Shark #2 Has Arrived

[husker boxster]

Sometimes you have to go backwards before going forward. Had to pull the top portions of the rear seats out. Took a google search to figure out how, but they're out now. Have to take them out to take the qtr panel covers off. Now that the seats are out, I may be able to pull the wires w/o taking the panels off. Will churn that over for a day and decide on a plan of action.

Note the grille item between the seats. That's the rear A/C unit (Porsche was thinking about the ppl who had to ride in the back). The cover over the unit had to come off in order for me to get to 1 bolt for ea seat.



I found out those red wires are for the aftermkt alarm system that was installed. Have to be very careful that I don't disable the ignition when pulling these wires. The plan is to pull some wires, then see if the shark starts, then pull more wires and try starting again. If it doesn't start, then I know the last thing I did was the culprit.



These are mostly speaker wires, but there are some red (alarm) wires too. Must be careful.



So it may not look like progress, but now I have better access to the wires I need to pull. Onward and upward.

[PaulE]

I hope the plastic they used back then is better than what they used in the 986, that it hasn't turned brittle resulting in lots of tabs breaking off when you remove the panels!

[husker boxster]

Originally Posted by PaulE

I hope the plastic they used back then is better than what they used in the 986, that it hasn't turned brittle resulting in lots of tabs breaking off when you remove the panels!

According to my google search on how to remove the panel, there are metal tabs on the bottom. The only plastic snaps are 4 at the top of the panel that covers the area above the qtr window. So far, I've been able to pull the wires out by removing the screws from the lower tabs and pulling the wires past them. I'll still probably have to pull the panels when rewiring for the new stereo, but I'll save that for a later day.





Pulled the red wires on the driver's side out from under the panel and out of the carpet (had to remove 1 carpet piece in the rear seat footwell). A series of wires go under the seat while several go towards the front. When I reach under the seat, there appears to be a control unit for the alarm under there. May have to remove the seat to get to it. That could be an issue since I remember the seat from my 87 was quite heavy. May not be ready to lift that much weight yet. Maybe I'll only need to remove the seat bolts and fold the seat forward and not out. We'll see, will plan that out for the future. Will cont to pull the other red wires out but I imagine they'll head up into the dash.





This is interesting on the passenger side. In the 1st pic, the wires are speaker wires (there are still speaker wires left under the panel connected to the speakers). The speaker wires laying out of the car may have come from the amps. The black wires defn did and they head under the seat - probably to the driveshaft hump and to the radio. May need to pull the seat for these. But the mystery is the copper colored speaker wires. They go into the cover that hid the amp on my 87 S4. When I removed the cover, the wires went into a bundle that was plugged into the silver canister. It didn't look like the amp from my 87, so I figured it was something added for the aftermkt system. Except it had a 928 serial #. Hmmm... that's factory stuff. Google says it's a fan relay control unit - it determines when to open and close the vents on the front for aerodynamics. So why does it need speaker wires connected to it? Got a ques thread in on RL to see if they know.



I pulled more wires to the passenger front footwell. The red wires are alarm and head towards the center of the dash. The 2 black wires came from the amps and probably head to the radio. I'll pull the carpet panel on the trans tunnel and see if they're visible.

And to finish my session, I hooked up the battery and she started. So no issues yet. That might change when I start removing the alarm. That may not be too far down the road. Here's what the trunk looks like now. A lot of spaghetti is gone.

[dghii]

Always enjoy hearing about your progress and was a bit shocked to hear about your heart attack. I'm glad to hear you are on the mend and wish you the all the best in your recovery. It sounds like you are doing all the right things and you will be as good as new.

[husker boxster]

Originally Posted by dghii

Always enjoy hearing about your progress and was a bit shocked to hear about your heart attack. I'm glad to hear you are on the mend and wish you the all the best in your recovery. It sounds like you are doing all the right things and you will be as good as new.

Thanks. Much appreciated.

[husker boxster]

RL correctly said the speaker wires don't go into the fan relay control unit. Once I followed the wire bundle, it went into the diagnostic port. The port and unit were jambed close together and I didn't follow the wire bundle carefully enough.



The FRCU has its own wires but none are speaker wires. Makes more sense.



So onward. There are a bunch of speaker wires that go under the seat. So I need to remove the seat. Thankfully it went forward and backward enough for me to get to all the seat bolts (the seats in The Mistress didn't and caused me all kinds of problems). But remembering the weight of the seats in The Mistress, I knew I shouldn't be lifting it myself so I got my neighbor to help me get it out.

Here's what's under the seats. Will keep me busy for a while.





We have some very cold weather coming. Not sure if I'll warm up the basement garage or not.

[husker boxster]

Rather than do a daily blow-by-blow, I decided to do several days work and report on it as a whole. Lots of cables and equipment removed. When we last left off, my passenger front seat area looked like this:



The silver canister below the seat was for the CD changers and has been removed, along with the wires for it. There remains 2 RCA cables still connected to the radio as well as a red twisted wire that's also conneted to the radio. New is a batch of cables that are for the GPS. I've removed the CD player for it and now the GPS wires left are to the display unit on the dash along with a power wire.

So here's what I started with:



The GPS monitor on the dash has to go. The CD player for it is below the glove box and is currently removed. Moving down the center console, the radio is a double din, so room had to be made for it since the factory radio was a single din. What they did was remove the ash tray and cig lighter and moved the ash tray to the side panel and moved the cig lighter to the glove box (what a great idea!). Then they moved the rear AC controls down to where the ash tray used to be. So some replacement parts will be needed, but nothing serious.

Here's a pic of the wires jambed into the console area with the radio still in. Pic is from the driver side with the consol carpet panel removed. Lots of extra wires behind the panel, but that's for later.



With the removal of a couple of screws holding the radio in, it was pulled out and RCA cables along with power plug removed. With it out, it was fairly light work getting the stereo cables out.



Then it's a matter of removing the rear AC controls and the HVAC unit. With a little more work, the center console can come out.



The center console section needed to come out to get to the GPS display. It was held on the dash with 2 bolts / nuts. Neither was easy to get to, but with some persistence they came off. Wth the nuts off, the unit lifted off the dash. Was disappointed with what I saw.



Didn't expect an massive swath removed from the dash. Was hoping for just a few holes. This makes things more "interesting". This was done to a perfect dash. Oh well, it's off and wires removed.

Now on to the driver's side. For some reason, one of the previous 2 owners decided to put a volt meter on the driver's side console carpet - probably because of all the extra wired systems wanted to keep track of what's going on. Horrible location that restricted your leg movement. It has to go.



I also discovered two toggle switches by the volt meter. Who knows that they go to. But they both have wires that need to be removed. I also discovered some addl devises that I think go to the alarm system. Regardless, lots of wires need removing. Here's the before and after.





There are some wires left that need to be tracked down and removed but I ran out of steam. Will work on that tomorrow along with removing the driver's seat to start with the removal of the alarm system under that seat.

When I got done, I reconnected the battery and she started right up.

[husker boxster]

Look what arrived today:





A Blaupunkt Bremen SQR 46 with a Blaupunkt amp. Need to find a place to hide the amp, not sure it will fit under the passenger seat. Will do some clean-up in the passenger area, then plan an installation. But don't want to tear into too much on the driver's side as I have to have her running for the TB / WP apt on the 13th.

[PaulE]

Nice, you've been busy!

[husker boxster]

Originally Posted by PaulE

Nice, you've been busy!

Yes, it's been enjoyable to be back in the garage. The shark is in my basement garage and the driveway to it looks like this. Might not look like it, but it's entirely covered by 2" of snow / ice.



Only gets sunshine in the morning and the sun doesn't have much strength to melt anything then. We've had 2 days in the 50s and this coming week temps will be in the 40s, so our snow is disappearing. I'm not supposed to do snow shoveling since my heart attack, but I wanted to try helping the driveway today. I need to be able to get the shark out next wk for her appt.



I'd do 15 min of work, then rest for 90 min. Did 3 sets of work and got a chunk of the driveway cleared. Should be able to do a section ea day. The rehab nurses want me to do exercise on off days, so I'm trying to oblige. Being careful and listening to my body. Feel good tonight.

[husker boxster]

My initial plan was to leave the driver's seat in and not mess with the wires yet. I had an apt to get the TB / WP replaced on 2/13. Didn't want to pull the driver's seat and tear into a major project with only a wk to get done. Then I get an email from my mechanic friend saying he was running behind on a cpl jobs ahead of me, so he wanted to push the date back to 2/27. OK by me.

So I removed the driver's seat (myself) and here's the rat's nest I found.







As a starting pt, this is what my pile looked like Fri at lunch, after I pulled the wires below the seat
but before I pulled the wires to the front.



I found the connections under the seat for the alarm were disconnected, so it appears someone has disarmed the alarm. I discovered the river of wires running towards the gas pedal went up to the windows and sunroof switches. Those were easy to remove. A 4th set of wires went up under the dash to an unplugged connector. Gonzo.

Now to turn my attn to the wires on the driver's left side. There were 2 bundles of wires from the rear and 1 bundle from under the seat. Most of the wires went up to under the dash to the unconnected connectors. 2 bundles went out the firewall to the front of the engine bay to the Clifford alarm and the radar detector. I started pulling the wires from the engine bay to the firewall, but the bundle took a detour to the left inner construction, thru the outside wheel area, and then into the driver's compartment via the firewall. This meant I had to remove the left front tire to pull the wheel well plastic to get to the wires.



I was going to town pulling and removing wires. Here's what my pile looked like late on Sat afternoon.



The wire removal was done! Whew! Felt very satisfying. Here are some after pics. Looks substancially different.





My hope is to work on wiring the speakers and getting wires to the amp and radio this wk, then put things back together on the driver's side so she's ready to drive to the apt. But then I realized I hadn't been following my rule of trying to start her after removing a set of wires. Last time I did that was after removing the windows / sunroof wires.

I connect the battery and flip the key. The dash lights up, then goes dark. Oh, oh. Ignition spins the motor but no start. CRAP! The battery sounded low, so I put the charger on it, hoping that was the source of my issue. After several hrs of charging, retried starting. Blank dash, no start. CRAP CRAP! Now I have to chase a short.

Stay tuned. Same Bat channel, same Bat time.

[PaulE]

Wow, the things that people do for "upgrades"!

[dghii]

Well, my friend, you are living everyones worst nightmare for pulling wires and aftermarket electronics. Gotta concentrate on the alarm wiring, maybe download (if available) installation information for the alarm system. Good luck trying to find diagrams, I've found them hard to come by.

I have an aftermarket alarm in my 996 that works, but I never use as my car is garaged and we live in a pretty safe area. I find the system annoying as the keyfob would go through batteries about once a month. Also, if we ever made the mistake of trying to unlock the armed car with the factory keyfob, all hell would break loose with an alarm that was hard to disarm (as battery in alarm keyfob was weak). I stopped using the system and thought of removing the electronics but was concerned of running into the exact issue you've run into.

As I've been unable to locate the schematics, I've decided to punt for now. My factory keyfob works great and so it goes!

Your problem may be difficult to find but it will be easy to solve! Hang in there!

[husker boxster]

🤞🤞

Should know tomorrow...

[husker boxster]

I didn't want to, but Wed I removed the steering wheel and binnacle. Figured I had to remove it to enhance my search.



Thu morning while laying in bed, I remembered 2 wires I clipped off that were under the steering wheel. Wondered if the ends that were left happened to be the same colors?



You can't tell from the pic, but there were 2 black wires that went into the yellow connector. The gold connector also had 2 black wires. BINGO!!! Now I wanted to track down the end I cut off. The wire coming out of the yellow connector was green, white out of the gold. I found the section I cut off.



The wire bunch on the right are the green and white wires I cut. They're pinned into the connector that wasn't plugged into anything, so shouldn't have been an issue cutting them. But something interesting half way up the wires.



A jumper wire connecting the green and white wires. This completed the circuit back to the 2 black wires these came from. Except now the circuit is broken since I cut those wires. So I cut the yellow and gold connectors off and spliced the wires together with a jumper wire (didn't want to solder them together and find out that didn't work). Put them together and plugged the instrument panel back in.

Fingers crossed...



Success!
Will solder it up tomorrow and put the binnacle back in. My wire removal project is completed!
Looks like I'll be able to make the TB / WP apt on the 27th - if I can get the 9" of snow off the rear driveway.

[PaulE]

You are the man! I really admire your skills and perserverence! Wish this forum had a "Like" button too!

[dghii]

Glad you found the problem and more importantly, the solution!

[husker boxster]

Since we last left off, my shark dash needed to be put back together. Got the dash binnacle and steering wheel back on.



Moved over to replace the center console, without the new radio. There's a big hole where the old double din radio was. The new radio is single din. I'll need to figure out what to do with the extra space. I looked for replacement parts on ebay and prices are amazing - $400 for a center console and $200 for a bezel. Ouch! Will use what I've got for now.



I continued putting the driver's side back together, inserting the seat and carpets. I may need to remove some panels once I install the new stereo, but she's ready for the TB apt. I left the pass side undone.



Then I got an email from my mechanic. He's got a bit of a situation that I won't go into, but he wanted to delay my apt until the 13th. OK, I've got stuff I can work on until then so I'll turn my attn to wiring the stereo.

Let me start by saying it's been at least 35 yrs since I've messed with installing a stereo, and things have gotten way more complicated since then. So I'm not an expert. There are three speakers in ea rear panel. I have a 4 chl amp so I'm wondering if I'll need to wire the speakers in parallel and began chasing the wiring set-up on the pass side. All the wires go into this device and there's a second one on the driver's side.



Obviously it says it's a crossover. Not sure what that is so I go to Google. It's so old there aren't any pics of it but it looks like it could save me some work. I go back to the car and track the wires that go into it. They link up nicely with the tweeter, midrange, and woofer. The open slot (IN slot and has wires in the pic) is for input wires pos and neg. I wonder if I hook up my old radio and jumper wire from the RCA speaker wire to the crossover if I'll get sound from the 3 speakers? So I get my old radio out of the pile of wires & equipment and jumper wire it to the battery. Then jumper wire from the RCA cable to the crossover. The radio fires up but I'm not getting any sound from the speakers. I unscrew the end of the RCA cable and connect my jumper wires to the place where the wire connects to the end. Still no sound. I get my multimeter out and it shows no current at the RCA cables, but I've got a cheap meter and not sure if I trust it.

I stop for a bit and then think maybe I should replace the crossover with a single speaker. For some reason I still have the dash speakers from my 1st Porsche - a lapis blue 2001 Boxster S. I pull one of the speakers from the box and connect it to the jumper wires from the RCA cables. No sound. No other way to test with this radio as it only has RCA cables for output.

I pull my new radio out of the box and wire it up using the speaker wires it comes with. I jump it to the old Box speaker and then connect it up to the battery. I hear sound. I jumper to the pass crossover and hear sound out of all 3 speakers. YAY! Hook the jumper wires to the driver crossover and hear sound from them! YES! This is going to save me a ton of time and wiring when I put the new amp in. I'll use the crossovers as my 2 rear channels. Here's what I had concocted for my test:



Now I have to figure out the door speakers. There are 2 speakers per door. I may have removed the wires to them in my purge. I'll do some testing tomorrow. But for now, another success.

[PaulE]

Great work! So the old radio is shot or not sure?

[dghii]

Great progress!
When you connected the RCA line to the speaker, you were connecting a 'pre-amp' (Low voltage tiny power) wire to the speaker. The RCA connection does not have the capacity to drive a speaker directly...it would have to go to an amp and then the amp connects to the crossover. The output from your new radio was 'line level', or amplified, hence your success driving the speakers.

The different connections for the tweeter crossover output will determine the 'brightness' of the treble. Connect to whichever one sounds best to you.