After all my Wheeler Dealer actiities since Dec, I've finally had some time to get back to the shark. A small community north of Omaha was hosting the Blair Cruise Night this past Sat evening and I have to decide if I was going. 1st factor is the weather, but the forecast is good. So Fri afternoon I have to decide which car to take? Not the Spyder and Punkin is in storage. Sydney is dirty and I have golf on Mon and it's supposed to rain (or storm), so washing her would be a waste of time. That leaves the shark (928), except she's got a gas leak and an electrical issue. I know, I know, 4 Porsches and nothing to drive - real 1st world problems.
Put the shark up on the quickjacks. I knew from previous movements in the garage that gas was pouring out the bottom at the back of the engine, so having her up in the air would allow me to crawl under and look. I also had the air box off which is at the back so I could look at the top of the back area of the engine. I had replaced a fuel line back there in Nov but was pretty sure I'd gotten it tight on both ends. But when chasing a problem, always check at the last thing you "fixed". Start her up and a nice stream of fuel is coming out the bottom. I look at the last line I'd put in - dry as a bone. But... I notice the line I'd put in back in May had some moisture on it. That moisture was gas! Follow the line up to the end and the connector was loose. Tighten it up it up and start her up again. No leaks. Problem solved.
While I had her in the air, Sat afternoon I decide to do some cleaning on the underside of the engine. Then took her our for a test drive. No gas leaks or gas smell. On to the next issue.
I don't like electrical issues. Dad was good with electrical stuff, as he was trained on how to repair radios. But he taught me mechanical and body work stuff, not how to chase electrical gremlins. I was suspicious of a wire that had come loose and was dangling near the gas pedal. It didn't look factory and I thought it might be either the alarm or radar detector that was installed by a prev owner. One day out of frustration with it in the way of the gas pedal, I yanked on it hoping to pull it out. It didn't but it now hung even further in my way AND now 4 of the 6 guages along with the digital part of the dash weren't working. Crap! This was not going to be fun. I'd probably have to take the dash apart again and trace where the line went and see what I'd done.
But I'm a firm believer in occam's razor - check the simple things first when looking for a problem. Hoping it might be a fuse, I got the digital fuse chart up on my PC. There are 3 fuses associated with the dash. Check the 1st fuse - it's good. 2nd fuse - good. 3rd fuse - BLOWN. Pop a new 7.5a fuse in and start her up. Instruments working! Yay! One of my To Do items is chase down a parasitic drain, so in the meantime I disconnect the battery when not in use. Maybe I blew the fuse when connecting the battery back up? Regardless, now I can go to Blair.
I hustle up to Blair. We're supposed to stage in a church parking lot. I get there and it's disorganized chaos. No one directing where to go, cars parked everywhere in no semblence of order. When it's time to start, it's like leaving a football game or concert - cars are joining the line from everywhere. Once we got moving out onto the streets, I envisioned it would be like a parade with an organized route blocked off for the cars. Nope. It was liked hitting the bricks in my hometown of Wayne America in my youth on a Sat night, expect with hundreds of cars. Guess that's why they call it a cruise (was my 1st). I made it half way thru the cruise and rather than turn around and go thru more traffic jam, I turned at Hwy 75 and cruised home.
At least I got enjoy a nice drive in the shark w/o smelling gas and could monitor my gauges. It was fun to get her out and now that 2 of the issues holding me back are fixed, I can move her back into the rotation of items to fix and drive her around.
