This is a bit of a blog showing other works of note carried out and a sort of record of what is involved in owning a Porsche as it gets to 25 years old...

Now the new detent and spring has been replaced, there is zero play. 

Anyway, £2800.00 later, the car is back and running great, no vibration, clucth feels super light, and the gearshift is now bordering on perfect. 

04.01.24  It's been a quiet 3 months, car running nicely, so.....

Obviously started to get a bit anal about the car and finding silly little things, which really boiled down to an annoying little rattle which sounded like it was the top of the door card, thought it was probably broken card clips or something, or maybe the glass sat loose inside the door. 

So stripped it down today and had a look, took me a 3 hours tightening everything putting it back together and still the same. 

In the end it was the adjuster screw that sets the height of the window. This screws into a white plastic fixing, and I guess over the years and with it being colder at the mo there is some play. 

I removed the bolt, packed the female side with some red rubber grease and put some more on the bolt and put it back in.

Job done, should be good for another 10 years or so. 

Then noticed that the passenger air bag cover has the slightest amount of noise too, so will tighten that up on Sunday. 

That is now the only noise on the car, I pushed some card in the gap and it was silent, it is amazing how much more solid the car feels overall once there are no noises coming from anywhere. They weren't bad anyway, but once it is  truly silent it makes the car feels so, so much more solid, like a new car does I guess.

01.01.24 Happy New Year!

This will be my first year without having Headland Motors to do work on my cars.
This was a garage/workshop that was owned by my father in law, who sadly passed away.
I have kept all the tools, well 95% of them, and have been left the business, but as I run another business and we have sold the house where the garage was also located, we are deciding whether to find another unit and staff or not. A decision that will have to be made sooner rather than later.
We have been asked by some of the regular customers if we can still help with their cars, which of course I will if I can, but without having a ramp and running a separate business I have to be realistic. But more than happy to help people diagnose issues.

Nick, my father in law and Hedland Motors owner, knew his stuff and taught me how to properly diagnose problems over the last 30 years, he knew BMWs, Mercedes and Porsches inside out, but his real passion was old Land Cruisers and Isuzu Troopers.
But he was the one that taught me why the correct oils are so important, and by that I don't just mean an oil that gets a marque's stamp on it, I mean looking at the specs and finding one that is decent, like he says, spend £150 more each year with decent oils and changing twice and save your self thousands in the coming years.
He always wants to know why an issue happened? Sure the dpf is blocked and Mercedes is saying a new one, but why is it blacked? Oil with too high ash content? Thermostat not getting to 96ºc so it can't regen? Throwing £1500 at it for a new DPF will fix it short term, but after 5k miles it will be the same. Diagnose the problem and sort it properly, something main dealers sadly no longer do.
He taught me how to do pretty much anything on a car and for that I wil be eternally gratefull. Miss you Nick!

But he also taught me the importance of finding someone to work on your car with the same mentallity. Hence me using DNB mechanical rather than go with Porsche or with some of the Porsche only specialists I have near me. So far that decesion has been the correct one.

I will still do all the work on my car that I can do myself now I don't have a 4 or 2 post lift anymore, but for the bigger jobs and the ones I need to get under the car for, I will use DNB or I hate to say, I might have to sell this and swap for a newer car.

Happy New Year All! 

15.01.2024 MOT DAY - Passed with no advisories, which is always welcome! 

23.03.2024 Rust on rear drivers side wheel arch!
Took car to body shop as a couple of bubbles on drivers side wheel arch.

26.03.2024 Back from bodyshop.
So the offside rear wheel arch had got moisture in between the twin layer arch and was stating to corrode from the inside out.
Not bad, but rather than try and patch it up we agreed best to cut the arch out and put a new one in, give it another 20 odd years without worry.
He checked everywhere else and gave it a clean bill of health, put some treatment on the nearside arch as well just to make sure that is good for the next few years too.
He also sorted a couple of other little paint issues out for me, hazing on the rear bumper where something has obviously put pressure on it in the past, and just tidied her up a bit without going OTT.  This is a car to be used, not something to get over precious about and sit in a garage if it looks like it might rain! 

07.03.2024 Small clunk when going slowly over very uneven ground.
When I had the transmission mount changed a few months back we didn't put the rubber end stops in, 2-3mm rubber pads that sit between the transmission and the subframe.....

So dropped the car off with DNB to have these popped in.
While there I asked if they could change the front top mounts.
After converting to RWD I put in some used OEM dampers, they were working perfectly as off a very low mileage car, but they were a bit tatty as they have been sat for years, and the top mounts and bearings I know will not be performing at their best.
Got a call today to say the strut nut is well and truly seized on there, their grips they use to hold the piston and gets the toughest of nuts off dampers was even slipping.
So......sod it, ordered some Koni Special active dampers front and rear and new mounting heardware, new top mounts, bearings, bump stups, bushes blah, blah, blah.
I love the Konis, a bit firmer than OEM almost M030 when pressing on,  but also a bit more complient than standard dampers when going slower and around town.
I will also fit some H&R springs too.

I will report back when I have it  back. 

07.03.2024  Koni and H&R's fitted...

This car now feels proper new car tight. It just feels incredibly solid now. I didn't ever expect a 25 year old Porsche to feel almost like a new car. I had it feeling great anyway, but how good it feels at the mo is pretty amazing.

The worry about the H&R springs being too firm is gone, the car is sitting much lower, but the Koni/H&R combo is great, like really great.

Around town and when going slower, the car is comfy, really comfy, I would say as comfy as the standard OEM non M030 set up, but far more poised.

When you start to press on a bit it feels tauter, more composed, but where the Bilsteins still can feel a bit over damped, like there is too much compression for our crappy roads, this gobbles up the poorer surfaces while remaining very planted.

The turn in on steering feels better as well, which is something I always miss when I go with softer suspension at the rear, I need to get the geo tweaked this week, but you can just feel how much tighter the steering is off centre.

You can tell the front dampers are much firmer as the speed bumps that would always scrape under the front bumper as you came off them, that was with the OEM 030 suspension, the standard OEM suspension and the Bilstein M030 suspension, these you can go over at any speed and not an issue, which to me, considering it is now maybe 20mm lower, shows that the dampers are much firmer, which is impressive as they just feel more comfortable too.

23.04.2024 Geo....

After trying to get into Center Gravity and them being booked up for the next few weeks I decided to have a crack myself.
Got some axle stands, fishing wire and a tape measure out and kept having a play.

Now, no idea what my final settings are, but the car feels amazing, it is exactly how I like it.
The steering is fairly heavy, where you poin the wheel is where the car goes, the back end feels incredibly planted and you need serious provocation with traction off to get the back end to step out.

I have quite aggressive negative camber on the rear with a fair bit of toe in.
However, on the front I have very, very little negative camber at all, and from what I can make out, no toe in either.

I will get it on a Hunter or similar when I get a chance to just check what my geo settings are, but it is absolutely spot on and just how I like it.

I have three other 911 owners drive the car now it has the Koni/H&R combo, near gear selector and my geo and both have been very impressed with it. One owns a 964, one a 997.2 and the other a 991.

One of them sort of nailed my thoughts and said "I'm amazed at the levels of grip and the turn in this car has whilst being super comfortable at the same time."

And that is the thing for me, the way it travels over our crappy road surfaces is superb, it never skips around, it inspires you to be fast. I know we always ask for "fast road geo" when we get our geo done, but what does that actually mean?
Many end up with aggressive camber, very little rear toe in, which is great on a track where you want it super darty, but can make the car feel a handful, like it is on the edge on the road and like it could bite you at any minute. That doesn't make for a fast road car. So be careful what you ask for. 

This means the fans get a signal and go through the resistor meaning they spin at low speed, until the coolant reaches 105ºc, then the other wire sends a signal bypassing the resistor and thus they spin at high speed.

For info, this meant the green wire from the fan and the white signal wire were together on my car, and the other green signal wire went to the other end of the resistor. (But double check by testing the voltage with the climate tunred on to be sure.)

One last thing, because of the rotten bracket, I simply used a metal hose clip to attach the resistor to the frame wher the old one sat. These get seriously hot, 100w hot, so don't use cable ties! 

12.06.2024 - Another bloody suspension noise!!!! Arghhhhh!

Due to work, going away and then having the lurgy for a week I hadn't driven the car for just over 4 weeks until yesterday, well the positive is that she started up first time no problem at all. So battery is great and still absolutely no parasitic drain anywhere. Nice.

Hmm, now the bad news, there is still a suspension noise, I'm sure it sounds like it is the front right, a bit of a rattle more than a clunk. I'm sure it is the adjustable drop links.
It sounds like they did when they were slightly loose after I first installed them. I had no choice to use them because the M030 C4 front anti roll bar will hit the control arm with the standard C2 drop links needed after converting to RWD. I thought the drop links at £225 was a better option than buying a new M030 anti roll bar from anywhere between £440-600 depending on where you buy it from.
However, with teh rest of the car so quiet now I can't live with that, even if it is only occasionally you here them.

So....purchased a C2 M030 anti roll bar, new bushes and new Lemforder drop links.

Also purchased some new rear roll bar bushes and some new rear diagnal arms, the wishboine arms, as not sure when they were last replaced. The other arms are new so might as well.

Oh and some spark plugs, only been 10k miles, but was 3 years ago now.

Oh, and also got some Mobil PTX transmission fluid today. This stuff is so, so much better than anything else with these gearboxes. Shame you can only get it in 20 litre drums now. 

15.06.2024 - Anti Roll Bar, bushes and links arrived...

So the new M030 C2 anti roll bar arrived yesterday, and the new links and bushes etc. arrived late the day before. Called my garage and asked when they can squeeze me in? Maybe next Thursday. 
That was my nice chilled, do nothing day off out the window. Might as well fit it myslef, since losing the ramp I would say my enthusiasm levels are through the floor for working on the car, only outweighed by my autistic nature (my wife says I have autistic tendencies, I can't see it myself!) that tells me to do it myself so you know it is done properly and the most terrible impatience. 
The weather outside was grim, 14ºc in the middle of June and torrential downpours all day....again, hardly in the mood for lying on the garage floor with the car on jacks sat just high enough to get my belly under, but hey ho, the impatience won.

Why do Porsche use so many different sizes for undoing shit?! For this job I needed a 10mm for the undertay, a 14mm and 17mm for the new links, a 15mm, 16mm and 18mm for the plate that holds the roll bar in place and the cross brace underneath and a 19mm for the wheel bolts.

This is a job that should take an hour at most, started at 1.30 and didn't get finished till 4.45pm and was heading out at 5pm.
Most of the time I am looking for the correct size socket that I had in my hand just 10 seconds ago and now nowhere to be seen. A ramp with a table with all tools laid out makes life so much easier!

Anyway, even though I was running late I decided to take it for a spin, see if the noise was gone. Bingo! Silence. Nice.

Was in the pub by 5.30pm, had some pretty good Vietnamese food and a proper laugh with some mates and back home and in bed by 11pm.

Working this morning, but then off for lunch at a cracking Steak place, the big decision of the day will be filet or chateaubriand and for wine do we stick with something like Fleurie, because it is lunchtime after all, or say sod it and smash through a couple of the heavies? I can then head home and fall asleep in front of the Spain and Italy games.
I have a feeling this father's day weekend could be OK. 

The end of an era......

Well, there is an engine noise. Bugger! 

The car was sold, the guy was coming on the Tuesday. So, thought I would fit new spark plugs that I had so it was good to go and nothing needed doing for a few months. Once that was done decided to take it to the petrol station and fill it up. Nothinhg worse than picking a new car up and it being on fumes, usually from an area where you have no idea where the decent fuel station is. But as I came around the roundabout to Shell I heard a ticking/kocking sound. Pulled over, it was my car.

Got it back to mine and got a mate to come and look at the bores, clean. It was a weird noise, only happens when up to temp and only above 1500rpm.
I got it taken to DNB as I was going away, they dropped the pan and found chain guides in the sump and the very, very tinniest flakes of copper looking material.
Our conclusion was it could be chain guide fallen apart badly and blocking oil retun, so issue with lifters, chain now so loose it is clacking against the now bear metal pad, it has spun a bearing or something else that we would see once the covers are off.

I spoke with AMS, who seemed to agree, the issue for me is this could be their base rebuild for £4k and now a completely sorted 996, but, and it is a big but, once they have it open it could be all that and a new crankshaft, at which point I could be at £6000.
The fact I had already sold the car meant in my head it was gone already.
Did I want to send it off for 12-16 weeks to get back to where I was yesterday and then sell it again, over winter when people are not really looking for 911s?
Not really.

Better to sell it to someone who can do the workd, parts for rebuild are around £900, even a refurbed crankshaft is £2500, hell of a lot cheaper.

So, took more than the price of the AMS rebuild with a new crankshaft off the price of the car, cried a little and did an advert.

Wow! Got bombarded with buyers.

Met Jamie, he saw the car, and bought it. 

I wish him all the best with the car, I genuinely hope a couple of new chain tensioner pads for £250 and a few hours work sorts it. If it need a bit more work he has a hell of a good car to start with.

Jamie, do me a favour? Drive it first before you slam it mate. ;)
Seriously, do drive it for a week before you change any Geo. (And if you can get a print out I would love to see what it was!)

So this is where I sign off from this blog and it becomes Jamie's Porsche 911 Blog......

Click here to take you to Jamie's Blog ............