The Houston 04 SE

[Brian in Tucson]

Originally Posted by 78F350 Tagged. What a great picture. Looks like it should be in a Por sha advertisement!

[78F350]

Originally Posted by Brian in Tucson

What a great picture. Looks like it should be in a Por sha advertisement!

Here's a fun contrast:

[BruceH]

I am still amazed at how quickly you turned this car around, outstanding job

[10/10ths]

Saw your car in Grassroots Motorsports. Nice.

[78F350]

I had planned to drive it with the leak in the power steering rack for a while. At first, it didn't look too bad. After a couple drives, it seemed like I was just pouring the fluid straight through to my driveway. A few drips of PS fluid on the under carriage, I thought was okay. A few pints, not so good.

I stopped driving the car.
I wanted to fix it quickly and get back to driving the car, but life got busy. I covered the car and it sat for a few weeks. Eventually everything aligned – decent weather, decent health, time off, and space in the garage.

• Installed the steering rack from the '01 S parts car in the SE.
• Replaced the rear drop links and control arms.
• New rear tires (Firestone Firehawk Indy 500).
• Repaired some plastic panels.
• Rear spoiler was a little misaligned – fixed it.
• Installed a custom dashboard cover as a temporary cosmetic fix. (Hate it, poor fit and cheap looking).
• General cleaning.

Plastic repair. Plastic weld the cracks, but not worried about a smooth finish.
I used a Polyvance welding kit (Thanks to Oldcarguy)
Video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3PsBPZAUZWE



I have the replacement SE muffler now, but I don't plan to install it until I take the rear bumper off for repair. No rush to get that done.
The cars needs an alignment after the work I did. Everything looks good and feels right when I drive. I was careful to mark everything and install the new parts to the same position, but I know that's not 'good enough' for long term. The shop in town is not comfortable doing a Porsche. I've learned that if a shop tells you that they are not comfortable working on your car, it's best to walk away rather than ask them to give it a try anyway. I'll probably have to drive an hour to Tulsa to get it done. That means setting up an appointment somewhere and using the better part of a day off to get it done.
Tomorrow there's a PCA event (Car Detailing Clinic) in Tulsa. I plan on going and driving the SE as it is. I drove it to work this evening and the check engine light came on. I have no way to check it until I get home in the morning. It's running smooth and sounds good, so hopefully it's a quick, easy fix.

[78F350]

I had a good drive today. Put over 150 miles on it. It felt good. My daughter and I went to the car detailing clinic with the Porsche club, then visited my son and grand daughter near Tulsa. The only problem with the car was that the heater was blowing cold air and the outside temperature was in the high 30s. The best remedy for that was closing the vents and turning on the heated seats. I think the mixing door for the heater is jammed.
The check engine light from last night was legit, but easy to fix. The bank 2 primary O2 sensor was failing. Maybe residual from the flooding – I don't think I ever cleaned that sensor. It took less than 15 minutes to jack up the car and replace with a 'gently used' one that I had on the shelf.

My daughter and I refueling the SE and THAT:


I am starting to feel that the basics of this car are sound now, but there is still a long way to go to consider it recovered. I still have lots of simple things to do, like replace the wheel center caps and reinstall the original steering wheel. As I continue to clean the car, areas I have not addressed yet really stand out. I also have some major things to take car of such as the dashboard and pulling the carpet out to dry it completely (underneath).

[78F350]

I've been daily driving the car for the last couple weeks. Today I did some minor cosmetic fixes. The 'S' badge on the trunk was damaged - cracked with the top of the S coming off. I replaced it today with a red S using some 3M tape.



I also replaced the center caps that were missing the Porsche crest with some silver ones. I don't like the result. The center caps with a plastic crest have more relief than the metal crests. I'm going to pull a faded set off one of my other cars and paint them Seal Gray including the crest and see how that looks.


My garage is occupied by another car at the moment, but when I get that project done, the SE is going back in for some major work. I plan to fix the rear bumper, install the correct muffler, pull and completely dry the carpet padding, fix the heater, and replace the dashboard. I bought a dashboard from an '03 996 that is 'Natural Brown Leather'. I'm going to attempt to dye that darker to match the Cocoa Brown and install it.

[78F350]

Trouble?


Driving to work yesterday and again on the way home, it felt like the engine shut off just for a moment. There was no check engine light, it didn't miss, or run rough. It was as though I had turned the ignition off, but only for a few seconds. I don't think that it fully stalled out, but there was no throttle response. Then it was normal again with smooth power through the full range, no hesitation.
Given that the car was submerged and left to rot for months with no care, I can't say that I'm surprised or worried. It's just part of the process of resurrecting a car like this. The first thought when it happened was a quick, "Oh ********************!", but when it quickly came back on and ran normal, my heart rate returned to normal as well.
What do I think is wrong? Umm... something electrical. Those pesky electrons can make all sorts of mischief. In this case electrical could be fuel, ignition, or engine control ($5 bet it's electrical-fuel). Bad ground, power, or signal. The thing that I don't like about troubleshooting intermittent problems is that they are hard to find when they are not occurring. I'm going to go for a few laps of the bypass around town and see if it happens again. Probably by this weekend, I'll 'pull the car offline' for a few weeks and put it in the garage for it's next major disassembly and servicing. In doing that I can trace through the systems and clean them up some more.

[BruceH]

Thanks for the update, great picture

[911monty]

Originally Posted by 78F350

Trouble?

Driving to work yesterday and again on the way home, it felt like the engine shut off just for a moment. There was no check engine light, it didn't miss, or run rough. It was as though I had turned the ignition off, but only for a few seconds. I don't think that it fully stalled out, but there was no throttle response. Then it was normal again with smooth power through the full range, no hesitation.
Given that the car was submerged and left to rot for months with no care, I can't say that I'm surprised or worried. It's just part of the process of resurrecting a car like this. The first thought when it happened was a quick, "Oh ********************!", but when it quickly came back on and ran normal, my heart rate returned to normal as well.
What do I think is wrong? Umm... something electrical. Those pesky electrons can make all sorts of mischief. In this case electrical could be fuel, ignition, or engine control ($5 bet it's electrical-fuel). Bad ground, power, or signal. The thing that I don't like about troubleshooting intermittent problems is that they are hard to find when they are not occurring. I'm going to go for a few laps of the bypass around town and see if it happens again. Probably by this weekend, I'll 'pull the car offline' for a few weeks and put it in the garage for it's next major disassembly and servicing. In doing that I can trace through the systems and clean them up some more.

Top notch gut feeling........I carry a new fuel pump relay just for these situations. Typically they leave you sitting for about 30 minutes.

[78F350]

It wasn't really a surprise, but I was hoping it wouldn't happen. The throttle issue remained rare and intermittent. Other priorities came up, so I put off starting on the major work I had planned for the car. I kept driving and enjoying it. Then one morning on the way to work, the brakes started dragging.

I had this happen once before on one of my 1999s. A little water got into the brake booster. The moisture led to corrosion. The corrosion bound up the master cylinder. The car was still sort-of driveable. It started happening on my 1999 when I was about 500 miles from home and I quickly adapted to pulling the brake pedal back up with my toe every time it stuck. With the SE, I stopped driving it and set it aside for a couple weeks.

Today I got to work on fixing it. There's a great DIY on Renntech.org that I found the last time I had this problem. The biggest difference between the DIY and my experience is that the car they have is a right hand drive and mine was a left hand drive – The ABS unit is blocking access to replacing the booster on US cars and has to be moved slightly to make room. I recorded video of the process and I'll put it together and upload it in a day or two.

I removed the booster from my 2001 S parts car, checked it over, cleaned it a bit, and installed it. I still have to finish up with brackets and trim, then test drive. I'll pull apart the bad one for forensics and post some pics. I actually had considered pulling the booster out of the SE and checking for water in my initial recovery of the car, but that is just as much work as replacing it when it failed. I chose to be hopeful rather than preemptive. In the end, no loss other than a part removed from my parts car. I had the job about 90% done this evening when it was time to wrap up and go to work. I'll finish up tomorrow.

[78F350]

It's all back together and working well again. Here's some pictures of the corrosion that was binding the brake booster:





Here's the video of how I replaced the brake booster:
https://youtu.be/HA57cFfTUGA

[Smallblock454]

That is why it is also important to change the brake fluid every 2 years.

Regards, Markus

[78F350]

One of the last major items on my list is to fix the dashboard. I mentioned earlier that I had bought a replacement dashboard in 'Natural Brown Leather'. I had thought that it might actually be Natural Brown Leather, but that was not the case. The finish is an opaque paint that seals the leather.


I had read on leather-working forums about re-dying leather, but this was not going to work like that. The dye and stain I has would not penetrate at all and wiped right off.
It had to be stripped and sanded.



With hours of labor I finally had broken through the paint to the leather beneath. I really liked the distressed leather look. I should have stopped right then and saved it for another project. Instead I continued and used my spray gun to coat it with a dark brown opaque wood stain. The color matches nicely now, but the texture is all wrong. It cannot be fixed. To try again, it all has to be stripped off and I just don't have it in me to do that right now.

I have not found a Cocoa Brown leather dash in good condition to buy. Rather than replace the whole dash, I am going to check out possibilities of just replacing the top front portion of leather where it is damaged.


Probably what I need to do is track down a good local upholsterer and lay down some cash.
The car is running and driving great now. It seems that the throttle cut-out problem it had a while back was fixed by cleaning connections. It has not come back.
I received a gift from PaulE of a nice '04 SE wheel center cap (Thanks again Paul). This next week, I'm going to clean up the original center caps - making sure the center emblems are secure - and put them back on the car.

[PaulE]

My pleasure keep up the great work and reporting your progress!

If you decide to give that leather dash another try, maybe this post from this thread will get you the color you need

Originally Posted by Flavor 987S

Call JoAnn at :: Color Plus ::. She knows Porsche leathers.

[78F350]

I took a long way home from work and stopped at a ford for few pictures. Did I say few? ...I took over 100. It was a 'candid', unplanned stop. After seeing the pictures, I really want to go back and try different angles, lighting, depth, etc.

[78F350]

I finally got around to installing the correct muffler on the car. I've had it for months.



I also repaired the minor crack in the rear bumper cover while I had it off. Tomorrow I plan to repaint it before I put it back on. My painting skill is marginal; I tend to do a lot better at wet-sanding and polishing to correct the finish than I do at getting a proper prep. If I mess it up, I can always take it to a shop after.

[78F350]

The bumper and muffler are back on. I was a little concerned about the new paint not matching the 14 year old original paint, so i chose a line just below the bumperettes to blend the new with old. There's a nice sharp curve there to mask a slight change in tone.


I'm happy with the results. The color doesn't stand out as being any different unless you get close and look for it.


The biggest problem is that I didn't have the patience to properly feather the primer over the repaired area. If you look for it, you can see a slight ridge around the area. Some of that I may be able to correct with fine sanding and polish, but since it is under clear-coat, I expect it will still show on close examination.


In a few days, I'll work on it again to clean it up a little. I can also see a few spots where my clear-coat ends onto the original paint. I had about a 2" overlap of just clear, so I could blend it back. I really need to watch some more YouTube on this stuff... https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AYB4Yxeq_M8

[GTA_G20]

Paint looks good. Are you still trying to locate a cocoa dash? If so I know of one....

[78F350]

Originally Posted by GTA_G20

Paint looks good. Are you still trying to locate a cocoa dash? If so I know of one....

Yes, an original cocoa dash would be nice. The last one I checked on was from the car that Paseb (987parts.com) was selling and it was not in good condition. Please send a pm or post info here so I can check it out.