Project Lazarus

[Racer Boy]

on the story about your dad putting the Ford into Park.

Great to see the progress that you are making!

[husker boxster]

It seems like I haven’t gotten a lot done on The Mistress lately, but now that I’m going to chronicle the last 2.5 wks, it appears I have a lot to report.

Steering Wheel
I got a call over a wk ago from the upholsterer. He wasn’t happy with the fitment of the leather on the top of the wheel. He said he had extra material and the holes weren’t going to line up well. He felt the best soln was to cut it and make a seam at the top of the wheel (there already was a seam in the lower half). He caught me as I was walking onto the golf course. I said that was fine. The next day I got an idea of putting a stitch of black leather as a wheel center marker. The proper color for the swath would be cream to match the seats, but that’s not a common color, so I thought black would be easier to employ. I texted him some links to some wheels on Suncoast’s website. I didn’t hear back and got busy and didn’t call to see if he got my text.

Yesterday he called and said the wheel was finished. I drove to Lincoln this morning to pick it up. It looked very good but didn’t have the black center swath, just a seam. I asked him if he’d gotten my texts. He said he doesn’t do texts. OK. My bad for not following up. It ended up being $225 (we agreed on that price after the phone call about the seam) and it was well worth it as it looks very nice.




Windshield
Someone on RL found a source for the elusive 85-88 928 windshield. It was an Italian parts store in ATL. He got the windshield for $760 + $200 shipping. It arrived in good shape and the installer had no issues putting it in. He gave the contact info in his thread so I beat feet to get an order in. I go to the website and see the price is now $840 + $200 shipping, but hey, beggars can’t be choosers. That price is still $250 cheaper than from Porsche. Order it up and wait for a tracking #. Get an email instead saying the w/s is on back order and will take 2 wks. OK. I wait 2 wks and don’t hear anything from them. Called them this morning. They called back and said they hadn’t heard anything from that supplier so they’ve sourced the w/s from someone else but it will be 2 wks. Let’s hope.

Key
The key hasn’t arrived. Left a msg with the nice lady in NC.

Dash
I took the dash apart to replace the faulty odometer gear. I had to remove the dash pod, then pull the dash cluster out from behind.





Once I got the speedometer out of the cluster, it was obvious the old wheel was in sad shape.





I was able to get everything apart and put back together again. I also spent a lot of time cleaning electrical connections in the hope that would solve my lack of instruments working. Everything went back together and looked nice. Popped the cluster back into the dash pod, cleaned the 3 wire plugs, and put it back together loosely. Put the key in, started the engine, and… No instruments. Shoot. Will need to look at fuses and relays next.

Window Switches
I purchased a pair of window switches hoping this was the cause of the no window workie issue. Purchase the pair from our sponsor’s site. Pull the passenger switch out (plus the 2 ft of attached wires), install the new switch, and find that 2 of the 4 wires are 2” short. WTF!?! Here's a comparison of the old and new wires.



I go back to the website and look at the page. There’s 1 comment and it says 2 of the wires are short. Crap, wish I’d looked at the comments. Why in the Wide World of Sports would anyone produce it like that? The other 2 wires are the exact proper length. The site does sell another switch, but it’s $75 instead of $44. For $31 x 2 I can get my soldering iron out and make the wires longer.



Do both sides and now for the moment of truth… No workie. I check the fuse again but it looks good. There’s a complex relay also associated with the windows and the sunroof. Not sure how to test it, but I’ve gone ahead and ordered a new relay. Figure the switches and relay are 30 yrs old so it’s adding value replacing them even if they’re not the culprit. If the relay doesn’t solve the problem, will look for broken wires in the doors.

Sunroof
I’ve saved the best for last. The new sunroof trans arrived and I put it in. Hit the switch and the sunroof went completely open and then completely closed. I adjusted on fitment a bit more and got it looking a bit better. Still worked fine. I popped the headliner back in and even got the 3 impossible screws in. Tested it again, worked fine. Then decided to do a water test, so I poured a glass of water over all the edges. No water inside, all ran out the drain holes (which I’d cleaned earlier with the trombone cleaner). Think I can consider this one at the Done Sign.



Obviously you can tell I haven’t had a haircut in 3.5 mo. Sorry about that.

I still have several things to track down, but I’m getting closer. However, I’ve had to spend a bunch of time recently getting ready for our DE this upcoming weekend. I’m the club’s registrar and we’ve had almost double the entries for this event – lot’s of pent up desire to hit the track. That’s great except it makes for a lot of paperwork on my part. And we have a lot of COVID paperwork too. I’ll also be instructing at this event as well as observing the classroom sessions as I prepare to become a Chief Driving Instructor. Oh yeah, I have to get my car ready too. Once the DEs done, I have two people who are interested in me selling 3 of their cars. This retirement gig keeps me really busy. Maybe I need a job to allow me to slow down.

[husker boxster]

It’s been awhile, but today was a major milestone.

Windshield
The guy in ATL continued with the ‘you’re still on 2 week back order’, so I began looking elsewhere. A local glass shop said they could get the windshield for me and in fact had one in their warehouse in KC. I specifically requested an 85-88 with the antenna. Yep, they had it and would have it in OMA the next day. Could put it in at my house on the following Tue. Before I committed, I needed to see if I could get out of my ATL commitment. I was able to, so ordered up the local w/s. Everything is good.

Tue arrives and so do the installers. The main guy’s done a 928 w/s before and says mine looks good & shouldn’t be difficult. They pull their stand out of the truck and put the new w/s on it. I look and say it’s the wrong one. No radio antenna. Crap! They call the boss and he says he’ll do some calling. To their credit, the w/s has a tag on it that says 84-95, so it probably showed it would work in their computer system.

Several days go by & I don’t hear back from the boss, so I call. He says he has a couple more contacts he needs to talk to. A week goes by, still no word. I debate whether I should buy the $350 w/s and deal with a different antenna. Not sure how the earlier models do the antenna, but in 89 they did a shark fin antenna on the roof. However, I’m not too excited about this for 2 reasons: 1. I have to drill a hole in the roof and 2. I’ll have to remove the leather headliner to fish the wire to the antenna. The leather may be shrunk in its old age and may not want to go back into place. Kind of a defeatist attitude but nothing has gone to plan with this project.

My other option is to bite the bullet and bye the uber expensive factory Porsche w/s. I’ve had a good run of Wheeler Dealer sales lately, so I decide to splurge with the factory model and get this part of the project to the done sign. I stopped at the dealership Mon afternoon and place the order. $1366 (after PCA discount) + $160 for primer (whatever that is) + $220 for shipping from Germany. With tax, it comes to $1872!!! The parts guy tells me it will probably take a week to arrive (yeah right, I’ve heard that before). The local glass company happens to be next door to the Porsche dealership, so I stop over and set it up for them to install it when it arrives. Yesterday morning I get a call from Porsche and the w/s has arrived. Wow! 3 days. I asked if it was already in some warehouse in the US and they said no, it shipped from Germany. I call the glass people and they can come this morning.

A different guy arrives this morning and goes to work removing the old w/s and the glue that held it in. Pulls out the new w/s and yes it has the antenna. That’s as close as I got to it after verifying, as I didn’t want to accidentally bump it off the stand. He gets the new w/s installed and charges me $168.

It’s been a long haul to get to this point. Hopefully you’ll indulge me while I show off some pics of the final leg of this adventure.

Current w/s. I think some kids beat it up with a baseball bat. (Or the prev owner got upset with a project not going well.)



Out with the old.





In with the new.






Looks sooo much better. I still have to put the trim around the w/s, but I like admiring it even with the trim off. Will need to rummage thru my box of parts in the basement for the rear view mirror.

The shark has been gathering dust lately while I shifted my attn to my Wheeler Dealer activities. Now I should have more time to get back to her. With the new w/s, she looks significantly better and may be the impetus to get back into the ball game.

Post Script
It looked to me like the installer used his own primer on the window before he dropped it in. So I went on a mission to track down my $160 primer. After a discussion with the glass place and then the dealership, I got $160 refunded on my cc. Yay! Takes a little of the sting off.

[piper6909]

A new windshield makes such a huge difference, doesn't it?

I've always been impressed with windshield installers. Particularly how one person can handle something of that size an plop it down with such precision. Then they smack the hell out of it to seat it and somehow they don't crack it! I tried installing a windshield in my teen years, but had no such luck. I immediately cracked it when I tried to seat it.

[dghii]

Love the update! Stay after it!

[PaulE]

Thanks for the update. Sorry you had to pay so much for the windshield! Someone around the corner from me is selling two 928's as a package deal for $9,900. One is a yellow 79 that runs and has some things he knows need to be fixed. The other is a red 87 European model as a parts car. Your posts enable me to live vicariously rather than dive in way over my head!

[husker boxster]

I was searching the interweb 2 weekends ago for a windshield molding clip and accidentally found the plastic seat gears I stripped back in April on the passenger seat when I attempted to move the seat forward with the manual crank. I had left that project off my To Do list since I figured those gears would be unobtainium. But there they were on our favorite sponsor’s website. Finding them inspired me to pick the baton back up on this job. Ordered them both (wasn’t sure if I needed one or both) and went to work Mon morning to see if I could get the seat out. To refresh your memory, Porsche in its infinite wisdom holds a 928 seat in place with 6 bolts – 2 in front and 4 (?!?) in the rear. I could move the seat back far enough to get the 2 fronts out. I could move the seat fwd enough to get the 2 rear bolts out but not the 2 fwd rear bolts. Cranking the seat with the manual tool got it fwd almost enough to get the bolts out but I needed a good ½” to get an allen wrench on them. That’s when the gears broke and I left it to marinate.

With the seat bottom lifted as high as it could go, from the front I removed the motor with 1 of the gears attached then the other gear which was held in place by a snap ring (which went flying off somewhere). This gave me access to the square cables that run the seats. I popped a drill on the left cable and was able to move the left side fwd enough to get to the bolt on the left track. I removed the fwd one and put the rearward one hand tight so the seat wouldn’t flop around. When I tried the drill on the right cable, it moved slightly fwd but not quite enough to get to the fwd bolt. Still needed ¼ to ½” to fully access it. The cable seemed stuck or jammed or as far as it would go, so I didn't want to go any farther and cause damage. So close but yet so far.



I posted a question on RL to see if anyone had any ideas. A couple were proffered, however, by now it was 100 deg so I waited until the next day to try them.

Tue morning I looked to see if either suggestion would work. Nope. I went back to the right side cable. It had a protective plastic cover on it, with the end being a fat nozzle. This prevented the drill from getting a decent grip on the cable. So I removed the plastic covering, which gave me more cable to insert into the drill. Made sure I had the drill tight on the cable and gave it a slow twist forward. It moved. I now had enough room to get to the final rear bolt. Success!



I lifted the seat off its base, unplugged the power cord, and then rested the seat on the center console and door sill. I cleaned the threaded slide bolts (had already gotten the majority of the crap off earlier this spring) and then shot some lithium grease on them. Ran them back and forth with the drill and they ran well. Then measured them up so each side was in the same place. As I removed the seat, the snap ring that went flying was on the trans tunnel carpet. Yay! I hauled the seat into the basement where I'll do more cleaning on the tracks later. I also wanted to do some work on the switch I installed earlier this yr, as it felt like 1 or 2 of the steel balls may have fallen out of place.

With the seat out, I could turn to cleaning the area under the seat. This is the last spot in the interior I had left to clean. There's still a bit of funkiness in the interior and I'm hoping getting this area cleaned will eliminate the remaining smell. It defn needs some cleaning.




I also fished a lot of coins out from the track by the console. None of them were deformed but they don't need to be in the track area. Turns out it was $1.63 and with the remaining change from the driver’s side, I’ll parlay it into a PowerBall ticket. Might be inclined to keep the shark if I win the jackpot. Keep your fingers crossed…

The new gears arrived Fri afternoon so yesterday I began replacing the snaggle-toothed gears. Turns out both gears were missing teeth and ordering both gears was the proper call.



Both were held in place by small snap rings. I was trying to decide how to remove them without having them fly across the garage. Both came off with relative ease. Got the new gears on and the snap rings back in place. It took some effort to get the final snap ring on that held the gear in seat frame (the one that went flying). I needed more hands than I had available. I ended up wiring the gear to the frame and popped the snap ring on. Took quite a bit of effort but I got it.




I laid the seat on its side so I could use gravity as my friend when resetting the seat switch. Took a couple of attempts to get it where I liked the movement of the switch.

I’m ready to put it back in. Get it dropped into the car and plug the cable back in. Put the 4 rear bolts in. Hook up the battery to allow me to move the seat back to expose the front holes. It moves backwards just fine. I try moving it fwd. NOTHING. Crap. I need to take the seat back out to see what’s wrong, but since it won’t go fwd, THE REAR BOLTS ARE COVERED! Double crap – I’m right back where I started. I’m thinking I’m going to have to tear it all apart again and use the drill to get it to move fwd. Dadgummit. Then I realize I have the manual crank, so I give that a try. It moves fwd enough I can access all 4 rear bolts. Whew!

After removing the seat, I laid it on its side and popped the switch out of the case. It looked like the fwd motion copper blade had some solder or JB Weld or something on it. Must have had some issue before and was “fixed”.



Remember back in April I pulled the new switch out of the new case so I could pop it into the old case in the seat. It looks like I need to replace the old case with the new case. Now that the seat is out, that’s not a big deal, just have to document where the 6 wires go, cut several zip ties that hold it to the other switch wires and pull it out of the enclosure holding the case. It gives me a little struggle but succumbs.



I popped the new switch into the new case and decided to call it a day since I needed to mow the lawn. I used that time to plot how to fish the new switch wires through a very small area.

Today I began by tying a 12” twist tie to the wires and snuck the twist tie exactly where it needed to go. The wires came thru perfectly. Referenced my documentation pics to be sure the wires went where they belonged. Of course the new wires were different colors but thankfully were the proper length for the various locations they belonged. I guessed on 4 of the 6 wires as to polarity but thought I had them. Put the seat back in, connected the power cord, and put the 2 rear bolts in hand tight. Did a tiny rear motion, then fwd. It worked. Pressed the up portion of the switch. It went down. Pressed the down button. Nothing. Hmmm. Removed the rear bolts and swapped the wires on the up-down motor. Put it back with the 2 rear bolts hand tight. Pressed the up button. It went up. Pressed the down button. It went down. Perfect! Everything was working as it should. I removed the rear bolts 1 more time and stuck a couple of zip ties on the wires. Put all 4 rear bolts in, moved the seat back and put the 2 fronts in. Done and working as the good DR intended. And a job done that I wasn’t looking forward (pardon the pun) to tackling.

[PaulE]

Thanks for the update! I don't know how you'll be able to even think about selling this when you're finished with it!

[husker boxster]

Sometimes you should leave well enough alone…

Since 928s are known for their sketchy electrical connections, I decided to clean all the fuses by removing them 5 at a time, sanding them with an emery board, then spraying the fuse spades and socket with deoxit to clean the connections. There are 44 fuses but I did them all. Only found 1 that was blown and it was for some non-important function. I also pulled many relays and sprayed their sockets.

Then I decided to test my brake lights. I attempted to hook up the battery in the dark (I had the garage door down and no lights on in the garage). There was a big spark when I tried to connect the negative cable. Huh? Tried again – another spark. I turn on the lights and see I had the battery charger hooked up to the battery but it’s not plugged in. Removed the cables and connect the battery, turn out the lights and am surprised to see the light that illuminates the dash is on. OK, just adjust the wheel under the dash to turn it off. Nope. The wheel spins but never turns off the light. Looks like I’ve found the drain on my battery. Test the brake lights and have 2 working out the 3. Good enough for govt work.

We’re heading into Labor Day w/e and I get a few email ads from various tire stores about sales. Unfortunately, they’re selling tires brands I didn’t want to buy for the shark. Looked at Firestone’s website and found a set of Indy 500s that would cost me $100 / tire and $513 out the door. Checked Discount Tire for a set of BFGs and they were slightly more expensive. Discount was giving away a $50 credit card but only if you bought Michelins. I decided to go with the Indy 500s. There’s a Firestone store just 2 miles from my house, so even better. Except the last time I had the Mistress running, her idle was bouncing up and down and when it finally stabilized, it was very low and she usually died. I needed to see if this was still the case and would I trust her to go 4 mi.

Hook up the battery, turn the key, hear the fuel pump energizing, and then nothing. Engine doesn’t turn over, no clicking, nothing. Just silence. The first thing that runs thru my mind is I’ve shorted my $500 rebuilt computer with the big spark. Lots of things run thru my mind at that point, but none of them were good. Am I going to have to send it back to AZ for another rebuild? Will it cost me another $500? Can I maybe take my computers to my friend’s house and try them in his S4? I’m not happy. After I calm down a bit, I realize this is different than before my computer was rebuilt. Prior to the rebuild, the engine would turn over, it just didn’t have any spark or fuel. Now the engine wouldn’t turn over. So it’s probably something else, but what?

Labor Day night I had requested an appt for Wed at Firestone. Very early Tue morning I get a call from them. They say they don’t have the tires at their store but the tires are at their warehouse. If I can bring my car in after lunch, they can install them. Since the Mistress isn’t running, I have to devise a way to get the 928 wheels to Firestone. I get busy after breakfast getting the shark up on jack stands and the wheels off. Thankfully I have the Cayman at my house so I can load 2 in the back and take them over. I was trying to get this done before the apocalyptic rains began and was ready to load just as the skies opened up. Decided to wait until after lunch to maybe catch a break with the rain. No luck so I load 2 and head to FS. Their guy greets me and I say I’m going back home to get the 2nd pair. He asks if I live far. I said no. He thought they might be able to have these 2 swapped by the time I get back. Cool. Sure enough, when I get there with the 2nd pair, the first pair is done. I pay for them and take them home. Come back and the 2nd pair is done and waiting for me. Got the job done in 3 trips rather than 4. And now baby has a new pair of shoes.





I return back to my no-start conundrum. If it’s from the big spark, maybe I’ve blown a fuse so I check all 44 again. None blown. OK, maybe a relay. Electricity is not my strong suit but I do have a multimeter. I google how to test a relay and it doesn’t look too bad. You hook 12 volts to two of the prongs. You should hear a clicking noise. Then have your multimeter on ohms and poke the other 2 prongs. The meter should jump around with values less than 1 but isn’t a constant number 1. Run thru many of the relays, making sure to test the start related relays while skipping some of the not-as-important ones. A single relay is iffy so I replace it but it wasn’t directly related to starting. The rest test well. Not feeling confident that I’ve done anything positive but I put the multimeter away and hook up the battery again. The fuel pump energizes and the engine turns over and immediately starts! Yay! And the idle seems to be hunting less but still a shade low. Post mortem, I think a relay may have been stuck open and me zapping it with 12 volts jarred it loose and allowed it to close the circuit. At least that’s my story and I’m sticking to it.

Today I started to put items scattered around the basement and garage back on the shark. Our club is hosting a car show and meal next Sun and I want to display the Mistress. I finished cleaning the interior and mostly put it back together. Late in the afternoon I called an audible. I was planning to drive her around tomorrow to build up some confidence but decided I should do it this afternoon as my neighbor across the street was home with his pickup. Thought it might be wise to have him available to tow me home in case there was a problem. Asked him for his cell #, said I was going out for a drive, and I was leaving a log chain out by my garage door. He said he’d be willing to pull me home if need be. I reloaded my NAPA 5 gal bucket with H2O along with my fire extinguisher and was ready to go. Drove around the neighborhood for at least 15 min with no problems. Tomorrow I should be able to put the air cleaner and snorkels back on the engine. I might tear into the dash to look for some remaining problems, but I’m trying to decide if I should heed the advice I began this post with. I will defn be doing some polishing before the big event on Sun. The Mistress needs to look good for her coming out party.

[husker boxster]

I began the week by reassembling the interior and engine compartment with items laying in my basement and garage. It always takes longer to reassemble because you have to clean everything before replacing it. It was fun and enjoyable to see both the interior and engine bay back together. You get used to seeing her with no carpets or air cleaners.

The exterior make-over is next. Started with clay barring everything, followed by taping all the areas that don’t need to be hit by the buffer or its slop. The Mistress is ready for step 2.





Next up is buffing with mild rubbing compound. I normally do this step to remove swirl marks and minor scratches on my Wheeler Dealer cars but this was more of a shine restoration attempt. She came out looking pretty good. Step 3 is a polish. Wow, she’s starting to look really good. Final step is wax. Dang, I think I’ve knocked at least 2 feet off that 10 footer paint job. She’s looking very shiny. Once again, I’m so used to seeing her dull and covered in dust, it was nice to see an actual shine. I’ll add pics in the next post.

A while back I looked at the rear lights, investigating several outages. I had a left brake light and right turn signal light not working. I also discovered the 4 tail lights were out too. The tail lights are single filament bulbs and 3 of the 4 bulb tabs in the sockets were rusted off. I decided on Fri to tackle this job, but first...

***DISCLAIMER***
I am not an electrician. I am not very good with electricity. I don’t play an electrician on TV and I didn’t stay at a Holiday Inn Express. At times electricity baffles me. I got chastised on RL for using an emery board on my fuses. They said I should just go ahead and replace all of them since I’ve probably ruined them. I have a friend who has been encouraging me to start YT channel to document my WD adventures. The RL chastisement is why I don’t want to do my own channel. I do things my way and it might not always be correct. I don’t want to deal with being told I’m an idiot. OK, now back to our regularly scheduled program…

Here’s what 3 of my single filament sockets looked like. The tab is missing.



Here’s what a dual filament socket looks like. The tabs are still in this one.



Here’s the replacement single filament socket I bought.



Not exactly what I need, but I devised a way to make it work. I pulled the wire, plastic washer, and spring out of the replacement socket. I then drilled a hole thru the center of the 928 socket and fed the wire with the washer thru the hole. Put the spring in the socket and tried putting the bulb into socket. Couldn’t get to the latch portion of the socket, so I needed to remove the two ridges in the bridge across the socket (see 3 pics back). Dremelled them down and tried again. Success! The bulb caught and was tight. I clipped the hot wire on the back side of the socket and soldered my new wire to it. Here’s what my handywork looked like (2nd pic is before I soldered the wires together).




I repeated the process on the 2nd tail light socket. Then plugged the light back into the pigtail, connected the battery, and turned on the lights. They worked! Undid everything and shot a few drops of glue on the wires to keep them solid in the hole. It was getting to a point in the day where I had to decide if I wanted to do the other 1 after supper or wait until Sat afternoon. I chose Sat afternoon. Got the 3rd one done easily now that I have the process down. Was looking at the 4th socket. It had a tab in it and I was debating whether I should upgrade it or not. I got my answer when I pulled the bulb out – the tab came with it. So I fixed it too. The test went well – all tail lights are glowing. Not bad for an idiot electrician. Still have the brake light and turn signal to track down. The brake light is vexing as the socket looks good and I have a new bulb installed. Have to give it more thought. I now have a turn signal on the left side (which I didn’t have before) but the right side is still inoperable. I think it might be the front bulb / socket, so that’s my next place to investigate.

[PaulE]

Hi Husker thanks for the update, great work! I saw this website posted on one of the Facebook Boxster groups, maybe you already know about these kinds of places but if not maybe next time you need some electrical bits you can find them here. The website is www.octopart.com. The guy who posted it on Facebook said if there is a number on the connector you can enter it and search in their database. Hope it is useful and keep up the progress reports!

[husker boxster]

Hi Paul.
I will keep that site in mind. I may not be done with socket issues.

[husker boxster]

Sunday is the big show with our PCA club. This is an annual event that’s normally held in June but was postponed due to COVID. There were fewer show categories this yr with just 3 – best air cooled, water cooled, and 4 door. I would be in a tough category.

I decided to attend the weekly Cars & Coffee on Sat morning as kind of a test exhibition. Was glad I did, as I saw a few more places that needed cleaning. I placed a few pics of the ‘before’ in the trunk. People were amazed and many asked if I’d had her painted. Nope, just a lot of elbow grease.

Here are the before pics from Nov, to refresh your memory.






Here are the pics from Sat.





There was a guy there who also buys and sells cars. He’s recently sold a 78 & 81 928 and gave me an estimate on what he thought mine was worth. I’m going to hold off publishing his estimate, but I was very pleasantly surprised. He said he sold his sharks on ebay. I’m not sure if that’s the way to go. I’ve contemplated BAT but not sure if I want to deal with the peanut gallery comments that go along with a BAT auction (see previous post for a similar rant). I also have a plan that’s a bit out there, but I’m going to take a shot. Regardless, it was nice to see people really liked the Mistress. I have a few more items to address, but need to shift my focus to a sales plan.

Sun morning I worked on several areas that needed a bit more detail attention. The judge would be a stickler for the details. Was happy with how she looked and was glad I’d done the C&C show the day before. I get cleaned up and I’m ready to head to the show. I open the trunk to connect the battery cable. Oh oh, the cable is already connected, which means I forgot to disconnect it the day before when I finished my tail light work. That also means the battery would be low or dead. It was the latter. I quickly hook up the battery charger. Good thing I was ahead of schedule, but I was supposed to be at the site to direct traffic, so I needed to be there. Gave her 20 min of charge. She’s normally a quick starter and the battery had enough juice to get her going. I packed a set of jumper cables just in case she didn’t want to start after the event.

I got to the show at the proper time, get the shark parked, disconnect the battery, and start directing traffic. We were supposed to have a special 3-some display of 914s at our event, but all 3 fell thru. We have a new member who’s first Porsche is an 82 928, so we asked my friend with the red 87 928 S4 if he planned to attend. He did, so we assembled a 928 3-some as the feature display.





Club members were impressed with how she looked. It was fun telling the story of my struggles and victories. One person I talked to almost sounded like he might be interested in her. Hmmmm. After lunch, the judge was asked to announce the winners. Before he released their names, he gave a few pointers on how to compete in a show contest. He mentions my name as doing these things – clean out the junk in your car, put the steering wheel in the straight across position, and point the bottom of the crest of the center caps to the valve stem on your tires. There were a few others items he listed and I was making a mental note as to whether I’d done them as he checked them off. The winner of the water cooled group was a guy with a ’14 911 Turbo that he keeps in immaculate condition and his award was well deserved.

People started to leave in droves. I didn’t want to be the last one left in case the Mistress did Mistress things. I hook up the battery and she’s dead. A friend graciously brings his 911 over for a jump. Still dead. One time I thought it was going to fire, but there just wasn’t enough juice. I pull the battery out and he gave me a ride home (I’m only 1.5 mi away). Throw the battery on the charger and watch the last 2 hrs of the US Open. Call a friend who lives close by and he graciously agrees to pick me up and take me back to the show location. I toss the battery in, hook up the cables, and cross my fingers. She fires right up. Got her home, disconnect the cable, and hook her back up to the charger.

Tomorrow I tear the dash apart again to search for the reason why the dash light stays on. But it was a good weekend.

[piper6909]

That's a pretty quick and very impressive turnaround! She looks beautiful! Congrats!!

[PaulE]

Nice story, I still can't believe you are going to sell the Mistress after all you two have been through together!

[rexcramer]

Three 928's in one place at the same time. What a site. Excellent job sir. I wish I had your energy and commitmentability (Sod off autocorrect, I am making that one word)

[husker boxster]

Thanks guys. I appreciate everyone that's followed along.

Originally Posted by piper6909

That's a pretty quick and very impressive turnaround!

I guess I hadn't thought about the length of time in terms of a restoration. I'm used to getting my Wheeler Dealer cars ready for sale in a matter of wks, not months. This has seemed long to me in that regard, but has been a great project nonetheless.

Originally Posted by rexcramer

Three 928's in one place at the same time. What a site. Excellent job sir. I wish I had your energy and commitmentability (Sod off autocorrect, I am making that one word)

Now that I'm "retired", I get to do what I enjoy. The victories have kept me motivated. It's safe and easy to do the same things over and over (buy a car, do the maint, polish, then sell). This project has stretched my boundaries immensely. It's reminded me of my younger days when my dad and I rebuilt wrecked cars. We'd run into obstacles but my dad would think things thru and come up with a solution. Been a lot of that with the shark and I learned patience and persistence from my dad.

Originally Posted by PaulE

Nice story, I still can't believe you are going to sell the Mistress after all you two have been through together!

It's simple mathematics. I have a 2 car garage and 3 cars. One of my cars currently resides at my mom's house while I work on the Mistress. She has a basement garage along with her regular 2 car garage so my car isn't in her way, but having 3 cars and the next Wheeler Dealer car just wouldn't compute. It's the age old car guy problem of too many cars and not enough room. You just can't keep all of them.

My dad liked to say there's always another car around the corner. And I have the bad habit of rounding the bend to see what's there.

[PaulE]

Originally Posted by husker boxster

Thanks guys. I appreciate everyone that's followed along.



I guess I hadn't thought about the length of time in terms of a restoration. I'm used to getting my Wheeler Dealer cars ready for sale in a matter of wks, not months. This has seemed long to me in that regard, but has been a great project nonetheless.



Now that I'm "retired", I get to do what I enjoy. The victories have kept me motivated. It's safe and easy to do the same things over and over (buy a car, do the maint, polish, then sell). This project has stretched my boundaries immensely. It's reminded me of my younger days when my dad and I rebuilt wrecked cars. We'd run into obstacles but my dad would think things thru and come up with a solution. Been a lot of that with the shark and I learned patience and persistence from my dad.



It's simple mathematics. I have a 2 car garage and 3 cars. One of my cars currently resides at my mom's house while I work on the Mistress. She has a basement garage along with her regular 2 car garage so my car isn't in her way, but having 3 cars and the next Wheeler Dealer car just wouldn't compute. It's the age old car guy problem of too many cars and not enough room. You just can't keep all of them.

My dad liked to say there's always another car around the corner. And I have the bad habit of rounding the bend to see what's there.

I understand I hope that you make enough to cover the money and time you've invested in this one! You've done a lot more than they ever do on any car on the Wheeler Dealer tv show!

[dghii]

Car looks great! I hope you can sort out the current drain issue so you don't have to keep disconnecting the battery.

[husker boxster]

It’s been a while since my last update. I’ve basically done nothing to the Mistress since the club’s car show in late Sep. That’s partly due to getting my CSS ready for the rescheduled Indy DE in mid-Oct, a massive landscaping project, and polishing / detailing a friend's beautiful Atlas Grey Cayman S. And while this update doesn’t comprise a humongous change, it is a major hurdle none the less.

Key
To refresh your memory, I ordered a key from a 928 specialist in NC back in early June. I couldn’t order the key until I had a valid title. It was only supposed to take a few wks but hadn’t arrived after 2 mo. I contacted the lady I’d dealt with and she said she’d been updating me thru email but it turns out she had my addr wrong. She apologized and said it was taking longer than normal to get the keys from Germany. If it made me feel any better (it didn’t), there was supposedly someone else waiting longer for a key than me. I then received a couple of update emails saying I was still on hold. Then radio silence.

Fast forward from late Aug to two wks ago. I called Porsche of Omaha to ask how much they’d charge for a key. It was $50 more than the NC specialist but they’d be sending my VIN info to Atlanta to have the key cut and it would probably be 4 or 5 days to get it. Sure. But I told them to go ahead and order it and I ponied up the $$$. This was on a Fri just after lunch. I immediately called NC to cancel my order. As usual, I got voicemail and left a msg. Then also sent them an email stating I was cancelling and wanted them to verify they received my email. Not surprisingly, I never heard back from them.

The following Tue morning I got a call from PoO and my key was in. Wow! I was told by the parts guy that I needed to bring the Mistress in to have the key calibrated to the alarm system. Hmmm…, I didn’t know that was necessary but I guess it made sense. The first opening they had was the following Mon, Nov 2, so I booked the appt. I thought about waiting to pick up the key until Mon but decided I wanted to do some work with the key over last w/e, so I picked it up last Fri.



It didn’t look any different than the valet key I had. Interesting.



I have the rear liftgate lock removed b/c the valet key wouldn’t open it. I tried my new key in the trunk cylinder and it wouldn’t budge it either. OK, so that ended my w/e attempts at doing work. I was hoping the key would work in the trunk lock and I'd be able to put the trunk lock back in.

Sun I charged up the battery and Mon morning hooked it up. Slid the new key in and turned it over. The engine cranked right up, which was impressive since she’s been sitting for 7 wks. Drove to PoO and was met by the service mgr. As I tried to shut the engine off, the key wouldn’t rotate to the off position. I didn’t want to strong arm it and break the key off. The SM hopped in and got it to shut off. He thought there might have been a stuck tumbler, in which case would mean this might be a different cut than my valet key. I said I was there to get the key and immobilizer calibrated. He mentioned something about some procedure where you started & stopped the car multiple times and w/in seconds of each other, but since my car started with the key, he said the immobilizer obviously recognized it or it wouldn’t have started. So my trip only cost me time but no $$$. When I got home, the key was a bit stiff turning it off, but it did shut off.

I checked the owner’s manual to see if it described the alarm procedure, but there was nothing about having to calibrate it. I haven’t checked RL or posted a thread there asking about it. I think I’m going to get some lock lube for the ignition and the trunk lock. If that doesn’t work on the trunk lock, I’ll see if a locksmith can “unlock” the mystery.

I sent a pic of my key to my friends in NC and stated I’d gotten a key and didn’t need them to get one. I got a response back saying they thought I wanted to cancel my order when I talked to them on the phone in early Aug, so they cancelled my order. I'd threatened to cancel the order when I left a vm because I wasn’t hearing from them. Once I actually heard back from her and found out the email updates were going to the wrong addr, I stated I was fine with them continuing the order. I haven’t gone back to verify, but I’m sure I had a couple of email updates on the order from her after that conversation. Not feeling so bad about spending the extra $$$ with Porsche of Omaha since they were able to get me a key in short order w/o all the drama.

Paint Imperfections
While the Mistress shined up nicely for the car show, that doesn’t mean she has a perfect complexion. She’s been repainted once and it wasn’t a high quality job and she has a few chips. I added to the imperfections when I was fixing the sunroof. I had it set too high and got a scratch in it when I retracted it into the roof and rubbed against a support bolt. I lowered the sunroof a tad and Dremelled off the excess bolt, but the scratch remained. And the final imperfection is on the passenger qtr panel. It looks like at some time a metal rake fell on it and left 6 or 7 claw marks. I bet the previous owner said a few choice words when that happened. I bought a bottle of DR Colorchip but hadn’t tackled the paint project. We’re experiencing an unusually nice week of weather right now, so I decided to attack the paint. I never have luck doing the conventional way DR Colorchip recommends – fill the chip, let it dry for 5 min, then dab and smooth it out with their version of thinner. I always end up removing all the new paint I put in the chip with the dabbing procedure. But I have had luck by filling the chip, letting it dry, and then wet sanding the spot with 1500 grit sand paper. Once it’s smooth, hit it with some rubbing compound, then swirl remover, and finally with polish. Takes some nerves of steel not to go too far, but with luck it will look like new. So this afternoon I filled the chips, the sunroof scratch, and the rake claw marks. I tried to take a pic of the claw marks, but the rest of the paint on the qtr is so shiny, all you get is reflection and can’t see the marks. After letting the paint cure, tomorrow I’ll get out the sand paper and a bucket of water. Hopefully it works. That may allow her next owner to not have to paint her right away. Fingers crossed on it working out favorably. My next update will have the ‘after’ pics.

Happy (?)Anniversary
I realized Wed was the 1 yr anniversary of buying the Mistress. It’s been an interesting yr and I’ve learned a lot about sharks in that time. I’ve gotten her to the point where I could sell her, and looking back at my original posts, said my goal was to get her running and then sell her on. 928s are very cool cars and while I’d like to keep her, I don’t have room. I kind of thought about selling her after the car show but never put out any ads. However, I did have an idea for selling her. I contacted Mike Brewer (the real Wheeler Dealer) via FaceBook to see if he’d be interested in buying her. The work that’s left would be right up Ant’s alley and Mike & Edd did a 928 restore in one of their early seasons of Wheeler Dealer, so I thought there’d be a chance Mike would bite. But I never heard back from him. I tracked down an email addr for Ant and sent him an email a few days ago. But I also ran across a story on the net that said Ant will be leaving WD and there’s only 3 episodes left with him as Mike’s mechanic. So that might be why I haven’t heard anything from either of them. But hey, nothing ventured, nothing gained. It would have been cool to have them finish the restoration of the Mistress.

For grins, I did a search for 2009-2015 Boxsters & Caymans – the mainstay of my normal WD searches. Prices are still sky high and there was nothing available that fit my parameters for mileage, price, and needing maintenance. I don’t want to buy a high priced car, have the bubble burst, and leave me holding the bag on an overpriced car in a depressed mkt. So it’s making more sense to keep working on the remaining shortcomings of the Mistress this winter. She’s not going to lose value like a normal WD car and anything I do should add value, increasing my asking price when it’s time to sell. Looks like she and I will be spending more quality time together. Unless something changes in the next 7 wks, 2020 will mark the first time I haven’t bought a WD car in a calendar yr for maybe 10 yrs. But I sold 3 cars for friends (in record time to boot) and if everything goes well tomorrow, assisted my sister with selling her 2012 370Z. So I tallied 3.5 sales this yr, which is a record. Crazy yr all around. What does 2021 have in store?