At this point, it is not unreasonable to pay the thief for all his hard work in stealing the car
A few things to know before stealing my 914
411–420 of 428 posts
Re: A few things to know before stealing my 914
#412Earlier quoted context omitted.
The problem isn't only the dashboard, it is the pervasive surveillance. This car is better than most but I've read here before that it still had some flaws. Can't find the post at the moment however.
Find the radio, remove the aerial/sim card, done.
Ok as a band-aid, but doesn't create any market pressure to provide an alternative.
Re: A few things to know before stealing my 914
#413My first car was a 914. Love and miss it to this day. At some point the solenoid died (or some other electrical component). So to start it, you'd have to reach under the car with a screwdriver (or some other piece of metal, but I kept a screwdriver in the car for this purpose), and short out across two terminals. You then had 10-20 seconds to get out from under the car, into the driver's seat, and turn the key. As a…
Wow, what a blast from the past. My first car was a 1990 Mercury Grand Marquis, and it developed this same solenoid issue. My grandpa taught me that same trick of shorting past the solenoid so that the car can start. My friends were always very curious why there was a hammer underneath the passenger's seat, at least until I told them to hand it to me and crank the engine when I gave the shout.
The neat thing about Ford solenoids of that era were that they were very conveniently located near the top of the firewall and can be easily triggered manually if needed with a big screwdriver across the leads. (And hope you don’t get electrocuted in the process.)
Contemporary GM solenoids were integrated into the starter motor and were a real pain to get to. Certainly not impossible to do the screwdriver trick but far less convenient with needing to crawl around on the ground and all. Being located right next to the exhaust headers also meant they were easily susceptible to heat soak problems which would cause a failure to activate - especially if you have a hot-running high performance engine. It was actually a pretty common and easy mod on those GMs to use a Ford solenoid and bypass the one on the starter motor.
Re: A few things to know before stealing my 914
#414Well done.
Re: A few things to know before stealing my 914
#415Earlier quoted context omitted.
On the flip side, I know a ton about cars and actually own a german sports car of roughly this vintage and this rings incredibly true (and also hilarious). My car can't be locked due to fear of it never opening again, starting the engine requires a delicate balance of the right amount of throttle and prayers the battery has enough charge, and selecting first is a preposterous mixture of a delicate ballet and sledgeha…
> selecting first is a preposterous mixture of a delicate ballet and sledgehammering it home. Double declutching is a lost art, it seems. It involved moving the shifter into neutral, revving the engine still in neutral, and clutching and shifting into the gear when the RPMs were "right". Skilled double-declutchers could shift nearly as quickly as ordinary drivers with syncromesh. Common in older cars when I was young…
I certainly have to double clutch to go down into first since it doesn't have a syncro, but that's a pretty rare need. Even selecting first from neutral while stationary is a challenge.
Re: A few things to know before stealing my 914
#416It's funny how much the starting procedure reminds me of a fairly-modern Cessna 172. If it ain't broke...
Welcome to General Aviation, where you can still experience vintage technology from the sixties and seventies! But also proof that a wimpy 180-HP thing is way more fun than a 500-HP BMW M3, simply because of the fact that it flies :)
Totally. Although it’s amazing how different the displacement:horsepower ratios are. We’ve got 2L car engines producing 300bhp, and 6L aeroplane engines producing 160bhp!
Re: A few things to know before stealing my 914
#417Earlier quoted context omitted.
> selecting first is a preposterous mixture of a delicate ballet and sledgehammering it home. Double declutching is a lost art, it seems. It involved moving the shifter into neutral, revving the engine still in neutral, and clutching and shifting into the gear when the RPMs were "right". Skilled double-declutchers could shift nearly as quickly as ordinary drivers with syncromesh. Common in older cars when I was young…
You can do a similar thing in motorcycles by rev-matching, this way you don't even need to pull the clutch to switch gears.
In fact in my old manual I got so good at matching revs I could just not use the clutch at all except moving from stand still
Re: A few things to know before stealing my 914
#418Earlier quoted context omitted.
Wow, what a blast from the past. My first car was a 1990 Mercury Grand Marquis, and it developed this same solenoid issue. My grandpa taught me that same trick of shorting past the solenoid so that the car can start. My friends were always very curious why there was a hammer underneath the passenger's seat, at least until I told them to hand it to me and crank the engine when I gave the shout.
Kind of wild that both you and GP developed tricks for shorting the solenoid when a replacement solenoid is like $20 and 10 minutes of work. Well, at least for a Mercury Grand Marquis aka the Ford Crown Victoria, I can't speak for Superior German Engineering.
I used to have to hit my starter motor with a long pry-bar to get it going.
Now that I've finally got a reliable car and the money for the $20 solenoid we have a saying about cars in general:
Used to have the time but no money, now got the money but no time.
Re: A few things to know before stealing my 914
#419Re: A few things to know before stealing my 914
#420Earlier quoted context omitted.
but for some reason they decided to put R at the bottom right Reverse in the bottom right is the “normal” 5-speed reverse spot no?
> Reverse in the bottom right is the “normal” 5-speed reverse spot no? I've driven a lot of 5-speed manual transmission rental cars over the decades, and my impression is that reverse in the top left is (or certainly was) the far more common layout: R 1 3 5 2 4 Our previous car, also a VW, had this layout too.
I'd have to agree with GP here. It was my impression that reverse in the bottom right is the 'classic' spot for a 5-gear manual transmission, unless a reverse lockout is used (then it is usually the top left spot).