Hi all,
I want to introduce you to my 993 because it's an interesting car and something of an ongoing project which some of you may like to follow. A bit of background: I have owned and worked on all sorts of air cooled 911's over the years and my favourite is the 964, by a long margin. I loved it even back in the days when it was politically incorrect to do so. The only car that looked better to me was the wide body 993. I've always had a soft spot for the C2S in particular, a car which goes against the grain in so many ways.
The car that I found was a (high mileage) manual Vesuvius C2S with black leather interior in totally original condition but it has been parked for 10 years in a garage in Scotland. As expected it drove like an absolute pig and countless little things needed attention. But it was unmolested, never crashed, the body appeared to be rust free and the price was right, so I took it there and then.
50 miles outside Edinburgh the car broke down in the pouring rain. And so a long journey started, in more ways than one, which turned out to be frustrating and rewarding in equal measures.
In short, I only saw the car 2 months later because the honourable Scottish seller took it upon himself to have it fixed at his cost. How noble is that! After every electronic part was checked it turned out to be a faulty ignition switch unit.
The car was delivered to me in a running condition but there was still a distinct problem with the power delivery.
The brakes were also not nearly what they should be. So, I did what I always do with a new purchase. A major service. I drained the engine oil and fitted new filters and replaced the following:
Both distributor caps (the contact points were badly pitted)
Both rotors (same reason)
12 spark plugs. Now this was a task that cost me a lot of knuckle skin because some bolts & nuts were rusted permanently in place so I couldn't follow the correct procedure to get go these (notoriously well hidden) plugs.
Worryingly, the engine heated up quickly in non-Scottish weather. After some investigation I found an extensive rat's nest on the right-hand bank of cylinders. How many years it's been there was impossible to tell. Judging by the droppings on the engine, he lived happily there for quite a while. It took hours to remove what was essentially a thick, hardened carpet of tiny pieces of newspaper - a whole shoe box full of it. It's the car's saving grace that it lived in a cold environment all its life because the one bank of cylinders, and heads, received little or no cooling. Once the rats nest was removed the engine also didn't heat up so quickly any more.
I bled the brakes and what came out was like mud. Mixed with a few nasty bubbles. I also bled the clutch while I was at it. More knuckle skin gone but worth doing.
Before bleeding the brakes I had to do a very simple job namely taking off the wheels. Unfortunately this was easier said than done. The wheel nuts were oxidised into position (must have been untouched for many years) and two of the safety nuts broke clean off, and the remaining bits were so badly oxidised that the security socket tore off the teeth so nothing could get the nuts out. Eventually I was forced to drill out the affected nuts with a Dremel and sadly it can't be done without damaging that part of the wheel which inevitably gets drilled away too. It took a whole day but I got the wheels off eventually. These were fortunately after market twisty-lookalikes so I got rid of them and bought the proper Cup II wheels that this car came out with. Chris from Exel wheels refurbished them to the correct Steel Grey colour.
After bleeding the brakes properly, and bedding the pads in again, braking was instantly improved.
The engine was much smoother after the service but somehow that random roughness and hesitation persisted. I then cleaned the idling valve
which was very dirty and it immediately solved the rough running and erratic engine shake at low rpm. But the higher rpm hesitation was still there. For weeks I examined the car inside and out, drove it in all sorts of ways to diagnose the problem, but I couldn't figure it out. Eventually I came to the conclusion that it must be related to the ignition system but still I couldn't find it. Then one evening, for the thousandth time, I was staring into the engine bay when I noticed something that didn't look right. In stead of each of the two coils getting independent power from the ECU, only one was powered and other was connected to the first one. In other words the second coil was tapping its power from the first coil, instead of from the ECU. I traced the wires and found that the 'parasite' coil's wires were still there, and live, but for some reason cut off. I re-wired the coils, the way they should be, and within 5 seconds after starting the car I knew the problem was solved. It even sounded different. Power delivery was smooth and uninterrupted, and there was more of it!
I have often wondered about the so-called Porsche specialists that maintained the car over its lifetime, and the fact that I probably spoil its resale value by working on it myself. Yet I end up fixing their problems!
Whatever the case, I have not touched the engine after that. There's no need in the short term. Everything works.
For some reason if I upload a photo it messes up the text (turns it into one long narrow column) so I'll upload a picture of my car separately.
I'm currently replacing the shocks and repairing the rear chassis legs. I will post photos as I go along.
I want to introduce you to my 993 because it's an interesting car and something of an ongoing project which some of you may like to follow. A bit of background: I have owned and worked on all sorts of air cooled 911's over the years and my favourite is the 964, by a long margin. I loved it even back in the days when it was politically incorrect to do so. The only car that looked better to me was the wide body 993. I've always had a soft spot for the C2S in particular, a car which goes against the grain in so many ways.
The car that I found was a (high mileage) manual Vesuvius C2S with black leather interior in totally original condition but it has been parked for 10 years in a garage in Scotland. As expected it drove like an absolute pig and countless little things needed attention. But it was unmolested, never crashed, the body appeared to be rust free and the price was right, so I took it there and then.
50 miles outside Edinburgh the car broke down in the pouring rain. And so a long journey started, in more ways than one, which turned out to be frustrating and rewarding in equal measures.
In short, I only saw the car 2 months later because the honourable Scottish seller took it upon himself to have it fixed at his cost. How noble is that! After every electronic part was checked it turned out to be a faulty ignition switch unit.
The car was delivered to me in a running condition but there was still a distinct problem with the power delivery.
The brakes were also not nearly what they should be. So, I did what I always do with a new purchase. A major service. I drained the engine oil and fitted new filters and replaced the following:
Both distributor caps (the contact points were badly pitted)
Both rotors (same reason)
12 spark plugs. Now this was a task that cost me a lot of knuckle skin because some bolts & nuts were rusted permanently in place so I couldn't follow the correct procedure to get go these (notoriously well hidden) plugs.
Worryingly, the engine heated up quickly in non-Scottish weather. After some investigation I found an extensive rat's nest on the right-hand bank of cylinders. How many years it's been there was impossible to tell. Judging by the droppings on the engine, he lived happily there for quite a while. It took hours to remove what was essentially a thick, hardened carpet of tiny pieces of newspaper - a whole shoe box full of it. It's the car's saving grace that it lived in a cold environment all its life because the one bank of cylinders, and heads, received little or no cooling. Once the rats nest was removed the engine also didn't heat up so quickly any more.
I bled the brakes and what came out was like mud. Mixed with a few nasty bubbles. I also bled the clutch while I was at it. More knuckle skin gone but worth doing.
Before bleeding the brakes I had to do a very simple job namely taking off the wheels. Unfortunately this was easier said than done. The wheel nuts were oxidised into position (must have been untouched for many years) and two of the safety nuts broke clean off, and the remaining bits were so badly oxidised that the security socket tore off the teeth so nothing could get the nuts out. Eventually I was forced to drill out the affected nuts with a Dremel and sadly it can't be done without damaging that part of the wheel which inevitably gets drilled away too. It took a whole day but I got the wheels off eventually. These were fortunately after market twisty-lookalikes so I got rid of them and bought the proper Cup II wheels that this car came out with. Chris from Exel wheels refurbished them to the correct Steel Grey colour.
After bleeding the brakes properly, and bedding the pads in again, braking was instantly improved.
The engine was much smoother after the service but somehow that random roughness and hesitation persisted. I then cleaned the idling valve
which was very dirty and it immediately solved the rough running and erratic engine shake at low rpm. But the higher rpm hesitation was still there. For weeks I examined the car inside and out, drove it in all sorts of ways to diagnose the problem, but I couldn't figure it out. Eventually I came to the conclusion that it must be related to the ignition system but still I couldn't find it. Then one evening, for the thousandth time, I was staring into the engine bay when I noticed something that didn't look right. In stead of each of the two coils getting independent power from the ECU, only one was powered and other was connected to the first one. In other words the second coil was tapping its power from the first coil, instead of from the ECU. I traced the wires and found that the 'parasite' coil's wires were still there, and live, but for some reason cut off. I re-wired the coils, the way they should be, and within 5 seconds after starting the car I knew the problem was solved. It even sounded different. Power delivery was smooth and uninterrupted, and there was more of it!
I have often wondered about the so-called Porsche specialists that maintained the car over its lifetime, and the fact that I probably spoil its resale value by working on it myself. Yet I end up fixing their problems!
Whatever the case, I have not touched the engine after that. There's no need in the short term. Everything works.
For some reason if I upload a photo it messes up the text (turns it into one long narrow column) so I'll upload a picture of my car separately.
I'm currently replacing the shocks and repairing the rear chassis legs. I will post photos as I go along.
