Project Lazarus

[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.