LIVING FOR THE MOMENT
The 924S has been giving Chris Horton some all too familiar starting problems, he says, but Project Boxster has, despite a few issues, shown itself to be the perfect low-cost, low-worry antidote to the madness going on in the wider world. Photos by the au
Sadly, but for once not at all surprisingly, this strangest of years has seen virtually no progress on the poor old 924S. The car was parked at BS Motorsport as we entered lockdown, and so I threw myself into first recommissioning my long-dormant E28 BMW M535i, here at home, and then starting the restoration of my even longer-dormant (like nearly 38 years…) 1965 Rover 2000.
One thing I did achieve on the 924S was finally to fit the rear anti-roll bar. Venue was again one of the lifts at BS Motorsport (thanks, Neil and Rob), and the now correct 16mm Powerflex bushes went on with no problems. They didn’t close up around the bar quite as neatly as I had hoped (see photo below), but I think that’s just the way any others would fit, OE parts included. I haven’t been able to drive the car far enough to assess whether the bar makes the slightest difference to the handling (and I’m inclined to think not), but all seems well enough. More on this next time. Perhaps.
It was during this period that one other annoying problem resurfaced in the 924S. The engine has routinely fired up fairly easily, whether cold or hot, and often after standing idle for months on end. Suddenly, though, it seemed to be suffering from the intermittent non-start issues that I experienced with my lefthand-drive 944 many years ago. And when I say intermittent, I mean completely unpredictable. On one occasion it started instantly after a three-week layoff, yet after I had warmed it up and switched off so that I could swap batteries (long story…), it resolutely refused to do so again.
I know what you’re thinking: the second battery wasn’t up to the job. Wrong. It had been charged on my own Ctek device (what a great investment that has proved to be), and was clearly cranking the engine at a perfectly satisfactory rate. Perhaps fuel-soaked spark plugs, then – and I know how susceptible my E39 BMW can be to that, if switched off and restarted before it has reached operating temperature. Wrong again. The ‘S’ had been running for 15 minutes – more than enough for the thermostat to have opened, and for the fuel/air mixture to have stabilised.
With no tools to hand, and little time – and even less inclination, to be honest – I had to abandon the task. Suspects were, of course, many and varied: plug leads, distributor cap, rotor arm (although all those would have been as much of a problem, if not more so, when the engine was stone-cold); DME relay (there’s a spare in the glovebox, but it’s such a PITA to get at the fuse and relay board, buried beneath the fascia, that I just couldn’t face that); fuel pump, even fuel-pressure regulator. (But again, why had they all been OK two minutes previously?) Perhaps it was the ECU itself – and it wouldn’t be the first to give up the ghost, as I had discovered from the aforementioned BMW, whose own non-start turned out to be a faulty Motronic unit.
I did notice that the rev-counter needle wasn’t moving – the famous so-called tacho bounce – while I was cranking the engine, which pointed to the DME relay or one or other of the two crankshaft sensors. Yet again, though, why had those been working until I switched off? You can sense my frustration, I’m sure, not least because when eventually I got back there to investigate further, the bloody thing started instantly. And the time after that it was once again as dead as the famous Monty Python parrot.
On that occasion I went to the trouble of taking out the two crankshaft sensors – in part to check that they weren’t seized into their mounting bracket, as had been the 944’s in 2001; in part to give myself something to do while I pondered the situation. Both looked fine, with just a trace of clutch dust on them. More in hope than expectation I slid them back into the bracket, and to no one’s great surprise the engine fired immediately. I’m inclined to think it’s still a dodgy DME relay, and so when I get around to it
I shall buy and fit yet another.
The Boxster, meanwhile, has undergone some highly significant improvements. The first job, as I suggested last month, was to ditch the 18-inch Sport Design wheels. A set of 997 five-spokes with decent rubber looked superb, but had insufficient offset to enable the rear tyres to clear the suspension struts. Then Darren Gardiner, one of the technicians at Maundrell & Co, offered me the redundant 17-inch five-spokes and tyres from his own 987 Cayman, and they went on without a hitch. The fronts could do with thin spacers, to help fill out the wheelarches, but that can wait. Darren even had some spare wheel bolts, bless him, and so I was able to consign to the scrap bin the most badly corroded originals.
That process made the Boxster far more comfortable to drive – I can’t help thinking of the agony the previous owner must have endured, bouncing around on those Sport Designs and their ultra-low-profile rubber – and cleared the way for changing the chronically worn drive shafts. More on that job elsewhere in this issue, but suffice it to say that it further and even more dramatically transformed the Boxster’s behaviour. It also highlighted the badly worn front engine mount – an increasingly common problem – but I’m in the process of obtaining a replacement, and fitting that will be the subject of next month’s how-to.
A spare battery replaced the tired original, and has ensured both reliable operation of the centrallocking and easy starting, albeit with some embarrassingly noisy nonsense with the alarm system one Sunday morning. Take no notice of what the handbook suggests as the procedure for disconnecting the battery. To do so without making your ears bleed, first insert the key in the ignition lock and turn it to the ‘run’ position, that is to say with all the dashboard lights on, but without starting the engine. It should be in the same position – with all the other functions off – when you reconnect the battery. (Earth/ground lead first off and then last on, of course.)
Oh, and I must at this point offer my sincere thanks to 911 & Porsche World reader Jon Wittmann who, having read in my report in the May edition that the car came without a magazine for the CDC-4 autochanger, generously sent me not just the one spare he had after selling his own 996 Carrera 4S, but two. Those are now full of Pink Floyd, Dire Straits, Tangerine Dream, Mike Oldfield and ELO albums.
Shamefully, given the good weather we’ve been enjoying during the later summer and early autumn, I have still not had the hard-top off again, which is arguably doing the folding hood beneath it no favours, but I have nowhere safely to store the roof, even for a relatively short period. I have, though, replaced the broken cover for the hard-top’s release handle – I spotted a brandnew one in 9-Apart’s ebay shop, for about £25 – and I have also ordered a new clip-in ‘lens’ for one of the two alarm-system sensors that are situated either side of the handle.
The ignition switch, as you might have seen in last month’s how-to, has been replaced, and I am working my way round the cabin and the underside, itemising all the other small fixings that are either broken or missing. Why not, when they are so easily available from Porsche? The lift-up cover for the storage compartment in the driver’s door needs attention to the hinges, for instance, and the screw inside the compartment, fixing the trim to the door, has gone AWOL. There’s a suspicious-looking piece of plastic film sticking out from the front of the trim, too, so I’m guessing the card has been off at some point, most likely for replacement of the window regulator, and refitted without the correct waterproofing membrane.
The inescapable fact is, though, that the car is a joy to drive – and getting better all the time. Part of that satisfaction comes from its low purchase price and (with a few caveats) its excellent condition, but also from the knowledge that it’s not worth worrying too much about the possibility of oil leaks, scored cylinder bores or Ims-bearing failure.
It concerns me that I have not yet changed the oil and filter (one of this weekend’s jobs, in fact, with a consignment from buycarparts.co.uk due any moment now), but the engine is quiet enough and pulls strongly, and the older I get the more I believe in the famous adage: if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it. I shall be taking the precaution of having a sample of the current oil analysed by Millers in West Yorkshire (millersoils.co.uk), and I may change my tune on the above mechanical matters if it proves to be heavily contaminated. For the moment, though, with chaos still raging all around us, I am simply living for the moment; seizing the day. And just enjoying driving our brilliant little £4000 Boxster.