Reupholstered Seats for the Porsche 914

After looking at the ragged seats on the Porsche for quite a while, I contacted Clicks Cafe in Richardson Texas about reupholstering the seats. They did a fantastic job! Johnny at Clicks told me he had a black set of 914 seat skins just waiting for a customer! You can contact him at clicksnetcafe@hotmail.com.

Here you can see the before and after pictures.

Here is the finished seat before I put them back into the PorscheHere they are in the Porsche. Notice how well the color matches!

I highly recommend Johnny and his company! He has a black set ready. If your 914 needs some new skins, email him and he will take great care of you!

I also installed some speakers designed to replace the original speaker grills on the 914. The combination of the floor and door speakers gives a fairly balanced sound. It also allows for better than average sound while cruising with the top down. The system came with a sub-woofer which I haven't installed yet. I purchased them from 914 Appearance and Performance which has an EBay Storefront. I also purchased a carpet set from them, but would not recommend the carpet set. It was of very poor quality. The speakers exceeded expectation though.
 

Here is what the exhaust system looked like installed. 

I replaced the exhaust system on the 914 with this OEM Muffler I purchased on EBay for $75.00. It was new - still had the original sticker. I painted the muffler using black high temperature exhaust paint. It is much much quieter than the header exhaust system and looks better also. 

A Man and His Car. Donny's Paint and Body in Deer Park did some work for me by painting the Targa Top, the side sail panels, and lower running boards black. They also installed some Porsche decals on the running boards. 

Tires, Speedometer, Etc.

The tires were dry rotted and the original rims were rusted so I replaced them with some standard aftermarket rims and tires from Discount Tire. Nothing fancy about the tires, but after all the money spent, there wasn't much left.

I replaced the speedometer cable and speedometer gear on the transmission so I would know how fast I was going rather than simply guessing. These parts were purchased from Part Werks of Chicago.

I noticed that I had a leak from the shifter seal on the back of the transmission. Kaferhaus replaced the seal - filled the transmission - and it works very well now.

I found some great articles for the Porsche 914 on http://www.pelicanparts.com/914/914tech_articles.htm.

Here is the rear view of the Porsche. This is the original bumper and it cleaned up very well considering the age of the car. 

This is a photo of the car after it had been buffed repeatedly and waxed. Also, the faded white Porsche decals were scraped off of the running panels and would be replaced. The tires were dry rotted and the rims were rusted, but those would be replaced. 

The Porsche Comes Home

Kaferhaus finished the work I had asked them to do. I was very pleased with the work they had done, However, there was one task I chose to address myself. Whenever you would try to drive it, the car would sputter, loose power, backfire and/or die. Although the carb had been cleaned, it obviously needed to be rebuilt or replaced.

I purchased a new carb and intake manifold from Scat Wholesale http://scatwholesale.com/ and installed it. After this the car ran wonderfully.

Inital Work on the 914

The 914 had been sitting for a number of years. The first thing was to clean out as much of the fuel system as I could. This entailed removing and cleaning the gas tank, replacing the in line fuel pump and filters and replacing segments of the plastic fuel line.

After installing a new battery - checking all the fluids - and using a few squirts of starting fluid - the car started and idled smoothly.

However, the joy was short lived. The clutch was frozen. I had the car towed to Kaferhaus - in Seabrook, Texas. They replaced the clutch, pressure plate, throw-out bearings, all four of the brake calipers and rotors, one rear wheel bearing and a few other small items. The work they did was extremely well done.

The engine is a 1.7 liter Type 4 Engine. The fuel injectors had been removed and a progressive two-barrel carb was in place. 

This is a front look at the 914. The only rust was located in the battery tray. 

This is a picture of the interior. Except for a few small tears in the seat and the rotted carpet, it was in good shape. 

This is the 914 when it was first found in a Warehouse. It had not been on the road since 1989.