A 1975 Porsche 914 Targa - Rebuild Part I - Removing the Engine

When I was growing up my Dad worked on cars in the evening with a friend of his to make a little money on the side. I remember hanging out in his friend's garage til very late on many cold nights. Sometimes I'd fall asleep behind the tool box waiting for him. Sometimes it was interesting watching him but as a kid I would have much rather been playing hot wheels or baseball at the park or riding my bike. There was a time when I started to resent having to go to the garage with him and it wasn't always pleasant but I survived and those cold nights I spent working in the garage with him actually helped me understand how engines worked and came in handy when I was old enough to leave home and try to make it on my own.

Most of my adult life I thought it would be cool to rebuild an old Chevy Muscle car. And I still ponder doing it. In the earlier years of my independence taking on such a task just wasn't feasible. Then as my career started to take off after college I just didn't have time. I still haven't gotten around to rebuilding an old American made muscle car but maybe one day I will.

I guess my son heard me talking about rebuilding an old car and it must have had some kind of influence on him because he too took an interest in working on cars. He started with an old VW Rabbit.
I didn't go anywhere near that thing because it was his first car. He soon grew tired of it and sold it...I think...or did he junk it...I'll have to ask it doesn't really matter. It's gone.

After that he picked up a 1992 Honda Accord (I think) and did some body work on it.
He eventually sold that car to his girl friend.

After the Honda he kind of grew weary of fixer uppers and bought himself a Mazda Miata that didn't need fixing up. I don't have a picture of that car but he kept it for a long time and really liked it.

One day, he came home with a 1975 Porsche he had found on Craigslist. She is a real beauty. My sister's girlfriend in High School had one of these it was Red.

He was going back to school and needed to store the car at the house. He asked if I'd help him fix the car so he could resell it. I said I would. I knew nothing about Porsche engines but that's never gotten in my way in the past so why not. In fact I didn't even know that Porsche was made by Volkswagen but I'm a quick study and found a good web site and a few books that helped me understand what I would need to do to work on the car's engine.
This car is in fairly good shape on the exterior but it had some rust on the under carriage, floor boards, and the firewall. My son has a knack for body work so he quickly set out to repair the rust. He welded in new sheet metal and re-enforced the undercarriage with new metal as well. Most of the photos I took were of the engine so I don't have any to share of his fine work and I don't think he took any pictures.

The engine was running rough and really didn't have much power so that was going to need work. Setting the timing and doing general maintenance did not improve the engine's performance and we found low compression in 2 of the cylinders. We also found out that working on the engine through the engine access port was just not that easy. It's really small as you can see in this photograph.

The nice thing is how easy it is to remove the engine. There is a list of things to do and if done properly the engine drop shouldn't take more than two hours. This is a photo I took right after I got the engine and transmission out. It is literally a one man job.

This is how the engine compartment looks from underneath. The plastic over the ends of the CV Joints protects them from dirt and dust. They have a lot of grease on them.

It was going to be a while before it would be ready to sell so I took my time and started photo documenting everything I did.

I got the engine all setup in the garage because its really hot where I live and I mounted it on car jacks so I wouldn't have to squat or bend over too much to work on the engine. I figure I can take my time and be comfortable since this was my first Porsche I'd worked on and I didn't want to get aggravated and screw something up.

When I'm working on engines I like for everything to be clean. I started by removing all the sheet metal that is attached to the engine, cleaned it all up and gave the sheet metal a new coat of paint. I'm already liking the new look!

I took lots of pictures of the engine and the tear down of the engine but I'm not sure what the limit is on Steemit so I'm trying to be conservative with the photos I upload and I'm breaking up my article into multiple parts.

In part II, which I hope to post in a day or two, I'll cover removing, inspecting and cleaning the heads, valves and pistons.

See you soon.

End Part I....Removing the Engine