Restoration Wednesday, the 1.8 914 Gets New Wheels

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Have I told you how long I’ve been chasing wiring problems on this car? Well, it’s been a long time. Most of the summer since I bought it. So long in fact, that I took a break chasing and decided to swap wheels so I could get inspired to continue working on it. These yellow Riviera rims came from the ’72 914 that I’m doing the 2.0 liter engine swap. They looked awful against a signal orange body but against a crappy metallic brown, eh, not so bad. The steel wheels this 1.8 came with had 165 tires on them vs 195s. It’s really amazing how a meaty and proper 195 series tire will chance the stance and feel of a car, especially a skinny square body, mid engine 914.

The wiring problems lead to a rebuilt fuel injection harness as chronicled on 914World.com. It’s hot linked if you are so inclined. I can’t thank Tim enough for talking me through what felt like hundreds of tests to get to a point where we fixed and got fuel injection to the cylinders followed by spark. The car still doesn’t quite run though. I’ve replaced many, if not most, of the vacuum hoses but I think I still might have a leak. Next is a tune up with: hot spark ignition, new wires, plugs plus a valve adjustment. If I can get it to idle, I’ll continue to search for vacuum leaks and then hopefully take it for spin down the block.

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