post #24

> Depress the clutch as you would in any car, and pull the knob from its secure location out of first gear. Now you will become adrift in the zone known to early Porsche owners as “Neverland” and your quest will be to find second gear. Prepare yourself for a ten-second-or-so adventure. Do not go straight forward with the shift knob, as you will only find Reverse waiting there to mock you with a shriek of high-speed g…

The Deuce and a Half has an even more interesting one, just when you think you've figured out the dog-leg you find the last two are reversed again. HN supports shift pattern unicode! Ⓡ②⑤ |–|–| ①③④

You’re not kidding! I first learned to drive stick in a deuce-and-a-half that my dad bought cheap at a surplus auction.

I accidentally shifted from 1st straight into 5th quite a few times. The darn thing had so much torque that it wouldn’t even stall when you did that!

Re: A few things to know before stealing my 914

#149

Post by browningstreet »

RajT88 wrote: post #81
optymizer wrote: post #65

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What a blast from the past. I learnt to drive using a VW Golf, and I've always thought this shift pattern is just standard on German cars with manual transmission (at least in the 90s). One thing I don't see mentioned is that you first have to press down onto the knob, then shift forward, in order to shift the transmission into R. Simply pushing the knob forward won't go from N to R.

Not just press down on shift knob, but a bit to the side too. On my old Jetta (left hand drive), it was more like "Up and to the Left a little bit", and not a straight throw from first.

My first car was a 78 Rabbit that had the push-down for R. I also had a Renault Megane that had a pull-up-collar to find R.

Re: A few things to know before stealing my 914

#150

Post by swamp40 »

Fantastic writing.

A lot of 1970's manual transmission cars were like this. I had an early 70's AMC Gremlin. The shift knob was just a vertical rectangular rod. The transmission linkage were two parallel horizontal rods with a notch cut in each. The vertical rod just floated between these, and you had to pull left or right and slide back or forth until you found one of the notches - then once you were engaged, you could push or pull the linkage to go into a gear. When the knob drifted, you really had to have a visual in your head of where the notches were and what gear you where in.

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