[HN Gopher] A few things to know before stealing my 914
___________________________________________________________________
A few things to know before stealing my 914
Author : garrepi
Score : 1440 points
Date : 2022-04-01 14:40 UTC (1 days ago)
(HTM) web link (www.hagerty.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.hagerty.com)
| browningstreet wrote:
| This reminds me of the best writing from Car and Driver magazine.
| They still do things like this and their annual Top 10 is rich in
| droll, hilarious car writing.
| bbarn wrote:
| Wow, I could write almost the same article about my '85 Westfalia
| Vanagon.
| ehnto wrote:
| There's a sweet spot, around the 90s, where the cars are still
| running fine, and are not yet too complex to steal with a
| pocket knife.
| kragen wrote:
| I was thinking exactly the same thing, except
|
| 1 it was '83, not '85 (and thus air-cooled);
|
| 2 it was an aftermarket camper van conversion with some slight
| design issues in the pop top, not a Westfalia;
|
| 3 after I rebuilt the engine a second time we sold it, so,
| blessedly, it's not mine anymore. My engine rebuild survived
| for a couple of years until the new owner drove it in second
| gear for an hour at highway speeds, overheating the engine to
| the point where it punched a pushrod through the crankcase.
| dilap wrote:
| re 3, on...purpose?
| kragen wrote:
| I don't think he destroyed the engine on purpose, if that's
| what you meant. I did sell it on purpose though. I rebuilt
| the engine on purpose too, because without a working engine
| the market value of the van was scrap metal.
| bombcar wrote:
| r25
|
| |-|-|
|
| 134
|
| Huh HN lets me approximate the shift pattern of a deuce.5
| scarecrowbob wrote:
| Came to write the same comment, except mine was a '68.
| duxup wrote:
| This remind me of how amazingly complex a modern car is in terms
| of making it easy to drive and how may iterations / how much
| evolution has taken place.
| ehnto wrote:
| A friend of mine tweaked a sensor on his car and it wouldn't
| recalibrate, which disabled all of the electronic assists. It
| drives like a shopping cart now.
| dclowd9901 wrote:
| Beautiful treatise of the wretched joys of owning and driving an
| old car. What I love is how all of these foibles become second
| nature to the ownership. This is what car people call
| "character", much the same way you might realize you need to warn
| one friend before you introduce them to another.
|
| Though it's usually my goal to chase all manner of unreliability
| out of a car I own (I confess, I absolutely love just getting in
| a car and driving, no fuss, no muss), there is a pang of sadness
| that comes with knowing I've made it that much more reliable, and
| frankly, boring.
| emsy wrote:
| I love seeing old timers on the street. The ones that get
| preserved are usually so much more aesthetic than contemporary
| cars.
| frosted-flakes wrote:
| The old cars have better or worse aesthetics? Something can't
| have "more" aesthetics, it's not quantifiable. That's like
| saying something has more temperature, instead of a higher or
| lower temperature.
| bsenftner wrote:
| I lived for over 20 years a half mile from the Bob's Big Boy
| restaurant with car service in Burbank, CA, where the S.
| California Classic Car Club has their weekly meet up and show
| case. Every single friday night, a dream series of amazing autos
| and the fanatics that keep them running show up and bait everyone
| with their jewels. My dad was a car dealer and I grew up with him
| restoring classics, so I know the dedication they require. Yet, a
| half dozen times I nearly talked myself into buying one of those
| beauties on the spot. Closest I came was a running, but yet to be
| fully restored Model A that some 50's teen made a hot rod. That
| 50's teen was the old man selling the car after it sat in his
| backyard for 40 years. Walking way from that was very difficult.
| acjacobson wrote:
| My family kind of prides itself on driving manual cars even
| though you have to go to extra effort to buy them new in the U.S.
| these days. Once my Dad brought one of them into a mechanic for
| an oil change and the guy asked 'How do you like your anti-theft
| device?' My Dad was a bit puzzled because there was no extra
| alarm or device he could think of, but the mechanic meant the
| stick shift. Apparently manual cars are now so uncommon that your
| average car thief doesn't know how to drive one away - so it's
| kind of a surprising that someone got this 914 as far down the
| road as he did.
| warmwaffles wrote:
| I've seen some guys just pull the fuse out for the ECU/PCM on
| the vehicle as the anti-theft device. The thief will start to
| crank and crank but never get it started. It should draw
| attention to them and they'll just grab what they can and
| leave.
| fhood wrote:
| No manual option on the mazda3 now. That was the biggest punch
| in the gut.
| raverbashing wrote:
| Reading this description reminds me why I'm not a "car person"
|
| Several rabbit-holes in Linux have tested my patience less than
| that
| michaelt wrote:
| Your vehicle will never develop this number of issues _on the
| day you buy it_.
|
| You buy it with a trivial occasional issue that can be worked
| around, and the issue gradually starts happening more and more
| often and getting harder and harder to work around. And at the
| same time, another trivial issue will develop....
|
| That's how my motorcycle went from 'needs to be kick-started'
| through 'sometimes it takes a few tries', through 'bump
| starting works though', to 'you can bump start it within 6
| attempts', to 'you can bump start it within 6 attempts, as long
| as you didn't use the headlights too much last time you rode
| it'
| Melatonic wrote:
| These things are an absolute BLAST to drive but you also feel
| like you are literally driving a tin can - I do NOT want to think
| about what would happen if you got into an accident with a larger
| vehicle like an SUV
|
| Met a guy that threw a V8 in one of these - must have been
| absolutely insane.
| temporallobe wrote:
| In the U.S., we have a joke that the only anti-theft device
| you'll ever need is a manual transmission.
| SixDouble5321 wrote:
| Idk, my manual Honda was stolen after living near Seattle for
| about a month. Luckily it wasn't valuable enough to chop.
| eichin wrote:
| > exactly 4 pumps > start > exactly 2 pumps
|
| ... does this sound to anyone else like he's basically got a
| Permissive Action Link protecting his car?
| BayAreaEscapee wrote:
| For awhile I was into autocross.
|
| I remember one guy who would always show up in a Porsche 914 with
| racing tires, and he would run circles around us amateurs.
| jeffbee wrote:
| That's a funny sport. For years the SF area events were
| dominated by a guy who ran a '78 Toyota Corolla hatchback. Or
| what had once been that car, anyway.
| dclowd9901 wrote:
| We all know those autocross guys...
| Corrado wrote:
| We had a guy in some Ford station wagon that would win all the
| time. The smoothest driving I've ever seen; I don't think the
| tires even made a noise.
| giarc wrote:
| It's not always the dog in the fight, but the fight in the dog.
|
| I knew a guy that was an incredible mountain biker, won all the
| races he entered etc. He used to show up with crappy bikes
| probably 10lbs heavier than everyone else... he'd still win.
| Sometimes you either have it or you don't, and all the
| equipment in the world won't help you.
| theluketaylor wrote:
| In this case a 914 is close to the perfect car for autocross.
| They are super light, so they change direction like a fly.
| The mid engine layout means they have excellent balance.
| Autocross is a low speed event, so the lack of power isn't
| the penalty it would be on a larger circuit. With modern
| tires a 914 should do extremely well.
| warmwaffles wrote:
| Yea I've seen some pretty sprightly little 90HP cars do
| autocross really well. Old 2002 BMWs, Porsche 914s, Mini
| Coopers, and some little Toyota spyders.
| LanceH wrote:
| The mid engine induced balance and short wheelbase on the
| 914 just made it ridiculous for autocross. It was like
| playing a video game where you stick to the ground. I
| certainly raced more powerful and faster cars, but it was
| possible to coax everything out of the 914 with an ease
| that few other cars could match.
| spaetzleesser wrote:
| Sounds a bit like my Lotus Elise. I never tried autocross
| but that car loved tight not too high speed tracks.
| kQq9oHeAz6wLLS wrote:
| Those are a blast. I took a friend's one around a listed
| 15 mph corner at darn near highway speeds (on warm semi-
| slick tires) with not near the understeer you'd expect.
| Corrado wrote:
| I autocrossed my '71 914/4 and it was so much fun.
| Somewhere I have a picture of me 3 wheeling it around a
| corner.
| IgorPartola wrote:
| I keep reading stories if people going to track day on their
| liter bikes and getting outrun by the instructor riding a
| 250cc scooter.
| joshu wrote:
| This doesn't sound too bad. But I also race in a 1960s british
| race car.
| rcpt wrote:
| Great writing and nice to see people who enjoy their hobbies but
| jfc this kind of thing shouldn't be allowed on public roads.
| GekkePrutser wrote:
| This sounds a lot like my first car. I won't mention the model
| for security reasons :D (This topic is going to be a goldmine for
| hackers!)
|
| It's funny because I had very similar issues. In my case the
| gearshift link bar fell out of the bottom twice. Both cases I was
| parked in a high-security area at work and I had get special
| authorisation for the road service. To much amusement of the
| security staff, especially the second time which was about a week
| after the first.
|
| Also, the lights would not auto switch off when turning off the
| ignition (no fancy newfangled electronics there!), but my
| colleagues were willing to give me a push once a week or so. All
| the above did give my car a very special reputation at work and
| it was the butt of many jokes. It also had a manual choke which
| caused me to empty many a fuel tank unnecessarily. I carried a 5L
| jerrycan around after the first time I found out what happens if
| you forget to switch the choke off after starting. With the choke
| off it would go more than 100km on this reserve!
|
| The ignition switch was also so far gone it could be turned with
| a teaspoon, but unfortunately this worked both ways. Sometimes
| going over a bump in the road would flick it off. So for this
| reason I hotwired the foglight switch (which was rarely allowed
| to be used in the Netherlands, you may only use it in basically
| undrivable conditions) as an "ignition on" switch to bridge it.
| In this sense it was like a modern car which you can turn on with
| a button. For the foglight itself I just had two wires hanging
| under the dash which I could simply connect when needed. No need
| for this modern "switch" nonsense.
|
| There was also no power steering nor braking and the engine
| (1.0L) was so small you could literally set foot inside the
| engine compartment (standing on the road as it didn't have a
| bottom). My father hated me for braking so hard when I drove his
| car, but on mine you really had to pump it if you had any hope of
| stopping. Steering was super light though, even without power
| steering. Probably because the car weighed practically nothing,
| and the tyres could use a bit more grip. When I had people
| sitting in the back I literally had trouble steering at high
| speeds because there wasn't enough weight on the front. So I
| would limit myself to 80km/h on the motorway in those cases to be
| safe. It did have no trouble reaching 120km/h though, to my
| surprise.
|
| I also had to make sure not to fuel up above 80% or so because
| when splashing it leaked somewhere around the neck of the fuel
| filler pipe and the smell was horrible.
|
| Still, it was MY car. My friends bought me a bumper sticker
| saying "Laugh all you want, this one is paid off!". It was also
| special in the sense that it was the only car I've had where the
| (Sony) stereo was worth more than the car itself. It was one of
| the first with a CD player. Not that it was particularly
| expensive, but you probably gathered that the car was even
| cheaper.
|
| PS: Funnily enough it passed the safety inspection twice. I did
| have to wire the foglight switch back up before the test though
| O:-)
| siverson914 wrote:
| jeffrallen wrote:
| I need to print this out and put it in my 1974 VW camper, for my
| kids to read when I kick off.
| rob_c wrote:
| story makes me realise why MOTs exist :P sounds like the owner
| has good fun with that relic, but I wonder is it actually
| roadworthy?
| kingcharles wrote:
| MOT surely won't check half the things that are wrong with this
| car though? Shitty starting, busted gearbox? Most 90s supercars
| wouldn't pass if that was a problem :p
|
| What do MOTs say about antique cars? I've had some really rough
| old Minis pass the MOT in the past.
| MBCook wrote:
| Based on what they said, no. Not at all.
|
| Great read.
| mellavora wrote:
| My 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 practiced manouver, it
| was pretty quick.
| sethammons wrote:
| I left my key in. Pop and sparks and a running engine
| immediately (gmc s-15)
| pmags wrote:
| I had a '73 VW Bug -- the solenoid failed in the middle of a
| post-college beach camping adventure through Baja with a
| friend. We too designated a screwdriver just for this purpose
| and kept track of whose turn it was to slide under the car to
| short the terminals. We became quite adept at it! Good times...
| everybodyknows wrote:
| On mine, the well-corroded cast-pot-metal door handle snapped
| in two. No problem: The ignition key could be wedged between
| the remaining stub of a handle and the frame, producing just
| enough leverage to pop the door catch.
| jihadjihad wrote:
| 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.
| floren wrote:
| 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.
| dclowd9901 wrote:
| What's that joke about "temporary fixes that work are never
| just temporary?"
| blastro wrote:
| 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 keep it puttering
| along, and we ripped a few laps around the neighborhood.
| Soonafter, we stopped the engine and were never able to get it
| started again. Thanks for bringing up this memory. Cool article.
| titzer wrote:
| lol, your memory jogged my memory of me and my neighbor, me 14,
| he 16, finding an almost-completely disassembled moped in the
| woods behind my house. It had been completely stripped--out of
| spite, it would appear, since everything not firmly attached to
| the steel frame, including all of the plastic shell parts,
| lights, switches, etc, had been strewn all around. Of the few
| things attached to the frame, it was lucky the engine, gas
| tank, and rear wheel, remained. We lugged this 200+ pound pile
| of junk a few hundred yards through the woods into my garage.
| Just replaced the spark plug cable, and it fricking started up!
| We then proceeded to replace the front wheel with a BMX bike
| tire, fashioned a makeshift seat out of a banana bicycle seat
| with some angle-iron, and _I rode that heap of junk, wires
| flailing off the frame, for over a year._ I got pulled over by
| the police for not having lights. Problem was, in the mess of
| wiring that _did_ exist, I was randomly splicing into whatever,
| including a feed that apparently hadn 't gone through a voltage
| regular, and would burn out the tail lights if I hit the brakes
| at too high of an RPM. After the police incident, my dad
| wouldn't let me ride it on the street anymore, and then
| eventually he took it to the junk yard one day when I was at
| school.
| NoImmatureAdHom wrote:
| I am sorry for your loss.
| evanjacobs wrote:
| My first car was also a 914 that the father of a friend of mine
| had sitting in his garage. The transmission was shot (no first
| gear) and the suspension had given out but I bought it anyway
| for $800 and put about $2000 into fixing it.
|
| It was a really fun car to drive although it also shared many
| of the same quirks as mentioned in this story.
| 14 wrote:
| lol that's a cool story you probably damaged the rings and
| cylinder wall by force starting it without taking some
| precautions first. If you have an engine that has sat a long
| time you definitely should pull the spark plugs and spay
| lubricant down the holes. Let it sit overnight. Then gently try
| and turn over the engine by hand and see if the rings are free
| or not. Something sitting so long the ring tend to stick to
| cylinder wall and turning over the engine suddenly can cause
| them to damage the cylinder wall and damage the rings. So while
| running down the hill you probably did some damage but it was
| moving fast enough that it could get enough compression to run
| while you had it running. After you stopped it and attempted to
| start it again there would be less oil on the pistons as well
| as any damage greatly reducing compression and preventing it
| from starting.
| blastro wrote:
| Thanks for this explanation. Totally makes sense!
| jacquesm wrote:
| Likely not enough lubrication happening. Pity, that engine
| would have been perfectly good if it had been treated a bit
| more carefully, and a matching numbers 914 would be worth
| something today. They're a very interesting car, mid engined
| lightweight sports car that handles a lot better than you would
| expect from something that old.
|
| There was a six cylinder version of this as well (super rare)
| and they made a prototype 914/8 which was never offered for
| sale, afaik only two were made (one for Ferdinand Porsche, one
| for Ferdinand Piech).
| Eric_WVGG wrote:
| 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 rear window,
| though, it whips air forward when you drive with the top down.
| colburnmh wrote:
| It's really a weird Volkswagen/Porsche frankenstein, despite
| what the badge says. Porsche designed it, Volkswagen built
| it. Outside the US, the Volkswagon version is 914/4, and the
| Porsche version being a 914/6. (The last digit references the
| number of cylinders). In the US market both versions were
| branded as Porsche because US buyers were deemed unable to
| understand that two different car brands used the same body
| style. (Times have changed.)
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Porsche_914
| Eric_WVGG wrote:
| back when I was a teenager, I read a few bits that referred
| to it as a "VoPo"
| riedel wrote:
| I remember it being referred to as Volksporsche. It was a
| strange mix of feelings. Nobody took it as a serious
| Porsche while owners that normally wouldn't be able to
| afford a 'real' one really loved the car for it quirks.
| To me this is a much better Volksporsche than the
| Cayenne/Touareg . And in hindsight the people who loved
| this democratized version of a sports car have a better
| place in history than all those who started the SUV boom
| in Europe's cities. While Porsche was made a bit fun of
| at the time, today's Porsches feel like an anachronistic
| thing that nobody desires but super rich and wannabes.
| donw wrote:
| The author has neglected to mention that you can find the
| engine by shouting "Gerald! Gerald!" at the top of your
| lungs in all directions.
|
| This will summon the ancient, exhausted hamster that powers
| the vehicle.
| zeckalpha wrote:
| The Suburban was sold as both a Chevrolet and GMC starting
| in 1937.
| tricky wrote:
| Hello to a fellow member of the "my first car was a Porsche"
| club. Mine was a $400 924 that broke at least once a week.
| Good times.
| chrisdhoover wrote:
| I have a 65/66 912 converted to a 2.7 liter six. I love
| this car.
|
| When I got it there were issues. I have worked through many
| of them. The PO did not understand the regulator for
| instance. I gutted the wiring and redid it. It now charges
| and there is no battery drain.
|
| Like OP the lights were not good. I replaced those with
| LEDs. The suspension was worn, it was completely replaced.
|
| The engine has good compression and the leak down showed it
| was healthy. It did leak oil though, sealed the engine. It
| no longer leaks.
|
| You can't just buy one of these cars and drive it. You have
| to wrench on it. It takes care and feeding.
|
| I find it rewarding
| Melatonic wrote:
| I had an early 944 - it basically had all of the negatives
| of the 924 and only a few positives :-D
| mikepavone wrote:
| I don't know about that. More powerful engine, 4 wheel
| disc brakes (rather than 2 disc, 2 drum setup on a base
| 924) and the switch to electronic fuel injection instead
| of K-Jetronic all seem like decent upgrades to me. I had
| an '83 944 as my daily driver for a couple of years and
| for a poorly maintained 25 year old sports car it wasn't
| so bad.
|
| The combination of an interference engine and a super-
| long manually tensioned timing belt was rather
| unfortunate though. I never had an issue with my belt,
| but adjusting the tension was very stressful. Especially
| since I was too cheap to buy the proper expensive tool
| and was using one of the crappy "cricket" ones.
| Melatonic wrote:
| 968 FTW
|
| I still want to buy a later model 90s one, throw an LS7
| in there, and overhaul the interior. Would be an amazing
| vehicle.
| technothrasher wrote:
| Come on now, the Porsche engine in the 944 is miles
| better than the Audi one in the 924. Got rid of all the
| vibration issues. Granted the base 944 is a bit slow, but
| I've currently got an '86 951 and it's still a great car
| today. The weight distribution on it is just perfect.
| Much more fun to drive and way more reliable than the '85
| Ferrari 308 that I recently sold.
| ryandrake wrote:
| I had to sell my beloved '86 951 to an out-of-stater due
| to California emissions madness[1], and miss it every
| day. I don't, however, miss the hours a month spent
| underneath it keeping it driving. Everything except the
| turbo was aftermarket by the time I was done with it. The
| mid-80s were this weird point in time where cars were
| still wrench-able, but manufacturers started adding
| electronic gizmos, not knowing how to make those gizmos
| reliable. It's like they were still figuring out how to
| make everything from engine ECUs to power windows, and
| trying ideas out on production cars.
|
| (It was also my first experience with an interference
| engine, and the terror of having your timing belt break.)
|
| 1: Car blew clean as a whistle, even to clean air
| standards that never existed in 1986, but since the
| intake and exhaust had all sorts of parts not officially
| stamped with the CA bureaucracy seal of approval, it had
| to go :(
| polynomial wrote:
| The 924 had a design flaw in the engine. The oil pressure
| sensor was located in the oil pan at the base of the return
| pipe to the cam, rather than at the top of the pipe at the
| cam. Thus, the pipe could become clogged and no oil would
| reach the cam shaft, while giving no indication of the
| problem. Needless to say, this could be very bad.
| hef19898 wrote:
| Reminds me of the bad rep the 2.4 VM turbo diesel got in
| the Range Rover Classic. Good engine, used in some
| Chryslers, and boats, from the 80s to the early 2000s.
| Why? Because the Land Rover engineers mounted the cooling
| flyid tank too low, the 5th (?) cylinder risked not
| getting enough cooling and tended to crack. The fix is to
| mount the cooling tank a couple of cm higher up in the
| engine bay.
| hef19898 wrote:
| Those are slowly gett;ng expensive as well. 928s seem to be
| reasonably priced so far. No wonder with a car that was
| barely considered a Porsch back the day.
|
| It was one of the potential follow up projects, once the
| first one is done. That will take at least another two
| years... And I won't get permission for another project car
| in our drive way!
| f38zf5vdt wrote:
| 924 here too! Totalled it (not that there was much to
| total) at the age of 20. May it rest in pieces.
| [deleted]
| EastSmith wrote:
| 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).
| zrm wrote:
| Is anybody doing surveillance conversions?
|
| Like take a stock Tesla, throw out the computer it comes
| with and replace it with one that doesn't spy on you. Keep
| everything else.
|
| Probably easier than doing the reverse, isn't it?
| myself248 wrote:
| That's a brilliant idea, and I think I might be well-
| positioned to offer it.
|
| Not with Teslas specifically; I think surveillance is
| woven so deep into the fabric of the vehicle, it'd be a
| lot of work to get it out. But with most other makes,
| it's just a telematics unit that's easy enough to remove
| or bypass, and most of the other functionality just keeps
| working.
|
| How would one price such a service? Often the research is
| 99% of the work, and the actual labor is just pulling a
| connector or two, perhaps fabricating a short bypass
| harness.
| zrm wrote:
| Depends how big you think the market is.
| throwaway0a5e wrote:
| How fast do you need to go? Hyster, Crown, et. al. make
| what you want.
| elihu wrote:
| It's still a thing. It's a lot of work though and it pretty
| much never makes financial sense versus just buying a used
| Leaf or something. But it's one way to get a car that's
| exactly what you want.
|
| I'm currently working on converting a Mazda RX-8.
| trainsarebetter wrote:
| Check out the openinverter.org/wiki project. it's very
| active, lots of development and backing going on
|
| I also design a variety of parts for adapting oem ev parts
| for other vehicles www.bratindustries.net
| hadlock wrote:
| The inverter/regen braking, and charger units do have
| _some_ firmware, but once everything is wired up and
| working, should work indefinitely without future OTA
| updates. If the national charging standard changes at some
| point in the future (or gets exported to another area
| (europe) that uses a different standard) you 'll need to
| swap out the charger.
|
| Companies like EV West in California and Swindon in the UK
| offer bolt-in kits for 1960s cars, in particular the VW
| Beetle and the original Cooper Mini
|
| Long term, as engine parts become harder to source,
| especially for low volume european cars, Electric
| Conversion is rapidly becoming the accepted way to keep
| these classics on the road for another 100 years.
| hnov wrote:
| Engines like the VW typ 4 in the 914 are probably not
| going extinct anytime soon, you can order a ready to go
| longblock fairly easily [0]. For larger cars, a GM gen IV
| V8 can be had with CA-compliant emissions out of any
| parts catalog [1].
|
| [0] https://scatvw.com/product/2-0-liter-long-
| block-24-875-779/
|
| [1] https://www.jegs.com/i/Chevrolet-
| Performance/809/19421057/10...
| hadlock wrote:
| Agreed; I suspect the reason why the VW has been targeted
| by EV makers is largely because the tuner/enthusiast
| crowd is quite large, and also it's an extremely well
| understood/documented platform. I haven't seen the EV
| West stuff up close in person yet, but it looks like as a
| platform to develop a set of standard equipment for other
| cars, the VW is a good initial choice for those reasons.
|
| I have a similarly size/weight prewar french car, and
| when the engine finally gives out, will probably pull out
| the petrol engine and swap in a VW kit, but with a custom
| bell housing adapter. A 70-100hp electric motor meant for
| a VW is not a lot of power, but can provide enough low
| end torque to keep the car driving in modern traffic for
| 100-130 miles, which is probably enough for the use
| classic cars get.
| pards wrote:
| This x 100. My next car will probably have to be electric
| but I need it to be bare bones, serviceable and FOSS. DIY
| might be the only option
| pinkythepig wrote:
| Surprisingly enough, you can get that from the BMW i3.
|
| - The monitor is necessary but it is not a touch screen and
| it comes with a nice clicky knob to control it. Plus you
| can make shortcuts to go to certain screens with the radio
| station buttons.
|
| - 2014 - 2017? all shipped with a 3g module that is now
| unsupported and not working.
|
| - You can get access to munros teardown report for $10(1),
| and if you know where to look ;) you can find the service
| tech training manuals and their repair instructions for
| free which are all very detailed.
|
| - realoem.com has exploded parts diagrams with part numbers
| for everything.
|
| The only negatives really is:
|
| - buying OEM parts comes with that BMW price premium and
| the dealer will 100% rip you off if you ever take it to
| them for repairs.
|
| - The OEM tires, the only kind that fit on the OEM wheels,
| have terrible tread life.
|
| (1)https://munrolive.com/support-%2F-store/ols/products/bmw
| -i3-...
| zitterbewegung wrote:
| Yea electric conversion is a thing and according to Rich
| rebuilds they are making better kits instead of wiring
| everything manually.
|
| But like all car projects it's a money pit. Expect to spend
| $50k in parts and labor. And it may or may not be street
| legal for that price.
|
| Driving the vehicle in places where you don't have cell
| service or where it can be cold would be a bad idea if the
| conversion breaks down. Or just get a satellite phone and
| AAA.
| gambiting wrote:
| >>none of the new electric car offers that
|
| Eh? I literally got a brand new electric VW e-Up last week,
| it's exactly that. It even still has analog dials, and VW
| provides a mount for your phone instead of an
| "infotainment" system. The height of sophistication is DAB
| radio and heated front window and seats.
|
| I highly recommend it, it's a hoot - and with 150 miles
| range and rapid charging capability it's more than enough
| for all my needs.
|
| That's the dashboard in it, it's as "bare minimum" as it
| gets: https://media.drivingelectric.com/image/private/s--
| 7PGbPUr6-...
| digisign wrote:
| 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.
| mavhc wrote:
| Find the radio, remove the aerial/sim card, done.
| digisign wrote:
| Ok as a band-aid, but doesn't create any market pressure
| to provide an alternative.
| owly wrote:
| Nice. I'd buy one immediately if they were available in
| the US.
| hollander wrote:
| That's a nice car. The range is a bit limited, but I
| could see myself buying it. Thanks for this info!
| wlesieutre wrote:
| Not in the US I don't think. Even manufacturers that have
| been generally anti-touchscreen (read: mazda) went and
| stuffed in touchscreen HVAC controls because "people
| expect that in electric cars" or something.
| sgustard wrote:
| Check out https://www.everrati.com for electric
| conversions.
| jimnotgym wrote:
| It definitely is a thing for classic cars. These people
| even have a discovery channel show about them. They look
| awesome, and are within easy electric range of my house!
|
| https://www.electricclassiccars.co.uk
| KennyBlanken wrote:
| Most any vehicle with "telematics" available made in the
| last ~10 years is calling home with your location and a
| variety of information like cabin and outdoor air
| temperature, whether the wipers and headlights are on, etc.
| The data is sold to third parties, with varying levels of
| anonymization. This happens regardless of whether you're
| paying for a subscription to their telematics, whether you
| have a GPS navigation system optioned, etc.
|
| I know this because a friend worked for a company trying to
| monetize that data for weather forecasting.
|
| If you want to disable this nonsense, just unplug the
| cellular antenna and connect it to a dummy load.
| dreamcompiler wrote:
| First you have to _find_ the antenna, and there might be
| more than one.
| ungamedplayer wrote:
| Some markets don't have this. You can't get remote start
| in some Toyotas etc.
|
| Is this just a usa thing?
| inyorgroove wrote:
| My car has this, but with the sunset for 3G this year I
| am pretty sure the the data can't make it home anymore.
| distortedsignal wrote:
| Ford will sell you an electric crate engine for $4k [1]. At
| that point, I think it's up to you to supply the other
| parts of the system.
|
| I assume that at this point there are enough wrecks of
| Model S/X/3/Y that you should be able to pick up electric
| motors from them at junkyards.
|
| The thing I really worry about with electric swaps is
| battery. You could have a Note 7 situation on your hands
| _real easy_ if you're not careful.
|
| [1] https://performanceparts.ford.com/part/M-9000-MACHE
| KennyBlanken wrote:
| Production EV battery packs almost always include some
| sort of BMS and have lots of interlocks and safeties. You
| don't really have to do much to work with them other than
| to talk to the BMS and not exceed voltage and current
| limits. If you do, the BMS will trip the pack's internal
| HV contactor.
|
| Safely installing/modding/repairing automotive fuel
| systems is likely just as, if not more, dangerous if you
| don't know what you're doing. There are few interlocks on
| automotive fuel systems beyond "if the engine stops
| spinning, turn off the fuel pump" or in some vehicles,
| there might be a crash/rollover fuel shutoff switch.
|
| People think working on EVs is super scary when reality
| is that you can usually pull a cover in the rear
| passenger area, find and pull a bright orange plug, and
| the HV system is rendered completely safe. EVs don't have
| a billion places you can scald or burn yourself, their
| "engine" compartments generally don't have much or any
| spinning objects that could deglove your hands, there's
| no fuel or oil to catch fire, no high pressure
| hydraulics...
| jacquesm wrote:
| All true, but a pack that has been in a crash might be
| broken in subtle and hard to detect ways. A short _in_
| the pack would be a quick way to ruin your day.
| galangalalgol wrote:
| Do any of those BMS do cooling? The parking lot at work
| hits 115F regularly and that is bad for batteries. I'd
| love a conversion, but I worry I'd get nissan leaf
| battery life vs tesla s battery life. I'm thinking
| something like an old mazda bongo import. For that
| matter, do any of the kits power the ac compressor?
| [deleted]
| distortedsignal wrote:
| Is there a place you know of to get production EV battery
| packs? I'm an amateur mechanic, and this might be up my
| alley, but (as above) I'm worried about these battery
| fire situations.
| s5300 wrote:
| Unless I'm misreading what you're after,
| batteryhookup.com
|
| I and acquaintances in my hobby have dealt with them a
| lot, very great site.
| __david__ wrote:
| "Note 7 situation"--I don't understand this reference,
| can you explain?
| colanderman wrote:
| Lithium-ion battery fire: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/S
| amsung_Galaxy_Note_7#Battery_...
| aetherspawn wrote:
| Inverter not included .. useless
| skykooler wrote:
| Yep! There are some good resources at https://evwest.com
| (not affiliated but have bought parts from there before).
| hathawsh wrote:
| I've been watching the Hummer conversion project from
| JerryRigEverything. It's a great series because he's not an
| expert on EVs, but he's competent with tools. https://www.y
| outube.com/watch?v=YxkPuEmIX4U&list=PL0vZL9uwyf...
| zamfi wrote:
| > they have bigger monitors than my 14" work laptop
|
| Unfortunately, though you might find one with a smaller
| screen, you won't find ANY new car with no screen these
| days -- backup cameras (and, by implication, a screen to
| see its feed) have been required on new cars in the US
| since 2018.
| fragmede wrote:
| Some cars house the screen inside rear view mirror
| (notably some Subarus), as there is no specific
| requirement on screen size.
| jrockway wrote:
| People do electric conversions. I've been randomly watching
| someone on YouTube convert an old Jaguar:
| https://www.youtube.com/c/superfastmatt
|
| Being an automotive engineer that worked for Tesla seems to
| be helpful, though.
| hindsightbias wrote:
| Those that haven't burned (fuel injected high pressure fuel
| lines degraded and cracked) have rusted out, just sits too
| low to ground and can't be left that way.
|
| Rebuilt one at 16 and took it to college!
| everybodyknows wrote:
| > high pressure fuel lines degraded and cracked
|
| A vulnerability shared with all K-Jetronic engines. At some
| point I got clued in and kept a fire extinguisher on board
| my own 914, just in case. And it saw use, not on my own
| car, but doing damage control on a stranger's VW Beetle, in
| flames on the freeway shoulder.
| psd1 wrote:
| Known issue with my car with D-Jetronic, too
| more_corn wrote:
| I have an electric converted 914 if you want to pick it up.
| It's even in need of a few battery packs so it won't all be
| done before you get your hands on it.
| jonsully wrote:
| This has got to be one of the very best and most hilarious
| articles I've read this year. Bravo, sir.
| Havoc wrote:
| Fine writing.
|
| Frankly I'm more intrigued by the fact that this seems to have
| gotten an easy #1 spot on hn. Writing about sketchy clutches on
| old cars does not generally attract wide hn acclaim.
|
| I'd love to hear opinions as to what made the
| difference...clearly something here is different.
| shakezula wrote:
| It's funny you say that cause this screams HN content to me.
|
| I'm a long-time project car builder and this post strikes all
| the chords of a labor of love.
|
| Clever content, technical concepts but written in plain
| english, relishing in the almost hostile user experiences that
| some engineering can produce. It smacks of everything HN is to
| me.
| probably_wrong wrote:
| I think it's a combination of factors: it is technical, it is
| funny, it is well written, it resonates with anyone who had to
| deal with "quirky" hardware, car or not (a.k.a. "that PC that
| only boots if you press and hold CapsLock"), plus the fact that
| the weekend is almost here.
| CRConrad wrote:
| I think you just thoroughly disproved your HN user ID.
| drewg123 wrote:
| My first car was a 22 year old (at the time) 1964 Triumph TR4
| that my dad and I found in a barn. A lot of the issues in this
| 914 were present on my car as well. My car had a minor engine oil
| leak, and the oil would drip onto the exhaust system and fill the
| cabin with smoke. I remember when the brakes went out and I drove
| the car ~25 miles with nothing but the parking brake.
|
| The best was when I got out of this tiny car with manual
| everything and drove the land-yacht Pontiac Parisienne we used
| for driver's ed in highschool. Its brakes were so sensitive, and
| I was so used to having to use a _LOT_ of force to stop the TR4,
| that the first few times I 'd stop the car everybody's seatbelt
| would lock up.
| abruzzi wrote:
| 914s had an engine and transmission from the VW Bus. Since the VW
| Bus had a rear engine setup the shift rod was straight into the
| very front of the transaxle. IIRC, when they reversed the
| transmission to put the engine in front of the transmission, the
| shift input eas now in the very rear so the shift rod started in
| the middle/front of the car, had to transit back, around the
| engine and transaxle assembly then completely reverse into the
| what was now the very rear of the transmission. Which is why the
| 914s were notorious for sloppy transmissions. Later years of 914
| made a change in the transmission so the shift rod entered the
| side of the transmission, which probably helped a little.
| denimboy wrote:
| 914 had a type 4 engine which it shared with the type 2 VW bus.
| However the transmission was completely different from the bus.
| The 914 had 5 speeds and the bus only had 4.
|
| A lot of the article is about "you'll never find 2nd" which is
| in large part to the weird shifting pattern. Reverse is where
| first usually is, first is where second usually is and the rest
| are in a kind of off by one pattern from there. This was
| actually considered a feature since supposedly it allows the
| driver to make the shift from first to second faster.
|
| The vagueness of the stick is very true and something every 914
| owner can relate to. Those first couple weeks you spend some
| time hunting for the right slot. I went from first to fifth
| many times before a muscle memory was developed and I didn't
| have to think about it.
| kQq9oHeAz6wLLS wrote:
| Not terribly odd, either. My 46 Dodge truck has the same
| shift pattern, albeit with just 3 forward gears.
| Corrado wrote:
| Yea, I drove my 914 for 3-4 years before selling it. I didn't
| remember having trouble shifting until I read the article and
| your response here, then it all came flooding back. Those
| first couple of weeks were "exciting" but after that it just
| became a normal part of driving the car. No wonder nobody
| wanted to drive my car.
| alx__ wrote:
| Remind me of trying to get a dev environment setup at this one
| company 5 years ago. The list of troubleshooting items was longer
| than the list to get it running :D
| caycep wrote:
| At this point, it is not unreasonable to pay the thief for all
| his hard work in stealing the car
| orangepurple wrote:
| I used to bother with mechanical junk like this when I was
| younger. I bought 10 cars under $1000 and repaired everything
| from shattered valvetrain to clogged fuel filters. These days if
| I wanted to drive a junk car with a good brand I would LS swap it
| and call it a day. It's more important to treat cancer before it
| metastasizes unlike the hospice care this person is giving that
| car. It troubles me to see people suffering with total junk just
| because it has a brand association.
| mdoms wrote:
| It troubles you that this person has an interest you don't
| share?
| h2odragon wrote:
| I don't doubt this person could restore that car to factory
| perfection or remake it into a modern masterpiece. Thats not
| what it's for tho.
|
| The clapped out heap of junk has an integrity, and dignity,
| worthy of respect. This car should most properly be exhibited
| on blocks in the front yard, surrounded by tall grass, possibly
| with a tree beginning to grow out of it somewhere.
|
| Between a trophy and a salute to both the soul of the machine
| itself and the many people who made it. "Well done thou good
| and faithful servant"
|
| It should be a habitation for dogs.
| orangepurple wrote:
| Agreed. I am very uncomfortable letting a car rot anywhere
| though. I'd rather see it shredded and recycled. Then again I
| don't deify brands like I sort of did when I was younger.
|
| At this point that car needs to be completely disassembled to
| bare metal, power washed, welding repaired, sandblasted,
| repainted, and totally rebuilt. With so much damage all that
| remains is nothing but hospice care.
| floren wrote:
| The LS swap is the equivalent of gutting a classic computer or
| piece of stereo equipment and jamming in a Raspberry Pi.
| Occasionally it's an improvement, sometimes the original parts
| were too far gone, but a lot of the time it's just lazy
| vandalism.
| orangepurple wrote:
| I agree with you. In the case of this article the original
| parts were too far gone.
|
| I do appreciate the physical aesthetics of older devices and
| would not vandalize functional and maintainable internals
| unless they caused extreme hardship.
| sgt wrote:
| Didn't Tyler Hoover (on YouTube) put an LS motor in a Porsche
| 911? He got some hate for that.
| kazinator wrote:
| > _oil vapors are exhumed from the cabin_
|
| Very creative malapropism!
| rebuilder wrote:
| When I was a kid, we had a succession of dubious used cars, at
| least two of which were Ladas. They were fine cars - spare parts
| were easy to get and you needed them often.
|
| One time, someone broke into one of the Ladas. No problem for us,
| it was hard to start even with a key and the would-be auto thief
| apparently couldn't get it going. Who needs an alarm?
| interactivecode wrote:
| Can I just say this is such a lovely site design. fast, clean and
| very readable. Bravo!
| gabereiser wrote:
| I love this. It brings back memories of my first car. A '86 GT
| with a horse logo. I remember driving with my sister one day,
| explaining all the things that are wrong with it and my ingenious
| work arounds to justify it. Then her door swung open taking a
| turn too fast and she refused to ever ride in the car again.
|
| This was a great read, thank you.
| indus wrote:
| I love the upcoming downturn in tech, more posts like these would
| trend ;-)
| stblack wrote:
| Great article indeed.
|
| Inquiring mind wants to know, push rods or overhead cams?
|
| According to Wikipedia, the 914 could have either.
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Porsche_914#Technical_specific...
| deltarholamda wrote:
| I laughed out loud several times at this.
|
| It's kind of sad that a lot of younger folks won't have this kind
| of experience. Muscling a 1973 Ford F150 around with no power
| steering, I learned many, many things about driving. Having to do
| hill starts with a 3-on-the-tree, I learned many, many more.
|
| A recalcitrant, finicky, or otherwise nearly broken car is a
| source of much distress, but also character building. And often a
| source of many fond rememberances--albeit far, far in the future.
| tclancy wrote:
| Ha, yeah, with new cars there's no reason to try to talk things
| out and reason with them because there's no sense they are just
| being stubborn.
| deltarholamda wrote:
| >with new cars there's no reason to try to talk things out
| and reason with them because
|
| ...because there's a solid chance the car will talk back.
|
| Welcome to the future! Your car will sass you, and you will
| like it!
| Corrado wrote:
| Oh my Dad's old Chevy stepside was a bear to drive. That 3-on-
| the-tree gave me fits. On the upside, I can drive just about
| any car on Earth now without too much trouble.
| SLWW wrote:
| The section about starting the car rings true for just about
| every old car I own.
|
| My Dart, an ol' 4 door from '69 has this really cool thing were
| in the event you do get the cruel idea to wake her up on a cold
| morning; you'll end up doing three sets of ignition on, wait 3-5
| seconds, ignition off, pump the gas pedal a few times (first set
| 20, then 10, then 5) and if you haven't deviated from this
| formula you should be able to start the engine. After about 3
| seconds she will be quietly resting once more, then you can
| attempt to wake her again, this time once you hear the engine
| come to life you need to ease onto the accelerator, and hold it
| at an obnoxiously loud "idle" for about 1-2 minute. Then from
| there you will put her in first, and while still tickling the
| accelerator, release the brake slowly (this girl is a TorqueFlite
| auto transmission).
|
| Though i love that car because i drove it as my daily for several
| months during the cold winter... it had no heater, no defrost and
| no hope of going highway speeds safely (though I have flown at 80
| mph before, down a hill in neutral, that was terrifying), you
| have to bleed the brakes once every two months or she will try to
| kill you.. and she's unapologetically mine, for fear of the guilt
| I would incur if i sold her to someone that she accidentally ends
| up killing and my undying love for a car that usually got me to
| where i need to be (12 mpg, 91 oct).
| porknubbins wrote:
| I love this because I just realized pretty much all my vehicles
| small engine equipment have quirks that they only start up if you
| know the correct procedure, yet I consider them to be 100%
| working. Not to mention my pc's boot menu which defaults to a
| dead operating system after 10 seconds, that I have been too lazy
| to figure out how to reorder.
| rob74 wrote:
| Great article! Makes me wonder if in 40 years people will write
| about how to (not) get an old Tesla Roadster or BMW i3 going
| again? Although, rather than pumping the acceleration 4 times to
| get enough gas into the engine so it will start, that will
| probably begin with hacking the car's system so it allows you to
| start it...
| technothrasher wrote:
| I've been saying for a while now, there will be no more
| 'classic cars' starting after the mid-1990's because of the
| failure of electronic parts that will not be able to be
| replaced. The best that will happen is people using the shells
| to 'restomod' them into new cars that look old. Even today,
| it's much easier for a beginner to buy a broken 1970's car and
| get it running than a broken 1990's car.
| dclowd9901 wrote:
| You underestimate the enthusiasts. I just recently bought a
| refurbished "distance system" computer (aka cruise control
| ecu) for my 89 325i. I have, on order, an original head unit
| with blue tooth retrofitted.
|
| Electronics won't be the Achilles heel of old cars. Gasoline
| will be. But make no mistake. Old electric vehicles with
| their max 10-year life span of battery banks won't enjoy the
| life of a classic either.
| userbinator wrote:
| The aftermarket for mid-century American cars is huge.
| bshep wrote:
| as a guess it would go something like this:
|
| step 1. prepare a usb with files needed to jailbreak the car
| and be able to connect to your wifi
|
| step 2. setup a home network with dns/ntp and a reverse
| engineered tesla server that will authorize the car to work
|
| step 3 set date to reasonable values that the car will accept
|
| step 4 do some button dances to start the car from the usb
|
| ...
|
| ill leave the rest to your imagination
| BizarroLand wrote:
| You will also need a Raspberry Pi 19 and a GSM transmit
| module to impersonate the old-timey cell towers they used to
| use. You can purchase one for about $3 or so and run this
| script...
| StillBored wrote:
| After you have hand built a new battery that fits it, built
| a LCD shim to connect to whatever the latest standard is,
| etc.
|
| Older cars are simpler, both in total, as in the
| requirements to retrofit replacement parts. Your average
| machine shop/etc will be able to keep that 914 running for
| the next hundred years. And when they stop selling gas, you
| can convert it to run on everclear.
| mjhagen wrote:
| Well, with the battery breakthrough of 2034 old Tesla's
| will run on two double-A's for 1000 miles.
| herodotus wrote:
| Brilliant!
| unnouinceput wrote:
| "Thank you for all the tips, but they won't be necessary. I'll
| just come with my tow truck, and get it up and I'm gone in 60
| seconds. This vintage gem will fetch a great price once restored
| properly.
|
| Signed, The Thief"
| swamp40 wrote:
| 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.
| ho_schi wrote:
| It always entertaining when Americans speaking about manual
| transmissions as something mysterious. It is not, feet on pedal,
| switch, feet from pedal. Europeans are surprised seeing you
| manipulating the wipers to control the transmission.
|
| I consider personally most automatic transmissions horrible. The
| gear is either to high to overtake or so low that the engine is
| running with too much RPM. The only exception is the gear-less
| Multitronic[1] by Audi. Sadly replaced by DSG. Nasty rumors say
| VW did that because the Multitronic had no more issues and worked
| well ;)
|
| The DSG works somehow and the shifting is somehow acceptable. The
| automatic transmission Ford uses (e.g. C-Max) is horror for the
| driver, passengers and the engine. Adventurous people may proceed
| to double-clutching[2].
|
| [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Multitronic
|
| [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Double_clutch_(technique)
| foobarian wrote:
| > Europeans are surprised seeing you manipulating the wipers to
| control the transmission.
|
| That is nothing new to a true European. Look up the Renault 4
| shifter :-)
| repiret wrote:
| I'm in the US and prefer manual transmissions, but I have to
| admit that the 6-8 speed automatic transmissions that have
| become popular in the last 5-10 years pretty much solves the
| "always in the wrong gear" problem that the 3-4 speed automatic
| transmissions of years past had.
| vincentmarle wrote:
| Manual transmissions are great for anti-theft protection ;)
| systemvoltage wrote:
| > 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!
| ho_schi wrote:
| Sorry my friend. I'm preferring gasoline ;)
| [deleted]
| masklinn wrote:
| > It always entertaining when Americans speaking about manual
| transmissions as something mysterious.
|
| The car in question is at least 45 years old. That the
| transmission was never great and has degraded since is not at
| all odd. At no point did I see ragging on a manual, only the
| transmission being shot (and having a weird pattern).
| BoorishBears wrote:
| Most automatic transmissions are horrible because most cars are
| horrible.
|
| Good cars have good transmissions, regardless of transmission
| style.
|
| The ZF8 is an excellent transmission that's seen everywhere.
|
| PDK does justice to the most performant modern Porsches in a
| way that manuals struggle to keep up with.
|
| Even relatively small volume DCTs like the one in the 4C are
| pretty great these days.
| ho_schi wrote:
| ZF8 seems to be used by Audi only for cars sold in America?
|
| btw. ZF means Zahnradfabrik Friedrichshafen. Which is owned
| by the Zeppelin Foundation. Which was founded to support the
| built of Zeppelin Luftschiffe and social purposes. Weird
| story. And the Zeppelin Foundation was for a long time owner
| of Cherry. The company behind most mechanical keyboard
| switches. They should've kept that, growing business area -
| mechanical switches ;)
| prova_modena wrote:
| It's been used by numerous manufacturers in addition to
| Audi, including BMW and seemingly every FCA/Stellantis
| brand. I've driven a BMW 5 series fitted with one and I can
| confirm it's a great transmission that is smooth and
| capable during normal driving, but has reasonable
| sportiness when required.
|
| See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ZF_8HP_transmission
| theluketaylor wrote:
| The ZF8 is in plenty of euro Audis as well, but only the
| big, expensive stuff since it's a longitudinal gearbox. The
| more common, smaller Audis would be on the MQB transverse
| platform that can't use the ZF8. And Audi has been using a
| dual clutch on some of their lower-end MLB cars.
|
| Anything A6/Q7 and up is a ZF8 if it's an automatic.
| BoorishBears wrote:
| Now would not be a great time to be in that area when
| "knockoff" switches have pretty much out-innovated Cherry
| into irrelevance
|
| But that aside, as other comments point out the ZF8 is not
| Audi specific, Plenty of non-M car BMWs use it, and even
| heavy duty pick up trucks are running with ZF8s now
| imglorp wrote:
| Sometimes double clutching helps with old American boxes.
| German ones have always been temperamental, compared to shaking
| a bag of wrenches.
|
| Japanese ones have always been smooth and fun.
|
| Source: I taught three teenagers to drive stick recently, and
| there are still teeth on the gears. Yay me!
| LinuxBender wrote:
| I get Error code: SSL_ERROR_UNSAFE_NEGOTIATION
|
| Qualys also detects that this is disabled. I would like to see
| the page as I like older cars.
| jerf wrote:
| A surprisingly apt error, really, given the article.
| [deleted]
| dpedu wrote:
| Try using archive.org or another one of the various web archive
| sites.
|
| https://web.archive.org/web/20220401144722/https://www.hager...
| nes350 wrote:
| https://web.archive.org/web/20220401144722/https://www.hager...
| softwarebeware wrote:
| What an awesome read! It brought back some nostalgia. In high
| school, I owned a 1976 Datsun 280Z which had some, shall we say,
| electrical problems. The ignition went out but somehow I had
| ascertained that by placing the blade of a screwdriver across two
| fuses it would (for mysterious reasons) turn the starter over and
| that was the only way to start the car.
| jamroom wrote:
| As someone who drove a 1972 Westfalia for ~10 years this had me
| laughing to myself multiple times in agreement.
| warmwaffles wrote:
| Same here, but with a 1972 BMW. My brake vacuum booster never
| worked so it is like stomping on a rock. On a cold day you had
| to feather the throttle, clutch, and brake at the same time
| until it got warm. I live in a warm climate so it's been tuned
| to idle well on a hot Texas summer day.
| Finnucane wrote:
| I was gonna say, I took a long road trip in a 1971 VW microbus
| and this was triggering some memories. Especially the
| description of finding the gears!
| jamroom wrote:
| Yes the gears! The amount of "play" in the gearbox was
| insane. Couple that with the like 3 foot long stick handle
| and IN GEAR I could wiggle the stick in a like foot wide
| circle.
|
| Once you had driven it for a while you got to know the "feel"
| of it and had no problems, but like in the article someone
| new to driving it would have had a really hard time lol.
| floren wrote:
| My 1985 Jeep CJ-7 is similar... I can be rolling down the
| road in 3rd gear and the gear knob will occasionally start
| oscillating in a 4-inch circle all on its own.
| Finnucane wrote:
| Someone new to driving now probably doesn't even know what
| a gear stick is.
| TacticalCoder wrote:
| Don't know why this is top post: there must be some petrolheads
| on HN.
|
| This resonates with me: I've got an old, kinda beaten up,
| "sister" of that 914: an old Porsche 911. I've got it since 22
| years and it's 33 years old atm (so 2/3rd of its life with me).
| Over the decades I only ever put oil and gasoline in that thing
| (ok, ok, the fuel pump died once and it was a 100 EUR part).
| Every single time I hook the battery up, it starts... While doing
| some blue smoke, granted. Although back from 1999 to 2004 I drove
| this beauty daily, since 2004 it's a garage queen: a piece of art
| that hardly ever hits the road. It's also prevented from seeing
| _any_ kind of water: no rain water, no cleaning water (I much
| rather scratch the paint a tiny bit with microfibers towels and
| "dry cleaning" detailers or whatnots than risk having water
| idling for months in some sneaky spot and create corrosion).
|
| Original paint (hardly anyone still has this). First clutch (yup:
| same clutch since 33 years): this one is so rare it's actually
| problematic because my MY has a clutch that's not made anymore
| and there's some modification that needs to be done... But not a
| single mechanic know anymore what needs to be done to adapt a
| "still made" clutch on mine (basically a 1988/1989 clutch _will
| not_ work on a 1987 if the 1987 is still on its first clutch for
| it hasn 't seen the mandatory mod done). Tires are from... 2004
| (yes it's illegal and, no, I don't care seen how I drive it).
| About twice a year, on a non-rainy day, the old lady starts and
| goes for a drive around the block at 20 mph. And then back into
| the garage.
|
| One day I should probably have it restored: the problem is these
| old Porsche engines (all 911 pre the 993 model) are notorious for
| their long bolts breaking when trying to adjust the timing. So a
| restoration means taking the engine out. That'd set me $10K
| easily I think with all that needs to be done.
|
| And in the end I'll have a polluting gas-guzzler which I'll feel
| bad using anyway.
|
| No really: old cars are also great as art pieces that hardly ever
| go out.
|
| Some people like to collect them, others like to drive them,
| others like to restore them (met a gentleman the other day whose
| passion was neither driving nor collecting but restoring
| incredible cars). I'm sure some even like to _write_ about them!
|
| And don't get me started on my even crankiest old italian car!
| (this one won't shift into 2nd when the gearbox is cold, so it's
| 1st to 3rd gear during the first x minutes of driving... But
| being italian, of course, it's not starting anymore and needs to
| go see a mechanic).
|
| As I'm a recovering petrolhead I begin to see these more and more
| as art pieces: weird remnants of an insanely dangerous (and
| polluting) past.
| orangepurple wrote:
| As a tribute to your memories of driving an older Porsche 911
| properly:
|
| The Porsche 911 Yellow Bird 50fps hot lap around the
| Nurburgring: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZzjQXxktxbs
| jacquesm wrote:
| Very recognizable :) I had a Citroen DS that had locks that were
| so bad that it was pointless to try to lock it, and getting it
| started required 10 steps or so and getting one wrong meant you
| weren't driving that day (or at least, not until the excess fuel
| had evaporated away again).
|
| Probably more secure than the class-5 alarm on my current car :)
| ehnto wrote:
| Speaking of security through obscurity, my car is a 96 Nissan and
| it's had a few attempts on it. It's easy enough to steal, but
| it's getting hard enough for me to find replacement parts that
| I'd be surprised if thieves have everything, so I take some bits
| of the car with me if it's sitting for a while.
|
| I have a quick release wheel to deter the average opportunist
| from breaking my glass and ignition barrel, and with some wiring
| trickery and the bits I remove it's never going to start. It's
| aftermarket enough that stock parts won't help the thief, so
| unless they have a laptop, an aftermarket ECU, and a tuner handy,
| they probably won't get far.
|
| Sucks to have to bother with all that, but alarms have never
| helped me, and you just can't fix woeful 90s physical security.
|
| One attempt on my car was only foiled because when I park up at
| my girlfriends house, I remove some 90s era fuses you can't get
| anymore and take the box covers with me. A paperclip would work,
| but you've got to figure out that the specific fuses are missing
| first.
|
| It's not about being perfect when it comes to car security, it's
| about being too much of a pain in the ass, so they'll give up and
| move on. Just like bicycle security.
| berkes wrote:
| My 83 VW T3 was attempted to be stolen once. But, like the
| author, my bus leaks some power. So I too installed a switch
| that just disconnects the battery.
|
| It isn't hidden or super secret. Just adds extra work and time
| for someone probably being stressed out already.
|
| A friends' T3 was left in the middle of the road, because her
| gearbox was broken-ish and finding the reverse a learned skill.
| Halfway through turning her bus, thieves just gave up. She
| found her car perpendicular to the road in the morning.
| dclowd9901 wrote:
| Contrarily I've made mine incredibly easy to steal but fit it
| with a hidden gps so I can get it back before it's stripped to
| nothing.
| protomyth wrote:
| _It 's not about being perfect when it comes to car security,
| it's about being too much of a pain in the ass, so they'll give
| up and move on._
|
| Yeah, my Dad had a Ford F-100 that had a gear shift that would
| come out. He drove it to work and took the gear shift inside
| and left it in his locker. Not the best location (a town in
| Oregon in the 70's), but he never had any trouble with someone
| stealing his ride out of the parking lot. I still remember the
| sound of the gas sloshing in the tank behind the seat.
| city41 wrote:
| Nowadays it seems just having a manual transmission is enough
| to deter most thieves. I once took my car to get the oil
| changed and I had to drive it into and out of the bay as no
| employee knew how.
| kstrauser wrote:
| My first car was a 68 Mustang, which was a gorgeous heap of junk.
| At one point, the clutch just completely gave up and wedged
| itself in the "engaged" position. To get the car moving, I had to
| kill the engine, put it in 1st gear, and turn the key to run the
| starter. This pulled the whole car into enough motion to get the
| engine going, then I could synchro shift all I wanted until it
| came time to stop again. For that cursed month, I got very good
| at finding routes that didn't involve stop lights or long lines
| of slow moving traffic.
| bombcar wrote:
| I had a car where the shifter broke to the automatic
| transmission - it was simple enough to bypass the neutral
| safety switch and then I could just leave it in Drive all the
| time. Just had to make sure if parking to park on an incline if
| I wanted to be able to roll back out of the parking space.
|
| Eventually I cut a hole in the floor and welded a shifter
| direct to the transmission.
| alhirzel wrote:
| Related to this, one of my stories about turning a car
| off.... I was a misguided youth rebuilding a Subaru that sat
| in a field for a long time. It had many problems, but
| overhauling the engine solved all of them (or so I had
| naively planned). I remember the first drive I took with it
| after getting plates on it. Right after filling the tank for
| the first time, I went to Taco Bell, bought a victory taco,
| and went to a parking lot to look over my city and eat. When
| I tried to shift into park, the cable snapped. Dejectedly, I
| sat and ate the taco with my foot on the brake, warming the
| ATF while I figured out what to do. Several factors stacked
| against me, including that I lived on a hill, didn't have a
| garage, the e-brake was rusted, and it was January in one of
| the snowiest areas in Michigan (3-4ft snow banks in most
| places). I knew the next time I flipped the car off would
| really count, because I would have to hot wire the NSS or fix
| the cable to get rolling again. Parking in the winter is a
| huge problem too: you will get towed or fined for getting in
| the way of snow removal. I ended up precariously "parking"
| the car in drive near my house with a combination of gravity
| and a snow bank. I set the ramps up, crossing my fingers that
| they were spaced correctly and that I would succeed in
| getting on them on the first try. It all worked out, and when
| I finally turned the car off, I felt pretty intellectually
| victorious.
| kstrauser wrote:
| I love it.
|
| On the plus side, I learned so much about how cars work that
| I can fix a lot of things now. My personal peak was going
| from "uh-oh, the alternator on the Oldsmobile died" to having
| replaced it with a new one from the store in 43 minutes.
| bombcar wrote:
| Old cars had an accessible amount of "troubleshooting"
| available which greatly helps learn tinkering skills.
|
| New cars are substantially more reliable, but that same
| troubleshooting can be helpful but somewhat harder to learn
| I feel.
| js2 wrote:
| Troubleshooting is a lot harder for a variety of reasons.
| Things are hidden away under plastic panels, the vehicles
| have a lot more electronics, and everything is fit into
| much tighter spaces.
|
| Still, between YouTube and enthusiast forums dedicated to
| whatever model car it is, you can usually do a lot.
| Typically if something goes wrong on your car, the same
| thing has gone wrong to a lot of other folks with the
| same car and someone has posted about it.
|
| If you're handy enough and have the right tools, an
| official manufacturer shop repair manual is what you
| really want. (Chilton is better than nothing, but you
| really want the manufacturer repair manual.)
|
| But... some things are just a pain in the ass w/o a lift
| and the right tools. Find a good independent mechanic for
| older cars (easier said than done) or just take it to the
| local dealer for cars still under warranty.
| bombcar wrote:
| Half the troubleshooting is being able to recognize and
| describe the problem in such a way that you can search
| for the solution. Knowing what "sluggish acceleration" is
| vs "RPM limited at 3k" vs "cold-start no power" is half
| the battle.
|
| YouTube _is_ substantially better than the old Chilton
| manuals and arguably some better than the manufacturer
| repair manuals (many of which assume you have an entire
| dealer shop 's worth of tools). A number of videos (and
| even some of the Chilton manuals) will have variations on
| the process that either avoid the specialized tool (at
| perhaps a bit longer of a process) or a workaround that
| greatly simplifies the process.
| kstrauser wrote:
| My dad had a good collection of tools, and I bought a
| Chilton's manual from the shop. Between the two of them,
| I basically had a years-long shop class with illustrated
| instructions on doing basically any repair to a car. It
| was a great way to learn some engineering skills, too:
| once you learned how a part was meant to work, you could
| better reason about how to repair or replace it. Jalopy
| though it was, I loved learning how to fix it.
|
| That said, although the barrier to learning is much
| higher now, I appreciate that our Toyota never needs any
| repairs of any kind. It just boringly starts and drives,
| every day, in all conditions.
| js2 wrote:
| Hah, 68 Camaro here[1]. I had the clutch linkage fail on me
| once in Miami Beach and managed to drive it all the way home to
| South Miami w/o the clutch. My recollection was that I had to
| push start it and managed to time all the traffic lights home
| so I never came to a full stop.
|
| I can't believe you managed to do that for a month.
|
| 1. https://ibb.co/CMW3SdS (I sold it over a decade ago.)
| kstrauser wrote:
| I was broke! That was my only option, so I did what I had to
| do. I lived in a much smaller city than you, though, so I
| didn't have nearly the traffic to contend with.
|
| Dopey young me with the car: https://imgur.com/a/hbRLpO2
| roydivision wrote:
| Wonderful piece of writing, thanks Norman Garrett.
| mdoms wrote:
| Hagerty is about the only automotive journalism left that's worth
| reading and I am so grateful they are still around (and still
| improving at a clip). I you have even a cursory interest in cars
| their Youtube channel is excellent. Jason Cammisa joined then
| Hagerty team last year and is now producing the absolute best car
| content on the web.
|
| I doubt anyone from Hagerty is reading this but genuinely thank
| you for making the car content you do. Automotive journalism
| sometimes feels like a dying industry but you give me hope.
| incanus77 wrote:
| I drive/maintain/am tortured by a 1985 VW Vanagon and so much of
| this rings true. The variety of tricks, quirks, smells, sounds,
| and special tools/rags/spots to hit just right to sustain a trip
| down the road are surprisingly similar.
| everybodyknows wrote:
| > The dual Webers don't have chokes and you'll be squirting fuel
| down the barrels with the accelerator pumps for the necessary
| priming regime.
|
| The engineering Puritan will want to know that the Webers are a
| retrofit, a hack for escape from the factory's refractory -- but
| cutting edge tech in the 70s! -- VW electronic fuel injection.
| The EFI "brain" was a box the size of a small modern laptop,
| stuffed with individual transistors, inductors, capacitors and
| resistors.
|
| No one in North America, it seemed, had any idea how to diagnose
| an internal fault. The owner's options were to buy a secondhand
| brain taken from a junked car, presumably there for some other
| reason, or the Webers. Junkyard brains were refundable, but the
| several hours installing, testing, and possibly uninstalling were
| not, so careful deliberation was in order.
|
| Access to the brain, like most engine compartment work on the
| 914, demanded the sort of agility, strength, and determination
| required of large-animal veterinarians, with access for most
| tasks from underneath, wedged as it was in a sort of triangular
| gap below and behind the seats and ahead of the rear trunk and
| transmission.
| StillBored wrote:
| I think EFI overstates it a bit, while I guess true compared
| with the mechanical fuel injection, it was an entirely analog
| system.
|
| https://bowlsby.net/914/Classic/zTN_Man06.pdf
| winrid wrote:
| I had to diagnose an issue with said brain on a car from 1982.
|
| Previous owners could not figure out the issue. The car's
| engine would rev "bounce" at idle like it had a big cam, but it
| didn't go away when driving, making driving not very fun. So I
| got the Scirocco for dirt cheap.
|
| I realized on day that if you opened and closed the hood a
| couple times, the issue would fix it self, and it was very
| repeatable.
|
| I realized the computer is mounted next to the hood hinge!
|
| I got lucky and just blindly resoldering all the joints in the
| computer fixed it.
|
| We later swapped that 400k mile motor setup to a modern turbo
| motor with a sequential gearbox, and it's a rally car now. :)
|
| (not super important to story but the "ECU" from 1982 was a bit
| more modern, Jetronic as it was called was "only" roughly the
| size of a few old TI-82s).
| drewzero1 wrote:
| I love the K-Jetronic mechanical injection system in my '83
| SAAB -- only because I've never had to mess with it very
| much. Plus, unlike a lot of the more obscure things on that
| car, the K-Jet system was also used on VWs, Porsches, and
| Mercedes, so there's a lot of info out there.
|
| A lot of this article rings true for cars I've had (and some
| I still have) but I tend toward cars that are simpler
| mechanically and tend to fail more fundamentally: the keys
| all lock fine but the suspension mounts all rust out. This
| year has been an exercise in chasing leaks (gas, brake fluid,
| coolant, and now ATF) between my two daily classics. All I
| need is power steering fluid and I can complete the whole
| set!
| adingus wrote:
| The VW EFI actually works really well when it works! Late 70s
| VW buses and bugs are some of the nicest to drive around in
| because of the EFI.
| HeyLaughingBoy wrote:
| > starter is too weak to crank the clutch-transmission input
| shaft assembly with any success
|
| [giggle] This reminds me of putting my Toyota 4x4 (Hilux) in
| 4-Low, First gear, pressing the Clutch Start Cancel switch and
| turning the ignition key, making it an electric vehicle for a few
| seconds. The starter was powerful enough to move the truck uphill
| in that gear on its own until the engine started.
| cameronh90 wrote:
| This story reminded me of the time I was trying to exploit a web
| app as part of a bounty programme.
|
| Unfortunately the application was so unstable that any attempts
| to SQLI, or really send any kind of malformed request would
| simply crash the entire site for hours, presumably until an admin
| came and restarted the server. DoS wasn't included in the
| programme so I never won a bounty. I'm sure it could have been
| exploited, but it was simply so rickety and shoddy that I
| couldn't figure out how.
|
| Security through instability?
| JasonFruit wrote:
| The application denies access to intruders by successfully
| ceasing to function.
| remram wrote:
| I feel like there's an analogue to the CAP theorem for code,
| where you can have an un-exploitable application if you don't
| need it to keep running in the presence of unusual requests.
|
| Secure, Available, Unattended, choose any 2? You can have a
| secure&available app but you need to keep patching it. You can
| have an available&unattended app but it won't be secure. Or you
| can have a secure&unattended app, it will just need to crash a
| lot.
| hinkley wrote:
| Available and Unattended are the same thing. The third value
| is 'Cheap'.
|
| You want unattended servers? Fine. You want someone not to be
| able to steal the keys from a backup? We can do that too. You
| want the servers to be able to restart at 2 am without
| getting someone out of bed to come type a passphrase into a
| console on each server?
|
| HSMs were quite expensive. People made any number of attempts
| to make them cheap and found out why they aren't (Ari Shamir
| has entered the chat), often a Too Good to be True scenario.
| Sohcahtoa82 wrote:
| At a previous job, I had to do a penetration test on a
| platform, and I had the same thing. Any SQL errors would just
| crash the back end entirely and I'd have to wait for them to
| bring it back up manually, which could take a long time since I
| was on the US West coast and they were based in the UK.
|
| Among all the other security issues they had (easily gained a
| root shell via template injection, multiple XSS issues, CSRF,
| basically everything in the OWASP Top 10), to call their
| security posture Swiss cheese would be an understatement.
|
| A couple months after my test, the entire project was scrapped.
| [deleted]
| jiggawatts wrote:
| I once took out the internal telephony network of a large
| bank's head office through simply scanning the network for
| devices. They weren't tracking IP addresses (or anything) in
| any form of database or even a spreadsheet, and I was tasked
| with finding and updating every device on a particular network.
| I used nmap and simply did a subnet scan to find anything that
| would respond on common ports.
|
| It all went down in a heap and I felt very guilty for a few
| minutes until I realised that this infrastructure was so
| fantastically unstable that a TCP half-open (just a SYN
| packet!) could kill it stone dead. That's not _my_ fault.
|
| You can't blame the postman if knocking on the front door
| demolishes your building.
| DonHopkins wrote:
| Reminds me of the time at Sun when I tried to use XBugTool to
| report a bug against itself, and it got extremely angry at me,
| and trapped my input focus in the bug description text editor,
| where I vented my frustration.
|
| http://www.art.net/~hopkins/Don/unix-haters/x-windows/xbugto...
| atarian wrote:
| The ending was great. Impressive that a thief actually got that
| far.
| DocG wrote:
| Not loading to me anymore
| https://web.archive.org/web/20220401144722/https://www.hager...
| eyelidlessness wrote:
| I think my 87 Jetta (purchased in 2002, died and abandoned
| 2000ish miles or so moving 3000 miles US coast to coast) very
| closely resembled these remarks. Of course no one wanted to steal
| it. But I appreciate the author's portrayal! And it was a really
| fun weird way to feel like I've owned a Porsche!
| aplkorex wrote:
| THANK YOU for this! It's been a while since I've laughed out loud
| while reading an article on the web. As an owner of an ancient
| Land Rover, I feel this, physically.
|
| Excellent writing.
| AdrianB1 wrote:
| 20 years ago I lived in an area considered not very safe; the guy
| in the apartment below was a cop and thieves broke into his car
| twice and in his house once. I had an older car, so I always left
| it unlocked, including the trunk: no problem. I also had a
| motorcycle that I left with the key in the ignition a few times,
| so various neighbors brought me the key a few times until they
| learned to leave it there. These were probably the only vehicles
| in the entire block of flats that were not touched by thieves -
| maybe they checked the trunk of the car a few times, found
| nothing interesting and left. The car was not worth stealing, the
| bike was not easy to ride.
| gkoberger wrote:
| 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.
| oh_sigh wrote:
| No one mentioned yet I think, but it makes sense he has this
| deep passion about a car. From his bio:
|
| > Norman Garrett was the Concept Engineer for the original
| Miata back in his days at Mazda's Southern California Design
| Studio
| theluketaylor wrote:
| 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 sledgehammering
| it home.
|
| The fact this essay works for someone with limited domain
| knowledge and someone with lots is a testament to the quality
| of writing.
| rcrestomods wrote:
| Easily my favorite essay of the year. Unique, informative and
| casual in the way sitting around a table listening to an
| engaging guest tell tales and the visualization works
| immediately. Count me among the fans of this piece and
| author.
| KennyBlanken wrote:
| On the actual flip side, there are plenty of people who
| properly maintain vintage sports cars instead of just talking
| about how much they know about them.
|
| I get that door handles and lock cylinders are often made of
| easily-broken pot metal, but most owner communities have
| figured out solutions, or just live a little and recognize
| that a locksmith can easily get you into almost any vintage
| car if necessary.
|
| The starting problems mean your engine is poorly
| tuned/maintained, battery issues are bad wiring or
| undiagnosed parasitic drain (or just buy a battery
| maintainer, dude), and thinking "my first gear syncro is worn
| or my shift linkage isn't properly adjusted, I should mash
| the shit out of it" are purely owner error / strongly
| counter-indicate "I know a ton about cars."
| fhood wrote:
| Hahaha, even on old muscle cars with good parts
| availability, and only 4 moving parts in the first place,
| something is virtually always broken. Keeping a german car
| of this era functioning is a sisyphean task.
| hef19898 wrote:
| Never fully broken, never fully repaired.
| The-Bus wrote:
| I think a faculty at a Motorsports Engineering School
| probably knows how to maintain vintage sports cars. Just
| because they own the car does not mean they need to
| maintain it.
|
| This is also a humor article.
| kelnos wrote:
| I think this guy's bona-fides are pretty solid, though:
|
| > _Norman Garrett was the Concept Engineer for the original
| Miata back in his days at Mazda's Southern California
| Design Studio. He currently teaches automotive engineering
| classes at UNC-C's Motorsports Engineering Department in
| Charlotte, North Carolina and curates his small collection
| of dysfunctional automobiles and motorcycles._
|
| I imagine some of this was written tongue-in-cheek: the
| problems are probably not as bad as described, and/or the
| problems are things that have been wrong with the car at
| some point, but have mostly been fixed, and he's writing
| about it as if all the problems exist at once for
| entertainment value.
|
| Or it's all true as it is, and that's just life, because
| people don't always have 100 spare hours to fix all the
| problems present on a car of that age. Maybe you do (how
| lucky for you!), but it's a bit uncharitable to throw shade
| at someone else.
| S_A_P wrote:
| I agree. I imagine a lot of this is hyperbole rooted in
| truth. As I have gotten older and had more of an interest
| in doing my own wrenching I realize half the battle is
| having the right tools for the job. In most cases that
| means a good way to lift your vehicle (would love a real
| lift in my garage) and the appropriate tools to remove or
| reinstall various items in the car. Having this can mean
| the difference between a nightmare or relatively easy
| job. Of course all bets are off if you live where they
| salt roads in the winter.
|
| Edit. Also not being afraid to remove any and all panels
| required to access something also helps tremendously. So
| If you own an Audi be prepared to remove the front clip
| of the car. Google Audi service position for the hairy
| details.
| ethbr0 wrote:
| And having a second, drivable car. ;)
|
| But I think hobbyist vintage wrenching shares a lot with
| software feature design: you _could_ do anything, but the
| real objective is to maximize fun-per-time-spent.
| Otherwise, you 're working another full time job as a
| professional mechanic for your cars.
|
| And besides, there's something elegant about getting a
| rat rod to work. :-)
| NickRandom wrote:
| From the end of the article ..
|
| _Norman Garrett was the Concept Engineer for the original
| Miata back in his days at Mazda's Southern California
| Design Studio. He currently teaches automotive engineering
| classes at UNC-C's Motorsports Engineering Department in
| Charlotte, North Carolina and curates his small collection
| of dysfunctional automobiles and motorcycles._
|
| I'm fairly certain that he knows how to 'fix stuff'
| theluketaylor wrote:
| The locks are stupidly expensive, like $1000 a door. I'd
| rather just not lock it. The starting issues are due to the
| carb needing a rebuild. It's on my list, but there are
| bigger fish to fry. The battery is due to it being a former
| race car with a tiny, super light battery. It's only
| designed to crank the engine a few times before it's dead
| to save weight. 1st gear in non-syncro, so it's for sure
| not that. It's likely the linkage, but that's a big job and
| won't be worth doing for a few years along with a few other
| things at the same time.
|
| It's a cheap vintage car that isn't worth spending any real
| money on. I could pour $40,000 into getting into concours
| shape, but it would only add 2-3 grand worth of value.
| Instead I drive and enjoy it.
| hef19898 wrote:
| Good to see there other vintage cars, dare I say, lovers
| out there that see things that way. Mine is a 1982 Range
| Rover, bought like almost 4 years ago before people
| started to ask absurd prices for those.
|
| It's leaking oil from the oil cooler thermostat, the
| gearbox and started a while ago leaking from the
| transmission break. Oh, and the rear diff pinion is
| leaking, too. The 3.5 l V8, basically a Buick 215
| allumium small block running on dual carbs, needs some
| gentle treatment before firing up. It usually does, a
| slight carb rebuild and calibrating really helped. The
| gearbox is more suited to a tractor and has all of four
| gears. The rear windows don't work and the upper tailgate
| doesn't close on its lock but uses two outside locks on
| each side.
|
| It is rust free so, noise levels are acceptable below 110
| km/h and she's a beast off road. Yes, I drive her in the
| intended environment, regularly.
|
| I have hopes to get her finally done in the next 1, 2
| years. And I love this rolling restauration thing. Only
| was close to selling her once, until I figured out I
| reassembled the choke wrong and drove fuel consumption up
| to 30 l per 100 km.
| tuatoru wrote:
| > 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, in the proterozoic.
|
| 1. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Double_clutch_(technique)
| vasco wrote:
| 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.
| Semaphor wrote:
| > I have absolutely no clue what this person is talking about
| and have no interest in cars, yet I read every single word.
|
| I was about to write more or less the same thing. I can barely
| drive and never owned a car, but this article was beautiful.
| skeeter2020 wrote:
| If you love this style and want something intentionally
| ridiculous check out the various writings at
| https://www.mcsweeneys.net/
| cpfohl wrote:
| This also reminded me of this delightful piece of writing:
| https://forums.anandtech.com/threads/why-the-police-dont-
| pat...
|
| I can't find the original, but the copy there is exactly what
| I remembered.
| hallway_monitor wrote:
| That was some of the best storytelling I have ever read.
| Wow.
| cpfohl wrote:
| Reading this out loud is incredibly difficult. Discovered
| it in my Sophomore year of College, and it took my two
| roommates and I about 45 minutes to read through the
| whole thing out loud because we were laughing so hard.
| emilsedgh wrote:
| Haven't had such a laugh for a while. Thanks!
| chernevik wrote:
| "'It's just a bunny', they all say" -- Tim the Wizard
| rootsudo wrote:
| 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. ;)
| robohoe wrote:
| Rennlist is huge in Porsche world.
| technothrasher wrote:
| This is all true, but one needs to be aware that these forums
| are also chock full of "forum folklore". You'll get all kinds
| of advice and lecturing which is driven by what has been
| posted before rather than what matches reality.
|
| Mixing DOT-5 brake fluid with DOT-3/4 is always a fun one.
| Folklore is that it will poison children and kill puppies.
| Reality is that they are, by law, compatible and mixing won't
| do anything more than create a fluid with unknown boiling
| points, but this is true of mixing any two brake fluids (and
| it is true DOT-5 is not compatible with ABS brake systems,
| but that's a separate point).
|
| Pretty much anything to do with turbos is another fun one, as
| many folks have no idea how turbos work but have lots of
| opinions on tuning them.
|
| Anyway, the point is that the comradery is great on these
| forums, they're a lot of fun, and you can find good info, but
| don't take any info on them as gospel.
| hef19898 wrote:
| Getting the proper workshop manuals really helps!
| throwaway0a5e wrote:
| Depth of knowledge is impossible to assess for anyone that
| doesn't have similar depth in the same subject matter.
|
| The author could be bullshitting (he's not) but how would
| anyone who's not driven vehicles that are decades beyond their
| design life know?
| travisjungroth wrote:
| > but how would anyone who's not driven vehicles that are
| decades beyond their design life know?
|
| By trusting someone who has. Either trust a specific person
| or believe there is someone in the crowd who would say
| something.
| Johnny555 wrote:
| _how would anyone who 's not driven vehicles that are decades
| beyond their design life know_
|
| I think you just need to have driven a car from that era to
| understand this post and believe it -- the car doesn't
| neccessarily need to be that old. I had a '77 Civic in 1982
| and it had many of these same "features" as his Porsche - any
| key (or screwdriver) could open the door or turn the
| ignition, it had a manual choke lever installed because the
| automatic choke didn't work, there was an art to pumping the
| gas pedal before starting in cold weather (there was a fine
| line between being able to start and flooding it), there was
| no clutch interlock (or it was broken) to prevent starting
| the car in gear, and a bunch of other quirks similar to his.
|
| And it was only 5 years old.
|
| edit: And the oil use! I'd forgotten about that until reading
| his post, I used to carry a few jugs of oil in the trunk
| since the car was using almost a quart per fillup, and many
| gas stations kept a display case of oil out by the pumps so
| you could easily buy a quart if you needed it. My current 7
| year old car doesn't use any noticeable amount of oil between
| ~8000 mile oil changes.
| pwg wrote:
| > I think you just need to have driven a car from that era
| to understand this post and believe it
|
| Yes, indeed. My first car when I turned 16 was a well
| beaten 1971 Cadillac that had it's share of rust and the
| like. The author's description of the gas pedal ballet for
| starting his 914 reminded me of a similar situation with
| that old Cadillac. For a cold start, all was normal, pump
| once to set choke and start.
|
| But, for a warm start, one had to hold the pedal down /just
| the right amount off idle/ or else it would not start up
| for most attempts. And of course for a semi-warm start
| there was a decision process of "is it cold enough to need
| the choke, or warm enough to only need the "slightly off
| idle" setting". One got a "feel" for just what to do after
| a bit of time with it and it became no-big-deal, but for
| anyone new, the whole ballet would have been a very
| frustrating experience.
|
| When it finally was retired and I upgraded to a car with a
| fuel injected engine, and no need to touch the gas pedal
| for any start, hot, cold or warm, a whole era of "being in
| tune with the car" disappeared.
| wingspar wrote:
| No clutch interlock can be useful. Had a friend growing up
| who's dad would use the starter and first gear to move his
| Datsun out of traffic when it stopped running.
| hyperdimension wrote:
| He might have been the first to convert a Datsun to
| electric!
| a4isms wrote:
| I don't disagree with you, but I'm not sure I worry about it.
|
| The article is presented as a letter to a car thief, a
| preposterous proposition right up front. It is not presented
| as a repair guide or an "evaluate whether a 914 is worth
| buying" guide, so it's really only of interest for
| entertainment and nostalgia purposes.
|
| There's literally zero chance I'll ever be in a conversation
| with someone and say aloud "Oh, Porsche owners call this
| Neverland," and have to worry about someone interrupting me
| with, "BS, I belong to a Porsche club and have never heard
| this nickname."
| gkoberger wrote:
| In this context (a fun blog post), I disagree. I find it to
| be incredibly clear when someone is playing in a world they
| truly understand and love.
|
| Not to say one can't be hoodwinked from time to time,
| naturally, but for me it's not the "facts" that ring true.
| It's the joy and humor and love that is hard to fake.
| Wowfunhappy wrote:
| A really good author could probably make this up. Some
| types of writing require that ability. Imagine you're
| writing about a fantasy world where everyone drives giant
| Bloops instead of cars. You might have a few chapters
| written from the perspective of a master Bloop mechanic.
| She's been fixing Bloops for as long as she can remember;
| she considers it her life's calling and she loves every
| moment of her work. The author needs to communicate that to
| the reader in a believable way.
|
| But if you're not writing speculative fiction, what would
| be the point? It's probably harder than writing about
| something you know!
| pwg wrote:
| > A really good author could probably make this up
|
| True, but what /really/ makes the humor in this article,
| when one has the domain knowledge to understand the
| technical details, is that every single technical humor
| bit is true and accurate, and brings back similar
| memories of similar ballets with similar vehicles from
| years ago.
| Wowfunhappy wrote:
| _Absolutely,_ , but in order to discern that, the reader
| needs to have some technical knowledge themselves.
|
| Ergo, I think what throwaway0a5e said above has a lot of
| merit, even if I wouldn't have stated it in in such
| absolutest terms:
|
| > Depth of knowledge is impossible to assess for anyone
| that doesn't have similar depth in the same subject
| matter.
| abstrakraft wrote:
| This sounds like most of the aside conversations between
| author and reader in Douglas Adams' writing.
| munchler wrote:
| Being able to bullshit entertainingly at this level of detail
| is an even greater talent. See Douglas Adams, for example.
| linksnapzz wrote:
| Oh this is lovely. As someone who has spent time inside a
| Karmann-Ghia convertible, I can smell the burning oil now....
| lastofthemojito wrote:
| Smell is the thing that gets me a lot of the time with classic
| cars too.
|
| I appreciate the design from another era - mechanical
| simplicity from when folks weren't concerned about maximizing
| efficiency, thin window frames and door pillars that would fare
| embarrassingly in a modern crash test, etc. Sure, it doesn't
| fit the standards of today, but that's why these older cars are
| so different - they're literally from a different era.
|
| Occasionally I'll go down an Internet rabbithole and imagine
| buying a 60s muscle car or series Land Rover or what have you.
| But then I'll be near a decades-old machine on the street and
| be overwhelmed by the smell of the exhaust. I think I must be
| more sensitive to it than others, but that mostly kills that
| idea for me. I guess I could try swapping in a modern,
| emissions-controlled drivetrain but that's a whole 'nother yak
| to shave.
| denimboy wrote:
| > Smell is the thing that gets me a lot of the time with
| classic cars too.
|
| I had a 1972 Triumph Bonneville which had a "tickler" button
| on each carb instead of a choke. That meant to start it up
| you would press each tickler button until a bit of gas shot
| out invariably on your hand but also the engine and the
| sometimes hot exhaust. Only after this ritual was performed
| could you jump on the kickstart (no electric start). So you
| end up smelling like gas.
|
| Q: Why to the British drink warm beer? A: Because Lucas makes
| electrics.
| CRConrad wrote:
| > mechanical simplicity from when folks weren't concerned
| about maximizing efficiency, thin window frames and door
| pillars that would fare embarrassingly in a modern crash
| test, etc.
|
| Immensely better for visibility, though. Which was actually a
| plus for safety compared to now, when a pedestrian can well
| be entirely hidden by your own windscreen pillar.
| chiefgeek wrote:
| Great article. My first car was a 1966 MG Midget (with a '71
| engine). Gas gauge never worked. Voltage regulator broke at some
| point so it had to be push started (no hills in Florida made this
| more fun) and the first winter I had it I kept waking up with a
| headache. Finally traced it to a cracked exhaust manifold. First
| time I had driven around with the top up and I was getting gassed
| by CO. When the transmission failed, my buddy and I pulled the
| engine with an aluminum extension ladder (you couldn't just drop
| the tranny due to a frame piece across the trans tunnel). Had the
| tranny rebuilt, put it back together (with an engine lift) and it
| turned out they hadn't done it correctly. Rinse repeat....
| MauranKilom wrote:
| Today I learned that the literal "giving up the ghost"
| translation of the German "den Geist aufgeben" is correct, even
| though it just screams "false friend". Huh!
| cjrp wrote:
| It's funny how much the starting procedure reminds me of a
| fairly-modern Cessna 172. If it ain't broke...
| rmk wrote:
| 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 :)
| eek2121 wrote:
| FYI his car was stolen last week. Successfully I might add*.
| Bud wrote:
| Hilarious, and also such a fun tour of the quirks of this old
| car.
| nixass wrote:
| Car being manual is good protection measure in the USA
| JPKab wrote:
| The car has a manual transmission.
|
| The odds of a car thief in 2022 in a modern American city being
| old enough to be in the age cohort that knows how to drive stick
| are minimal.
| zw123456 wrote:
| This reminds me of back when I was at Bell Labs back in the
| 1980's and there was a "user manual" of how to crash the Unix OS
| on the PDP11's in our lab. The idea being if you just tell people
| how to do it they won't try to show how clever they were by doing
| it. Also, it was a warning what not to do, but it also
| discouraged anyone from thinking they found a new flaw or
| whatever.
| schmichael wrote:
| > Do not become emboldened by your progress
|
| I am eagerly awaiting the opportunity to stick this into docs or
| a tutorial someday. What a brilliant line that really captures
| that thrill of a newcomer to a problem feeling like they've
| accomplished something only to find the worst is yet to come.
| JBiserkov wrote:
| "We use cookies to personalize your experience, to provide social
| media features and to analyze our traffic. We also share
| information about your use of our site with our social media,
| advertising and analytics partners."
|
| This was the only text that was visible below the title and
| author byline.
| jmkni wrote:
| This was a really pleasant read, bravo!
| ninly wrote:
| Got it. Now, where is the car?
| avgcorrection wrote:
| This is an ad for "Insurance for people who love cars" (Hagerty).
| mdoms wrote:
| No, this is automotive journalism from a company that also
| sells automotive insurance. They are an excellent automotive
| journalism outfit. If you had any actual interest in cars you
| would know this. If you don't - maybe move on and read
| something else.
| avgcorrection wrote:
| Am I not allowed to read a piece on something which I am not
| sufficiently interested in? Like I guess many others, the
| "how to steal my car" (implying that it would be arduous)
| piqued my interest. Even though I am not interested in cars.
| mdoms wrote:
| You can read anything you want, but you left an ignorant
| comment.
| RavingGoat wrote:
| I think they make more from their YouTube content. I honestly
| had no idea they sold insurance before today but I love their
| YouTube videos.
| dghughes wrote:
| I like the 914 it's much nicer than the 924 since the 914 is a
| boxer the 924 a inline 4. A Dino Ferrari would another good
| choice small displacement short stroke V6s are sexy.
| nilsbunger wrote:
| The article and the picture at the bottom exude that this guy is
| doing exactly what he loves.
| BubbleRings wrote:
| Great writing. Makes me want to revisit Hitchhikers Guide.
| bluetomcat wrote:
| Almost any 30+ year-old vehicle is full of these special quirks
| requiring special "rituals". The annoying thing is that they are
| hard to fix and often require rare parts which are not easily
| available.
|
| I have a '95 Rover 216 Coupe which is mechanically very solid
| (Honda engine and running gear) and very well maintained, but the
| rest of the car is full of quirks caused by age deterioration.
| The numerous "rituals" include things like never closing your
| frameless door with the window down (a nasty cracking sound
| follows), manually pulling the tooth of the release latch before
| closing the boot, care when washing it so not to let water enter
| the spare wheel area permanently and cause rust, etc.
| mdoms wrote:
| I have a '88 Ford Falcon ute which is mercifully easy to fix
| and parts are plentiful. I absolutely recommend old cars to
| everyone, as mentioned elsewhere in this thread they build
| character. But I mostly recommend the ones with lots of parts.
| Not just factory but cars that had a strong aftermarket in
| their day.
| bsder wrote:
| > I absolutely recommend old cars to everyone, as mentioned
| elsewhere in this thread they build character.
|
| I don't think I hate another human enough to wish diagnosing
| an intermittent ground problem that only occured when the
| temperature fell below 30F on them.
|
| Character it may build, but even to this day I would trade
| that character for fewer knuckle scars and fewer hours with
| numb hands from the cold.
|
| I'll take my modern car that lasts until some idiot hits me
| and totals it.
| rackjack wrote:
| This is a very funny article and the reveal that people have
| actually tried to steal the car was a perfect closer.
| gedy wrote:
| My brother had one of these about 20 years ago, and he eventually
| sold to a guy from other side of town. One day a few months later
| the car comes pulling into his front yard at high speed and does
| a spin out. The guy happened to be driving past and a front
| control arm snapped off due to rust, and he couldn't control the
| steering.
| [deleted]
| alkaloid wrote:
| This makes me miss my 1971 VW Van. Learning to navigate the
| front-to-back, 3-meter-long transmission linkage made it to where
| I can drive literally any standard transmission vehicle on the
| planet. Well done!
| mberning wrote:
| A pathological obsession with objectively terrible machines seems
| to be a very common character trait.
| sbisson wrote:
| Reminds me of my first car, a Mini Clubman estate with the fake
| woody panels on the side. The only thing you needed to know was
| that it had been re-engined with a hill-climb tuned Cooper S
| engine. Great on an island with a 40mph speed limit and too many
| rich folk with Ferraris and the like, as it could out accelerate
| them anywhere on the island. Sure it wouldn't go faster than 50,
| but that was fine as it got to that speed almost instantaneously.
| kQq9oHeAz6wLLS wrote:
| My friend in high school had a Mercury Capri like that. Dad was
| a drag racer, so that thing could beat anything up to 75mph.
| Then it'd rattle itself to bits.
|
| Left my MGB in the dust, of course
| cameronh90 wrote:
| > island with a 40mph speed limit
|
| Does it begin with J and end with Y? (I'm a London-based bean!)
| kingcharles wrote:
| Yowch. I thought that limit was only for the other Channel
| Islands. At least in say, the Isle of Man, you can get it
| nicely into triple digits on a regular basis.
| cenazoic wrote:
| All I could think about was how I should write something similar
| about my belovedly-wretched 1979 MGB.
|
| Lucas, the manufacturer of many MG parts, colloquially known as
| 'the Prince of Darkness' because of a tendency for the lights to
| suddenly stop working.
|
| The tell-tale crimp in many trunk lids, caused by attempting to
| shut it without disengaging the little rod that kept it open.
|
| Don't bother locking the doors if you don't want the expensive
| convertible top sliced through.
|
| The battery is behind the passenger seat.
|
| Having the reverse gear go out leads to an interesting
| perspective change while parking/driving.
|
| I ended up going to votech in auto mechanics because of this car,
| because I got so irritated about getting ripped off.
|
| Ah well, I love the damn thing. Even now, 10 years after I sold
| it.
| technothrasher wrote:
| You forgot the points based fuel pump that needs a bang or two
| with a mallet occasionally to keep running. Not that I will
| ever admit to owning an MG (or four) since I'm a Triumph guy at
| heart.
| dugmartin wrote:
| I wrote in another comment about my 1978 MGB. You missed a few
| more fun parts (they might have just been for my model year
| though):
|
| 1. The "springs" under the seats were bent wood slats (my dad
| and I put in new carpeting and found that one out when we
| removed the seats).
|
| 2. The heater was literally sliding a door to the engine way
| down the foot well. I remember several winter top down drives
| in the Midwest where my face and hands were frozen but my legs
| felt like they were being branded.
|
| 3. The manual choke.
|
| 4. The small cascade of water in your face when you drove in
| the rain and took a corner.
|
| 5. The electric 5th that seemed to break every few months.
|
| All good memories though.
| aspyct wrote:
| Oh that's a good read. Thanks for sharing :)
| paulpauper wrote:
| Just put it on a flatbed lol
| Damogran6 wrote:
| 1970 olds cutlass: Stomp, hold at 15%, crank...then stab
| repeatedly until it can clear itself out and maintin an idle.
| Good for -20 to 95 F.
|
| 1966 Fleetwood 75 - If it's sat for more than three weeks: Stab
| to set choke. Crank, pausing every 10 seconds...it's got a LONG
| way to pump the fuel and you don't want to overheat the starter.
| Car will then, if driven weekly, start on the first half of the
| first crank every time. Battery has gone 14 months without a
| tender or external charge and continues to start the car just
| fine.
| Terry_Roll wrote:
| Well if he needs help with his 914 and can ship it to Europe, Von
| Schmidt have done a really nice job with this one
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dzVr4cpNC58 www.schmidt-
| oss.com/von-schmidt-eng/
|
| Even electric motor conversions in older cars are coming along as
| seen here https://youtu.be/qpcSF1kRcFY?t=55
| ChuckMcM wrote:
| Ah yes, the much maligned (legitimately!) Porsche 914. In high
| school a friend of mine "scored" one of these "for a steal" from
| a used car dealer. It managed to wear out the enthusiasm of even
| a testosterone fueled high school car enthusiast! He sold it his
| senior year, for not quite as much as he paid for it, and had
| invested probably $8,000 in various repairs and improvements over
| the two years he owned it. Quite the legacy.
| Animats wrote:
| A friend of mine still has a Porsche 914, in a barn in Northern
| California. It hasn't moved in years. Her son, who was really
| into cars, once wanted to restore it. He's now an design engineer
| with Toyota and has more old vehicles than he needs, including a
| 1958 Ford Fairlane Skyliner with the roof that disassembles and
| stores itself in the trunk.
|
| If someone really wants to buy the old Porsche, send me a
| message.
| mywittyname wrote:
| The joys of classic car ownership.
| fabioborellini wrote:
| So, apparently there is no mandatory vehicle inspection in the
| US. Of course there isn't, it would violate the freedom to drive
| with an unroadworthy car.
| throwaway0a5e wrote:
| When it comes to bad things that happen on the road mechanical
| condition is a rounding error compared to things people knew
| were risky and did anyway. I see no reason we should invest
| more than a token amount of societal effort chasing the long
| tail like that.
|
| The fact that you start your comment with "in the US" when
| anyone even slightly familiar with the place knows that pretty
| much everything about it is a state by state deal is a massive
| red flag for a comment that serves no purpose but to convert
| pearl clutching into internet virtue points. The fact that you
| end your comment with a back handed quip deriding some imagined
| notion of freedom more or less confirms it.
| js2 wrote:
| Yes there is, it varies by state. Author is in NC, same as me.
| There is a state-wide safety inspection but vehicles older than
| 30 years are exempt:
|
| https://www.ncdot.gov/dmv/title-registration/emissions-safet...
|
| There's also an emissions inspection that varies by county, but
| vehicles older than 20 years are exempt.
|
| https://www.ncdot.gov/dmv/title-registration/emissions-safet...
|
| Does it make any sense to exempt older vehicles that are most
| likely to fail these inspections? No, of course it doesn't.
|
| New vehicles within the most recent 3 model years are also
| exempt.
| throwaway0a5e wrote:
| Beyond 30yr the people driving them are doing it for fun and
| aren't going to generally be running bald tires down the
| highway in the rain and when they do they are doing it full
| well knowing that they have to be super careful. Basically
| they know what they're getting into and don't need the state
| to tell them why working lights are good and brake pads
| shouldn't make metal noises.
| FDSGSG wrote:
| > Author is in NC, same as me
|
| This hardly matters though because you don't need to register
| the vehicle in the state you're living in.
| js2 wrote:
| Every state I have lived in requires you to register the
| vehicle in that state:
|
| NC: Within 60 days of establishing a permanent residence in
| North Carolina, new residents who plan to operate a motor
| vehicle must get a North Carolina driver license and title
| and register their vehicles with the N.C. Division of Motor
| Vehicles.
|
| https://www.ncdot.gov/dmv/help/moving/Pages/new-
| residents.as...
|
| GA: If you own or lease a vehicle in Georgia, you must
| register it with the state. [...] New residents should
| register their vehicle no more than 30 days from the date
| they move to Georgia.
|
| https://georgia.gov/register-vehicle
|
| FL: When you move to Florida and become a resident you have
| 10 days to register your out of state vehicle.
|
| https://www.dmvflorida.org/vehicles/out-of-state-car-
| registr...
|
| CA: Once you officially establish residency in California,
| you will have 20 days to register your vehicle with the DMV
| to avoid late fees.
|
| https://frontdoor.ucdavis.edu/relocation/car
| FDSGSG wrote:
| The trick is to have your vehicles belong to a LLC,
| Montana is/was popular.
|
| Might be illegal in some cases. Too risky to be worth it?
| Not at all. Just look at where most supercars are
| registered.
|
| Just don't name your company $firstname $lastname LLC.
| js2 wrote:
| Top of this thread questions whether there are mandatory
| safety inspections. There are in most states for most
| vehicles, including NC, where the author lives and where
| this vehicle is very likely registered. Due to the age of
| the vehicle, it is exempt from inspections.
|
| You went off on a tangent saying that you don't have to
| register a vehicle in the state you're in. You do in NC,
| as well as other states I'm familiar with.
|
| You're now suggesting ways to evade the registration
| requirement, which may be illegal. This is in no way a
| rebuttal to the registration and safety inspection
| requirements that were being asked about at the top of
| this thread. Exploiting a loophole - including
| potentially breaking the law - to avoid a requirement
| doesn't get rid of the requirement.
| criddell wrote:
| The state of Washington is an interesting case. They had annual
| inspections and then somebody ran the numbers and found that so
| few cars were being flagged, that it was an enormous waste of
| resources. They got rid of their inspection requirement.
|
| More programs should be run like that. Set a goal, create a
| program, then periodically evaluate if the goal is still the
| same and if the program is effective.
| rascul wrote:
| Many states barely even check anything anyway. Out of six
| states I've had a vehicle inspection in, only one (Maryland)
| did more than check lights, wipers, brakes, and horn.
| Inspections seem to be more a revenue stream than anything
| else.
| fps wrote:
| I think most states will fail a car with the "check engine"
| light on. For cars in the northeast, keeping the CEL off
| gets more and more expensive every winter. I had a truck
| that was getting a new oxygen sensor (there were 6 on the
| car) every year from age 8 to 12. The truck drove fine with
| them malfunctioning, but it couldn't pass inspection. My
| current Jeep, I assume is going to need about $2K every
| year in maintenance to get it to pass inspection. And the
| only reason to do the maintenance is the inspection,
| because it also drives fine.
| rascul wrote:
| > I think most states will fail a car with the "check
| engine" light on.
|
| Except Maryland, none of the states I've done an
| inspection looked inside the vehicle. The states that did
| emissions would fail if check engine light is on, but if
| you disconnect the battery right before to reset it then
| they might pass it.
| hedora wrote:
| Contrasting that to California, I had an old well-maintained
| Volvo station wagon. California tightened the emissions
| standards on that model until it failed smog (at 110% of NOX
| limit), and made me upgrade the catalytic to an after market
| one. It then passed at 85% the NOX limit.
|
| The state strongly encouraged me to send it to a Golden
| Shield mechanic. As part of the work, they "checked" the air
| intake filter and MAF sensor on the engine, which was, of
| course, filthy. It sits in a big plastic box on that car.
| Instead of reinstalling the filter, they jammed it in
| sideways and closed the box. I figured it out later, and
| spent about an hour picking bits of leaves out of the
| downstream air intake.
|
| Of course, this cost 95% of the limit past which California
| gives you a free pass till the next smog inspection. (And
| almost 2x the market value of the car.)
|
| I'm convinced the whole thing is a make-work program that's
| holding our air quality hostage. (And I'm strongly for
| tightening emissions standards!)
| throwaway0a5e wrote:
| >I'm convinced the whole thing is a make-work program
| that's holding our air quality hostage. (And I'm strongly
| for tightening emissions standards!)
|
| My state on the other coast does (or used to) openly admit
| in the official training slides for the inspection license
| that the reason they have safety inspections is so that
| holding a state inspection license (they do a single
| license that covers both emissions and safety) is lucrative
| and therefore license holders have a financial incentive
| not to fudge emissions inspections.
|
| Pretty much every business who is supplied a customer base
| by force of law gives the quality of service you describe.
| marcosdumay wrote:
| How do you tell if there is no vehicle failing because your
| inspection takes them off the roads or if it's because nobody
| wants them anyway?
|
| Any kind of policing is self-denying. You can't evaluate it
| while it's being applied.
| krallja wrote:
| It depends on the state. Most of the ones that do exist are
| concerned with things like "do you have seat belts? are there
| rear view mirrors? do the turn signals work? is the check
| engine light on?" Classic/antique vehicles are also often
| exempt.
| AdmiralAsshat wrote:
| There's no way that car would pass an emissions test.
| [deleted]
| rascul wrote:
| Not all states test emissions, either.
| londons_explore wrote:
| I imagine this means cars with bad emissions end up
| living in states with no tests...
| protomyth wrote:
| 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.
| londons_explore wrote:
| 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'.
| iamtheworstdev wrote:
| and some only do it for certain counties (Virginia)
| bell-cot wrote:
| Unless the Official Emissions Test rules state that the
| tech performing the test has to start it, and that it can't
| be failed unless the emissions are too high when it's
| running...
| jorts wrote:
| In CA "The California Smog Check Program requires vehicles
| that were manufactured in 1976 or later to participate in
| the biennial (every two years) smog check program in
| participating counties." so it would be exempt based on the
| year that it was manufactured.
| mturmon wrote:
| Yes. And the consequences of the pre-1976 smog exemption
| are all too clear to anyone driving behind an older car
| on the freeway.
|
| There's no snow where I live, so these beautiful old
| heaps can stay on the road far longer than is healthy.
| technofiend wrote:
| Imagine my surprise when this year my 1996 Toyota was
| suddenly an "antique" by state law. Yearly inspection for
| antique cars is a safety check as you described - does it
| have working windshield wipers, lights and seat belts, but no
| longer any emissions check.
| civilized wrote:
| So.... is this car a good car that's just way too old, or were
| Porsches of this vintage not good to begin with?
| sethammons wrote:
| This was fun. It reminds me of my first truck that my uncle
| gifted me in sometime around the year 2001: a mid '80s GMC S-15
| light pickup truck.
|
| The starter did not work. This meant parking on a hill always and
| 'pop starting.' You put it in 2nd gear, get a good rolling start,
| then crank the engine. Be mindful to not run out of runway.
|
| This was alleviated after a year or two when a friend of my mom
| showed me how to arc the starter directly. Pop the hood, take a
| screw driver and connect the two opposing bolts on the starter. A
| shower of sparks and a section of screwdriver missing later and,
| boom, a running engine. It was true freedom not having to park on
| a hill anymore!
|
| You couldn't start or stop too fast. The bench seat's lock
| failed, so the entire bench seat would shift forward or backward
| if you changed velocity too quickly. A tight seat belt helped by
| using you to keep the seat back.
|
| The driver side window went halfway down... usually. You had to
| press against it just right and you had to pull up on it to help
| the hand crank lift it. Best to just leave it up.
|
| Onto the instruments. On a hard left hand turn, the radio and
| dashboard would light up ... until the end of the turn.
| Otherwise, no dash lights and no radio. The other problem with
| the left hand turn was that if it was too sharp, the keys would
| fly from the ignition and land on the passenger floor board. But
| that was ok because the truck would continue to run.
|
| Turning on the headlights would cause the gas gauge to drop to
| zero. This was a problem at night since due to the lack of dash
| lights. To check the gas, you had to turn off the headlights and
| use a flashlight to see the fuel level.
|
| Thinking of levels of fluids: oil. There was no dip stick and it
| burnt oil. So you mostly guessed daily how much oil to add based
| on experience. Somehow it never occurred to me to, you know,
| purchase a dip stick. I grew up poor, you didn't just buy things.
| And I didn't think to make a makeshift one because I was
| inexperienced at life with little guidance.
|
| One night in 16 degree fahrenheit, icy weather, and not dressed
| for said weather, the truck gave up the ghost. I didn't estimate
| my remaining oil correctly and seized the engine. The wrecker
| gave me $35 for the truck and drove off into the sunset the
| following day.
| itomato wrote:
| Haha, joke's on you.
|
| As a reformed air-cooled VW enthusiast, these are my natural
| driving tendencies.
| iancmceachern wrote:
| I had a friend that drilled a hole in the fender and put in
| another key operated switch there. Simple but effective. No one
| stealing a car is looking around for other switches.
| legitster wrote:
| > Norman Garrett was the Concept Engineer for the original Miata
| back in his days at Mazda's Southern California Design Studio.
|
| hahaha. This whole time I was thinking "I know the car is lovely,
| but this is why people love Miatas"
| agloeregrets wrote:
| Seriously, same thought. The Miata is this but without anything
| after the first paragraph. It starts and runs instantly, is
| fuel injected, brakes well, and the transmission is notably
| direct feeling. It is the feeling of a good day in the 914
| every day (and thus worse, because you do not know the bad
| days). I guess this guy went though hell to define such a great
| car.
| legitster wrote:
| It really goes to show what makes the Miata so good. Even
| through this satire, you could tell this guy really loves his
| 914.
| noduerme wrote:
| Miatas are great, but I think the Fiat version is even more
| fun.
| Sohcahtoa82 wrote:
| Miata stands for "Miata Is Always The Answer"
|
| Reliable, fun, and economical. The only thing they lack is
| practicality, being a two-seater with a small trunk. But if you
| don't have to worry about carrying kids or cargo, they're great
| cars!
| HeyLaughingBoy wrote:
| Never drove a Miata, but I have a Nissan 350Z and the wife
| has been able to squeeze 4 adults (including herself) into
| it. I still can't imagine that someone willingly scrunched
| themselves into the hatchback under the strut brace. I guess
| when you're drunk and only have one safe way home, whatever
| works, works.
| tibbydudeza wrote:
| I am rather glad that modern cars late 90's are so depressingly
| reliable and lacking in "character" and just works when I turn
| the key and all they needs is fuel, oil change, filters and
| fluids at intervals.
|
| I would choose an Audi/BMW if I wanted that sort trepidation in
| my life.
| disiplus wrote:
| i have a subaru that im not sure will start (something is
| draining the battery), or when it starts that i will have
| enough oil.
| mdoms wrote:
| I read your first sentence and was about to regale you with the
| reliability stories of my 2009 BMW 335i, but I see you have
| that covered in your second sentence. I mercifully sold that
| car just a few weeks ago and it's like having a weight off my
| back not seeing it in the driveway every day.
| pnathan wrote:
| that was my basic impression. I drove an '89? Izuzu and a '85?
| Mitsubishi as my first two cars in the mid '00s; they were
| pretty "just works" too, barring some repairs. Nothing this
| crotchety.
|
| I now drive a '21 Camry and man, it's just _nice_. Things
| _work_. I mean, I don 't mind pulling things apart, but it's
| like, do I really want to run Gentoo constantly if I don't
| budget 4-6 hours/mo to maintain it? (no)
| alar44 wrote:
| I would say for the most part, that's how all cars were up
| until the 90s. Post 2000 everything is computerized and there's
| not a ton a shade tree mechanic can do beyond swapping out
| parts.
| technothrasher wrote:
| At least if you know how to use a code scanner, newer cars
| are so much better at telling you what is wrong with them.
| Though it does take some skill and experience to know the
| difference between what code(s) tripped and what is actually
| wrong, as often a code that trips is well downstream of what
| part has failed. But it's amazing the amount of data you can
| pull out of a car using an Autel reader or similar.
| zdwolfe wrote:
| This was a joy to read.
| throwaway0a5e wrote:
| He could write pretty much the same article about owning an OG
| Chrysler minivan, which is arguably a more historically
| significant vehicle but built by a make that prompts sneers about
| reliability and credit scores from most here, and it would just
| be considered trashy or prompt pearl clutching by most of the
| readership.
|
| Amazing the breadth of preconceived notions that can be leveraged
| with a badge on a grill. Having the presence of mind and ability
| to leverage readership demographics like this is what really
| separates good writers and editors from the mediocre.
| h2odragon wrote:
| The starting rituals reminded me of my '77 Olds Cutlass with
| the junkyard intake and monster carbs and all sorts of other
| unwise additions to an already crappy and clapped out machine.
| Only two people could start that car, and what with the bailing
| wire holding the axles and frame together no one ever wanted to
| try towing it.
| anarticle wrote:
| Sheesh, it's ok to like something! No one will think less of
| you.
| unregistereddev wrote:
| There's a difference between bad cars and hilariously bad cars.
| The OG Chrysler minivan was historically significant. I respect
| people who still use them as work vehicles, or people who
| embrace the hacker mentality to turn them into something they
| weren't originally (there are a few minivan dragsters). But
| they aren't celebrated as great driver's cars.
|
| A better comparison to the Porsche 914 would be an MG roadster
| - or if you want to stick with Chrysler, then a Dodge Omni GLH.
| By modern standards both of these are unreliable,
| uncomfortable, and hard to drive, but like the 914 they are
| celebrated by enthusiasts. Part of the reason is because
| despite their flaws, and despite being relatively hard to
| drive, they reward skill. While slow to accelerate, they handle
| well - allowing a skilled driver to make good lap times on a
| track.
| jrsj wrote:
| You might be overanalyzing a bit. I think it really comes down
| to sports cars being cool & vans being...vans. All the
| "Porsche" part really does is get more clicks (because people
| know what it is).
| throwaway0a5e wrote:
| I think most people here would be fawning over the article
| were it a Toyota Previa or some other car that does not bring
| to mind "transportation that a day laborer would have driven
| circa <10-15yr after its model year>" which is what happens
| to a lot of successful vehicles.
| Rebelgecko wrote:
| On the flip side, the sports car snobs will say that a 914
| (especially the 4 cylinder version) is basically just a funky
| looking Volkswagen :)
| quadrifoliate wrote:
| > 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 gear teeth machining themselves
| into round cylinders.
|
| I was confused by this until I searched for "Porsche 914 shift
| pattern" on Google Images. I guess it's a dog-leg gearbox
| (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dog-leg_gearbox).
| bombcar wrote:
| 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!
|
| r25
|
| |-|-|
|
| 134
| oliveshell wrote:
| 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!
| bombcar wrote:
| Fun fact: the torque converter was invented a few years
| _before_ the automatic transmission - and some cars were
| sold with a manual transmission and a torque converter.
| With only two or three forward gears, they found most of
| the customers would leave the car in the top gear and just
| accelerate slowly ...
| userbinator wrote:
| The Buick Dynaflow was almost entirely reliant on a
| multiple-element torque converter, in front of a 2-speed
| manual similar to the Powerglide. Slow and inefficient,
| but very smooth.
| lvh wrote:
| Much better than shifting from 5th straight into 1st though
| :)
| tyingq wrote:
| If that sounds crazy, it is. The M35 2 1/2 ton truck shift
| pattern: https://live.staticflickr.com/4130/5082855966_efbf3c
| 3f00_c.j...
|
| Also, odd, but the Citroen M35 has a similar name and shift
| pattern, even though it's a car and completely unrelated.
|
| https://ranwhenparkeddotnet.files.wordpress.com/2010/11/m352.
| ..
| throwaway0a5e wrote:
| Patterns like those are really, really really common on truck
| transmissions.
|
| One rail is 1st/reverse. Another rail is 2nd/3rd and the last
| rail is 4th or OD and direct. Whether the "fore is a lower
| gear than aft" holds between the 2nd and 3rd rails is a
| function of whether or not it's a the pair of gears that
| constitute "forward gear on the right rail) will either be
| greater or less than 1:1 depending on if it's an overdrive
| transmission whereas the rear position on the right rail will
| always be direct for reasons that boil down to "that's the
| sensible way to build it".
|
| There's not much to "figure out" when you have a direct lever
| that goes into the shifter.
| bombcar wrote:
| Exactly, the more the device can assume the _operator_ is
| trained the simpler it is - so truck transmissions are
| closer to the "Platonic Transmission Form" if you will
| than fancy car transmissions.
|
| The Deuce doesn't even have synchronizers, you're expected
| to double clutch and handle that part yourself.
| fragmede wrote:
| They make automatic semi trucks these days, so depending
| on your POV, that's either closer or futher from the
| platonic ideal for transmission layout.
| ourmandave wrote:
| Reminds me of the _Terminator_ when he commanders the tanker
| truck and pulls up the schematics by scanning the shift
| lever.
|
| They should have had a throwaway scene where he tries to
| steal a Deuce from an armory and it comes up, "File Not
| Found."
|
| Or he's throwing errors and has to reboot himself trying to
| find 4th.
| dugmartin wrote:
| That part of the story reminded me of the 1978 MGB I had as a
| teenager. If you had _just_ a little leftward pressure on the
| stick going from 1st to 2nd the gearbox would happily announce
| "welcome to reverse!". The throw between gears was so small I
| ended up just using my middle finger to push down from 1st to
| 2nd and 3rd to 4th and then hooking my thumb around the knob to
| go from 2nd to 3rd. 5th gear was electric - a little switch
| that seemed to break every few months.
| fosk wrote:
| It's a better pattern for racing since you can more easily
| shift between 2nd and 3rd gear in a quicker way. Older Ferraris
| (I believe the Testarossa and the TR512, but maybe others too)
| also have the same pattern.
| technothrasher wrote:
| The Ferrari V6/V8 cars from the 206 Dino through the 328 have
| that pattern, but they switched to a standard shift pattern
| in the 348. You can't accidentally shift into reverse though,
| as the metal shift gate has a stop on it. You have to push
| down to get past the stop and into reverse.
| hinkley wrote:
| > since you can more easily shift between 2nd and 3rd gear in
| a quicker way
|
| That is in part a secondary effect of how wide and crisp the
| offsets are between gears (how 'deep' the H shape is). On the
| gear boxes people tend to like, going from 2nd to 3rd, and
| 3rd to 4th take very close to the same time. On my little
| roadster I'd just stomp on the clutch and throw the gear knob
| in the general vicinity of where it needed to be, relying on
| hand-eye coordination and the synchros to do the real work (I
| missed maybe 3 shifts a year, and half of those when I was
| tired).
|
| Compare this to the car I learned stick on - the infamous
| Chevy Citation, made during the nadir of Detroit - where the
| gearbox was roughly shaped like an X, although at the time it
| felt like an l. I lost track of how many times I accidentally
| upshifted instead of downshifted at a stop sign, and that
| engine had less torque than an electric pencil sharpener, so
| the engine would simple stall the moment I tried to let the
| clutch out.
|
| The roadster I subsequently drove, I experimented and found
| that if I was even a little careful I could get moving from a
| dead stop in 3rd gear. Basically a modified tractor engine.
| All torque, no horsepower.
| technofiend wrote:
| > and then rapidly wig-wag the shift knob side-to-side along a
| lateral axis.
|
| I learned this driving my first car which was a similar vintage
| Karmann Ghia. It still did it out of habit twenty years later
| driving my stick-shift Jetta. The second YouTube video I found
| of someone learning to drive a KG was doing it instinctively as
| well. [1] I guess there's so much play you just learn to wig-
| wag a little to see if you're in gear or not.
|
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WF77y8IVi8k
| reedjosh wrote:
| I wonder if the linkage could be replaced by a cable?
|
| My 77 Firebird has aftermarket shift and throttle cables.
|
| Of course, my Firebird is an automatic, so who knows. Maybe a
| two cable system would do?
| [deleted]
| everybodyknows wrote:
| The name "Neverland" is new to me, but I remember that place of
| limbo well. Assuming the tranny is in good order, there's a
| firm spring detent that generally saves the driver from 1->R
| upshift failures.
|
| The 1->4 mistake OTOH, having drifted a little too far right in
| Neverland, was easily fallen into, and the shuddering
| deceleration that follows may have been the cause of a few
| rear-end collisions over the years.
| optymizer wrote:
| 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.
| telesilla wrote:
| First time I rented a German car I yelled out in the parking
| garage for help! Some kind strangers explained this to me
| about the reverse and I got on my way.
| RajT88 wrote:
| 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.
| browningstreet wrote:
| 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.
| _whiteCaps_ wrote:
| My Ford Contour SVT (Mondeo in the UK I think?) had a collar
| under the shift knob that you had to pull upwards to shift
| into reverse. Had never seen that before, and I felt awfully
| embarrassed to ask the guy selling me the car how it worked.
| Root_Denied wrote:
| I had a '92 Nissan Sentra as my first car in the early
| 2000's, a hand-me-down from my older brother - it also had
| this dog-leg shift pattern. Looks like it wasn't just German
| cars that had this transmission.
|
| Definitely burned out a clutch early from learning to drive
| and learning to drive stick at the same time, but damn do I
| miss it sometimes.
| masklinn wrote:
| From a video I saw recently I think some of the old lancias
| (group b stuff) were similar, the pattern was not shown but
| the driver referred to being careful with first so as not to
| launch the car in reverse.
|
| So I'm guessing this was one of the standard gear patterns in
| the late 70s / early 80s euros, back when car affordances
| were often nebulous concepts.
| theluketaylor wrote:
| Reverse lockouts came around in the 80s or so, so his 914
| wouldn't have one. On older transmissions you're free to try
| to ram it into reverse at 100 kph if you really want to try.
| logifail wrote:
| > this shift pattern is just standard on German cars with
| manual transmission
|
| "Standard?" Hmm. We have two cars with manual transmission, a
| VW Sharan and a VW Up:
|
| The Sharan has R at the top left, then (reading across) 1 3 5
| with 2 4 6 below; so 6th is at the bottom right.
|
| The Up only has 5 forward gears, but for some reason they
| decided to put R _at the bottom right_ (so down from 5th...
| you can probably see where this story is going)
|
| I have once, and only once, been driving along at motorway
| speed in the Up, in 5th, and briefly thought I was in the
| Sharan, and started trying to change up to 6th, except the Up
| only has 5, _and_ you 're heading for R, not 6th. Happily I
| didn't complete the change...
| [deleted]
| mikeryan wrote:
| _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?
| logifail wrote:
| > 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.
| michaelcampbell wrote:
| I had a 3 speed + R transmission in a 1970 Ford. It was
| originally a column shift but the original owner converted it
| to a standard floor shift. I don't know if that was the reason
| for the weird shift pattern it had (nor do I know the original
| shift pattern), but by the time I got it, it was:
|
| 1 2
|
| R 3
| rob74 wrote:
| Not sure if this is specific to Porsches, I think several
| factors are at play here: (1) old cars (even Porsches) were not
| so precision-engineered as they are today. Today you can
| operate the gear shift using only two fingers, not so in the
| seventies; (2) of course, a car being ~50 years old doesn't
| help either...
| redleggedfrog wrote:
| That was really well written, and supremely entertaining.
| todd8 wrote:
| There wasn't very good public transportation to Wellesley College
| from Boston in 1970 so I borrowed a friend's car to pick up my
| date. The car was old enough even then to have a crank handle
| stowed behind the driver's seat for starting the car when you
| weren't parked at the top of a hill. That date didn't go so well!
| HNHatesUsers wrote:
| danboarder wrote:
| 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.
| rozap wrote:
| I have a 74. My wife used it to go camping and I guess I didn't
| explain the starting procedure well enough because it was
| second nature. She ended up having to get a jump after flooding
| it and killing the battery. Oops.
| clajiness wrote:
| My Saab 900 Turbo feels like a brand new car now.
| rmk wrote:
| Ha! Nice piece of writing. What's the software equivalent of this
| car? I've heard loads of complaints from Oracle software users
| (database excepted; it appears to be a genuinely great product).
| frxx wrote:
| Sounds like the car in this state should be illegal to drive for
| several reasons. I'm glad that in many countries the cars need to
| be checked every two years.
| ghostpepper wrote:
| This writing is brilliant
|
| edit: just got to the author's blurb at the bottom. He was an
| engineer on the original Miata, so it's no surprise that he knows
| what he's talking about.
| agloeregrets wrote:
| The irony being that the Miata is none of this. Notably
| reliable and easy to drive.
| StillBored wrote:
| I think part of the fun of 914's is how raw they are. Once
| you get all the individual car's eccentricities down its the
| same fun, but you feel like its all your secret on the good
| days when the car is working as intended.
|
| The fact that they are dog slow is made up by the fact that
| your sitting on this little motor making a huge racket. Its
| the "I must be going fast, given how much noise i'm hearing"
| thing.
| a_simple_dev wrote:
| very Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance. Loved it.
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