Ger's 2003 Porsche Boxster S

[Nine8Six]

Originally Posted by geraintthomas

Sorry for bombarding you with photos

Nice pics and boxster mate.

Good to see that some are still giving these roaster the care they deserve

Looks like yo are enjoying yourself a lot there. Not that there is anything wrong with that - I occasionally do the same (less the engine compartment mega clean-up loll)

[geraintthomas]

Thank you I've always gone by "look after a car and it'll look after you", it's been true so far. I always try to keep my cars in the condition that the manufacturer would be happy themselves to display in a garage hah!

[geraintthomas]

Didn't happen, one screw rounded off completely so I'll have to drill it out another time. Balls

[geraintthomas]

Quite looking forward to installing projectors along with the 5000k HID's (standard colour for litronics). But when I do I'll be installing warm White LED sidelights in, so they look like normal halogen 501 bulbs. Normally I'd replace them with 5000k LED's (as I've already done) to modernise it, but I don't think the 986 is the type of car to modernise. Plus, I love the white/violet look of litronics along with halogen side lights. There's something about that looks fantastic.

[TrumpyAl]

I'm looking forward to your retrofit too.
As I'm running halogens, I've gone the opposite - led sidelights with halogen mains. I'm not sure if I like it or not?

Sidelights only.


Fogs, low beam and sidelights.

[geraintthomas]

Will do the retrofit next month when I get paid very much looking forward to it

[geraintthomas]

Originally Posted by TrumpyAl

I'm looking forward to your retrofit too.
As I'm running halogens, I've gone the opposite - led sidelights with halogen mains. I'm not sure if I like it or not?

Sidelights only.


Fogs, low beam and sidelights.

Well see, this is the thing. I'm all for modernising, and I liked the idea of having 5000k LED side lights to have a sort of 'DRL' look and feel, but I don't know if the 986 is that sort of car.

Adding DRL's to it looks fantastic, but there's just something about a normal amber side light with a violet 5000k HID. Like this:



I think it looks lovely. You see these sort of colours on BMW's a lot, where their halo lights are standard halogen bulbs but have HID's installed. Looks great.

[geraintthomas]

I've just grabbed some genuine floor mats from a Boxster with a matching interior for £30. They were used, have very little marks in terms of wear, but do have a few stains on the drivers carpet as you can see:







I bought them as a punt to see if I can get the stains out with a good steamer and shampoo.

Also, my local garage drilled out the screw that was rounded off in the bumper in no time and didn't charge me a penny when we have the next sunny day, I'll go ahead with the parking sensors.

I'll let you guys know how I get on later with the carpet cleaning! When the weather's good, I may steam the inside of the Porsche anyway. The condition is flawless but it's good to know it's properly clean and fresh.

[geraintthomas]

Done the mats!

Here they were before I started. Disgusting...



Look at the dirt that came off after steaming one mat!



Shampoo after cleaning:



And after a couple of hours, here's the result:



Very happy not bad for £30.

[geraintthomas]

Installing the parking sensors tomorrow morning, should be good!

I also need to sort the windows as since the weather's dried out, the windows go quite slow and sometimes go back down as they think they're catching. Not good!

[geraintthomas]

Parking sensors complete, and was a success.

Bumper off



Marking up where the sensors go



And done!





Forgot to photograph the steps in between, was on a roll and didn't want to stop.

The sensors are outstanding. I've muted the speaker a fair bit as it was ridiculously loud, and then ran the wiring in a very neat and OEM way underneath the cabin storage behind the seats, so it's completely out of sight. You get a nice little 'beep' when you put it in reverse, which is handy as it's now an audible indicator when you're in reverse. They look a lot, lot better than the standard early 986 and 996 sensors.

I also fixed a few gremlins in my drivers window. Ever since replacing the regulator, it never dropped as much as it should have when you pull the handle, it went down way too far into the door when the window is wound down fully (which made the glass shake when closing the door), and sometimes the window would travel up, get stuck, and go back down again. I just altered the bolts slightly, and it seemed to be a smoother run. Then I put 3 cable ties at the bottom of the runner to act as a bumper so the window doesn't drop into the door. And then I did a cable tie fix on the window cable to take some slack out of it. Seems to be good now

While doing it, I used an old Ikea carpet that I was going to throw out, but after finding that it's a perfect fit between the front and back wheels, and gives a really nice work mat area, I'm keeping it!



Result. Anyway, good productive day today

I've ordered some footwell lights too. There's two sets going in. The first set is a bright set that will operate when the door opens, mimicking the function of the interior light. It'll be a warm-white multi-SMD LED bulb board in each footwell, to match the colour of a halogen bulb but with the added benefit of being low wattage and longer life. The second set of footwell lights will be a single amber SMD that are on constantly, but will act as a very dim ambient light that's only visible if you really look for it. Pretty much exactly like the light found by the interior light.

Will wire these in next weekend

[geraintthomas]

Finished the footwell lights!

Thanks to Particlewave, he told me which wires I had to tap into to get a feed that mimics the courtesy light, without running a wire up the a-pillars.

Behind the fusebox is this wiring loom, and behind this wiring loom there's a few wires coming through the door:



It's a very, very tight spot. So first of all I had to extend the wires, to make it easier to wire in footwell lights later:



Then I made the loom. I've got two warm-white SMD pads that mimic the amber colour of a halogen bulb:



And fitted!



They're brilliant. Perfectly authentic and they look completely genuine. The only fiddly bit was cutting the wires above the fusebox, and putting extensions of wire on them, only because there was literally no room to work and the wires were very short due to them being part of a very well wrapped loom.

I'll get on with installing the constant-on very dim amber SMD's soon.

[particlewave]

Wow! That looks great! You've convinced me that I must do this. Mine will have to be cool white to match, though.

[geraintthomas]

I was tempted to put those corner courtesy lights in on mine, as mine didn't come with any. Only problem is finding the same wires inside the door. Would they be easy to find?

[geraintthomas]

So today was spent cleaning and protecting the roof, but it stained the paint slightly, so it led me to do a complete overhaul on the car's paintwork. Which turned out to be brilliant.

What I did:

- Roof pressure washed
- Cleaned using AutoGlym cleaner
- Protected using AutoGlym protection
- Wheels cleaned and waxed
- Body pressure washed
- Washed using AutoGlym Shampoo
- Rinsed and dried
- Meguiars clay bar with AutoGlym Rapid Detailer
- Polished using AutoGlym Super Resin Polish
- Sealed using AutoGlym Extra Gloss Protection Sealant

This was the dirt that came off the roof:



I've never clay'd a car before. This was the dirt off just a door, even when the car was washed and dried perfectly:



And here's the result, sorry there aren't anymore photos!





And a video showing the reflection:

https://youtu.be/eiKLlZT_Cz0

It's outstanding. I've never seen paint in as good condition as this

The roof came up really good too. Sorry there aren't any photos, it took me 6 hours to do this today so I was shattered after it!

Managed to get a nicer shot of the footwell lights though:

[BruceH]

Looks great! It is amazing what a difference clay makes!

[geraintthomas]

Absolutely

[geraintthomas]

My drivers side headlamp has an adjuster that's snapped, which means I'm no longer able to adjust the headlight left and right, only up and down. My MOT is due in a couple of weeks so I've ordered these to also help pass the MOT:



They're also for my bi-xenon retrofit project. I bought them early because of the MOT. I also couldn't bare to rip apart my originals to retrofit them, so I bought spares.

The amber can be sanded back and polished up to clear again so that they look identical to my facelift headlights. Why don't I just buy a spare set of facelift lights, rather than go through this hassle? Well two reasons. First reason is that pre-facelift headlights are A LOT cheaper (£50, as opposed to £250), and the glue is a lot drier, meaning they'll split easier. Sand back the amber part and they look like facelift lights, but cheaper and easier to open. It's a win win.

So after the MOT, and after I've de-ambered them, I'll split them. I'll order some bi-xenon projectors with some H1 5000k bulbs, and I'll get to work on the retrofit. I'm really looking forward to it

[grc0456]

You are a man with a plan, Ger!

Not sure you can just sand the Amber out, though. I think it's a Dremmel job.


Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk

[geraintthomas]

Originally Posted by grc0456

You are a man with a plan, Ger!

Not sure you can just sand the Amber out, though. I think it's a Dremmel job.


Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk

I thought the same, but it's not that deep. If you use a low enough grade of sand paper you can do it just fine apparently.