Re: 74 Targa as first Porsche?

[CubSmurf]

Greetings all! As the title eludes to, I am looking at a 74 Targa. Guy says it's been in his family since new. Currently the car is probably about a 7 on a scale to 10. Body looks solid, interior would need seats and doors recovered. Says there is a 3.0 in the car now. Car has been sitting a little bit. He curbed it pretty bad, and bent passenger side wheels. Took them off to get repaired, and it has sat since. Appears everything works, except odometer (which appears to be relatively normal for these cars). Guy says he was daily driving it, until the accident. Been very upfront, telling me the car will pop out of 2nd. So, MIGHT need a new clutch, or even tranny rebuild. IS there anything in particular I should look for? There are no wheels on passenger side, so cant take it for a spin at the moment. Gonna call a local Porsche shop, and see if they have a couple of spare rims to throw on it, to get it there for a check up. Guy is asking 9000 obo. Seems like a very reasonable price to me. I am fairly handy with a wrench, so I can do some stuff on my own. And, I am prepared to spend some money to make it decent. Not looking for a 10, but a nice 8. A good driver, that looks good. Thoughts???

Oh, one last thing. As I was checking it out, noticed levers near gear shift. Think they said throttle and heat???? What are these??? and one had a toggle switch on it. Any clues??? THANKS!!!!

[Loren]

:welcome: I had a 1976 911 S

Where is the car located?

You do realize MY1974 is before hot-galvanized bodies (rust resistant).

Is it CIS or carbs (since he has changed engines)?

Put it up on a rack and check all the head studs - unless they have been replaced with the newer type they will pull out of the case (look for tiny leaks).

If you have any pics that would be nice...

[CubSmurf]

:welcome: I had a 1976 911 S

Where is the car located?

You do realize MY1974 is before hot-galvanized bodies (rust resistant).

Is it CIS or carbs (since he has changed engines)?

Put it up on a rack and check all the head studs - unless they have been replaced with the newer type they will pull out of the case (look for tiny leaks).

If you have any pics that would be nice...

Thanks for the reply Loren! The car is in TN, and I believe it's been here it's whole life. So, should have stayed away from salt, snow, etc. As far as carbs or not, I didn't get a great look at the car. The owner wasnt around, and I just did a quick drive by of it. The person who was there, knew nothing about the car. I am going back on Saturday to get a better look at it. I will take pictures then! I am a BIG fan of older cars, and I am just looking for a fun run-about. Don't need it to be perfect, just reliable! Thanks for the reply!!!

[thorrall]

Greetings all! As the title eludes to, I am looking at a 74 Targa. Guy says it's been in his family since new. Currently the car is probably about a 7 on a scale to 10. Body looks solid, interior would need seats and doors recovered. Says there is a 3.0 in the car now. Car has been sitting a little bit. He curbed it pretty bad, and bent passenger side wheels. Took them off to get repaired, and it has sat since. Appears everything works, except odometer (which appears to be relatively normal for these cars). Guy says he was daily driving it, until the accident. Been very upfront, telling me the car will pop out of 2nd. So, MIGHT need a new clutch, or even tranny rebuild. IS there anything in particular I should look for? There are no wheels on passenger side, so cant take it for a spin at the moment. Gonna call a local Porsche shop, and see if they have a couple of spare rims to throw on it, to get it there for a check up. Guy is asking 9000 obo. Seems like a very reasonable price to me. I am fairly handy with a wrench, so I can do some stuff on my own. And, I am prepared to spend some money to make it decent. Not looking for a 10, but a nice 8. A good driver, that looks good. Thoughts???

Oh, one last thing. As I was checking it out, noticed levers near gear shift. Think they said throttle and heat???? What are these??? and one had a toggle switch on it. Any clues??? THANKS!!!!

Hey CurbSmurf,

I had a '74 for awhile so I thought I would reply. '74 was the first year that had CIS, except for a few in '73. That is probably moot if the whole engine was replaced. Mine worked fine in any case. My head studs did pull out, but again this is moot if you have a 3.0 which, if memory serves, the first ones were '78 and the head stud issue was probably resolved by the factory by then. I had '78 and '79 3.0's and never had any head stud problems, even though both were driven to well past 100K miles.

I think '74's are a classic year. However, I would second Loren's caution about the body not being galvanized. I do live in the Northeast and have driven 4 911's as semi-daily drivers on our salted roads. My '70 showed rust early on and the '74 started showing rust at the base of the windshield, also fairly early on (at ~ 6 years and maybe 70K miles) and I sold it because of the rust. Maybe if it weren't in salt it wouldn't be a problem, but these cars were definitely prone to rust. I had this problem even though I didn't drive these cars on really bad days in the winter when salt was the worst. Neither of my galvanized '78 and '79's had rust problems, even though I drove them similarly to pretty high mileages.

I'm a very conservative driver, but both 3.0 liter cars had to have their transmissions rebuilt at ~ 100k miles. If your car has the original 915 transmission, I would plan on having to do that sometime. I think the 3.0 liter engines just had too much torque for the 915.

Be aware that most '74's came equipped from the factory with a very tall 5th gear (it was just after the '73 gas crisis) and lower gear ratios were spaced accordingly. That is a two-edged sword. It gave great gas mileage but compromised performance somewhat. Nevertheless it was great fun to drive.

Good luck on the '74 or whatever you end up with.

[magcuda]

the levers are to have a fast idle at cold start up, I think this is was more for the mechanical injected cars- I think- long time ago

the other is to open the heater boxes

Also I was thinking, if it curbed it hard enough to bend the wheels, you will want to put some wheel on it and put it on an alignment rack to see if anything is bent. the old 911s had enough trouble keeping the shock towers from falling without taking a side impact

Edited April 11, 2008 by magcuda