We have been trying to nail down a bunch of leaks on this little 964. Each items makes it a little better, but the valve covers just wouldn’t seal up correctly. Pretty common for the lower valve covers on 911’s to warp, and replacement gaskets won’t do any good as the covers are no longer true. Years ago, we developed a solution to this problem in the form of aluminum valve covers. After pulling the exhaust, you have access to …
This little bug came into the shop this week to replace the driver side window regulator. Pretty straight forward job, and it is nice to have working windows 😉 It also got new window switches which had come apart. As you can see, the regulator cables have broken and turned into a mess of wires and pulleys. The replacement regulator comes with an entire new door card which makes replacement a snap. The speaker needs to be swapped over to …
Had this 996 come into the shop this week for a power steering pump replacement. It is a pretty straight forward job, but there are a few things that can fight you a little, including the rear power steering line. 180k miles 🙂 Another issue….notice the left exhaust tip. Engine mounts are shot and sagging, so I will replace those as well. Buried on the motor is the power steering pump. Not impossible to remove, but time consuming. AC compressor …
This little Boxster came into the shop this week to clear up a fairly significant oil leak and a check engine light. After some investigating, I found the car had quite a few issues, all contributing to the problem. The bellows was torn on the oil air separator, causing the CEL. The oil fill tube and spark plug tube seals were also leaking, and they can also cause an air leak and contribute to the CEL. Passenger side was the …
Had this award winning 944S2 cab towed into the shop this week for engine problems. The car was running at idle, shut off and wouldn’t turn over. I found that we could turn the crank over by hand until it would hit a stop, and then could turn it backwards until it hit a stop. Not good. I wasn’t sure if there was going to be a bad rod, broken cam tensioner or what. I pulled the cam cover to …
Had this little Pepper come in for a check engine light indicating a couple of misfire codes on different cylinders. There are a couple different things that can cause misfires, one being the spark plugs, and the other being the ignition coils. With modern cars, most vehicles use a separate coil pack to fire each spark plug. In the old days, you had a distributor with a cap and rotor and spark plug wires running to each plug, along with …
09Apr2013
Chevy Suburban Backup Camera Install
Had a new Chevy Suburban come into the shop the other day for a backup camera install. Since the Suburban (in a very rare red BTW), was ordered without navigation, backing up the beast was a little tricky coming from a smaller vehicle for the owner. We installed an Alpine rear view camera, and an audiovox monitor. Maybe windshield navigation units will accept a plug from a rear view camera. The camera is setup to only activate when in reverse. …
04Apr2013
Audi A6 Misfires
Had this 06 A6 in the shop the other day for a CEL which turned out to be a cylinder 6 misfire and random cylinder misfires. With 100K miles on the clock, it was past due for spark plugs, so I got started. The plugs and coils are pretty easy to change on the 3.0L, but you do have to be very careful with the coilpack connectors. Do not force them, or you will break the harness connector. If you …
04Apr2013
Audi TT Instrument Cluster Repair
You may remember a few weeks ago I removed a bad instrument cluster from an Audi TT and sent it off for repair. It is very common for these clusters to go haywire, everything from bad LCD panels to dead/erratic gauges. This one was really far gone with pretty much everything dis-functional (LCD’s, tach/speedo were dead, etc), but after some work, we had a good working cluster again.
04Apr2013
Porsche 997C4S Supercharger Oil Change
My buddy Kelly dropped off his 997C4S as it was due for the self contained supercharger oil to be changed. We had not done it since I installed the supercharger a few years ago, and the miles were up. Because I am such a nice guy, and Kelly does like to tinker, I figured I would do a little write up here for him so he can do it on his own in the future. It is very time consuming …