Project Lazarus

[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?

[husker boxster]

It’s been almost 2 mo since I had an update. Have to be honest, I haven’t been motivated to move forward on the Mistress. I had her all put back together for the car show in mid-Sep. I created a new list of things to do and a majority of them require the dash and interior to be torn apart to complete the work. Wasn’t hot to do that. But here’s what’s new.

Key
My new key would lock the doors (my valet key wouldn’t) but it wouldn’t budge the trunk lock. Tried some graphite in it but to no avail. Decided to take it to the only locksmith who thought they could work on it a yr ago. I dropped it off and explained the issue one morning and by mid-afternoon it was done. They didn’t say if some tumblers were stuck, but the key did work in the lock now. Only problem was I was $125 lighter. I put the lock back in the trunk and I’ve solved all my key & locking issues.

Paint Imperfections
I have the sunroof scratch and a chip in the driver’s fender ready to polish but the rake claw marks haven’t been as easy. It’s taken many (4-5) batches of paint to build up to the surrounding paint layer. I have 75% of the spots filled properly, but have a few left to complete. Put a new batch of paint in them last wk and need to sand them out. Hopefully this will be the last bit of painting necessary and they’ll be ready to polish after sanding. However, that qtr panel is on the dark side of my garage so I either need to wait for a sunny, warm day to open the garage to sand or put some light on the qtr. Would prefer the former but will probably have to do the latter. I have plenty of other items to address, so I can wait for a nice day.


Interior
As I mentioned, many of the items on my To Do list require tearing the interior apart. A couple of days ago I decided to pull the front seats out in hope that would get me motivated. At some point I’ll need to take the seats to my leather guy for refurbishing, so they needed to come out. And having them out will give me more room to slide under the dash to do work. None of the gauges on the instrument panel are working, which means I needed to tear the dash pod open to get at the instrument cluster. Pulled the steering wheel off along with several panels below the wheel. Loosened 2 bolts holding the pod in place and was able to pull it fwd enough to get the cluster loose. I think I found my cluster problem. I have a post in on Rennlist to verify, but it may be an easy fix. What am I saying? Nothing’s easy with the Mistress. I think in the meantime I’ll go ahead and remove the pod shell this weekend, as it has cracks in it that will eventually need repairing. I may take it to my leather guy and see what he says. I need to pull 5 switches off the pod but the instructions on the net look fairly straight fwd. With the pod off, I can also look at the rheostat wheel that keeps the cluster permanently illuminated and drains my battery. It looked dirty / corroded so maybe a good cleaning will take care of that problem.

Here’s what she looks like right now.






While I have the interior torn apart, I need to track down why the windows don’t operate as well as why the radio isn’t making any sounds (it lights up when turned on). I also need to see why the passenger mirror isn’t working. Lots of electrical gremlins to chase.

[husker boxster]

One of Porsche's best commercials ever...

[husker boxster]

Got the 5 switches removed from the dash pod, along with the wires to the 2 rheostats. Only 1 of the 5 switches gave me a fight, so not too bad. Pod is now removed. I can take it to my upholstery guy on Mon. Want to find out if he can repair it and how he does it. If he fills the cracks with body filler, I can do that myself and save a few bucks.

The tear down continues.

[dghii]

Congratulations on your sale and all the great work you accomplished on the 928. I appreciate you taking the time to share the journey with the forum. You got her looking and performing to a point that you changed her trajectory upward. Someone is going to be very proud to be a long term owner of that beautiful car.

On to the next one!

[pilot4fn]

Originally Posted by dghii

Congratulations on your sale and all the great work you accomplished on the 928. I appreciate you taking the time to share the journey with the forum. You got her looking and performing to a point that you changed her trajectory upward. Someone is going to be very proud to be a long term owner of that beautiful car.

On to the next one!

+1 to above

It is fantastic that you share with us the journey with the cars you work on. Very interesting and same time educating, thank you!

[PaulE]

Thanks for the ride-along! Looking forward to more stories about your cars.

[Racer Boy]

I too have enjoyed your documenting your 928 journey. Thanks!

[TeamOxford]

Terry,
Saw your ad for the 928 in Panorama this month.
Glad you sold it for a reasonable price to someone who can finish the project.
Now you can take your VISA card out of the freezer. (It should be cooled down by now])
Just sayin'.......
TO

[husker boxster]

Originally Posted by TeamOxford

Saw your ad for the 928 in Panorama this month.
Glad you sold it for a reasonable price to someone who can finish the project.

That's the downside of the PCA classifieds - advertising in Pano is behind reality. I marked my online ad as sold as soon as I had CIF (cash in fist), but the delay in publishing a magazine with dated ads came into play. I must have priced it market correct as I've gotten an email and a phone call this wk from the Pano ad.

Originally Posted by TeamOxford

Now you can take your VISA card out of the freezer.

A couple of items here...
I had almost $7K in parts in the Mistress. While I didn't have a high dollar amt in the purchase price, esp compared to other WD cars, the high amt in parts bothered me and was a major factor in deciding to sell vs finish. There were several high dollar items left to do (timing belt & refinishing the dash to name a few) that were going to push that amt even higher. All told, it could have been another $3-4K. I didn't want to go there. That may seem odd when you consider I had $40K in my last WD car, but the time involved to reach the finish line was too long for me to invest that much more. A typical WD car is a 2 wk to 3 mo commitment, not yrs.

There were some advantages to spending so much on parts. I used points to select a new GoPro 7 Black edition and it was miles ahead in picture quality compared to my old GoPro 2. This yr's Indy videos jump off the screen they looks so good. So membership has its privileges.

[TeamOxford]

All points taken, Terry.

I owned three transaxle Porsches during their "period", and they were wonderful machines compared to what was available in the sport car market at the time.

But I would never undertake ownership now, considering the time and cost involved to bring them up to a 40 year old spec.

IMHO, it's best to let the past stay where it is......in the past.

Just sayin'.........

TO

[husker boxster]

Sunday was the 1 yr anniversary of selling The Mistress. I hadn't heard for the new owner, so I tracked down his contact info and emailed him. He responded back, saying he'd changed the timing belt, water pump, and power steering hoses but hadn't had a chance to addr the electrical issues. Life issues got in the way. Totally understand as my time has been consumed with life issues for the last yr too. But she still looks good.