Parts came in while I was out of town for our 964 project which had the internal distributor belt fail. I got cracking early as I knew it would be a long day. First thing to do was the replace the hood and hatch struts so they would stay open. The back of my head is always thankful for new hatch struts. mmmmm, fresh struts. After sneaking into the back of the engine bay, both sides get replaced. Then it …

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Having someone qualified to perform a PRE Purchase Inspection BEFORE you buy is always a good idea. Being able to spot potential or current mechanical issues, previous accident damage, etc is critical when buying a car, so you can have an idea of what repairs you may be facing in the future, Ie, money out of your pocket. Unfortunately, I end up doing a lot of POST Purchase Inspections after someone had purchased a car, and they never really enjoy …

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Cayenne Driveshaft

Porsche introduced the Cayenne SUV in 2003, which later became it’s #1 selling vehicle. The model shares the same platform as the VW Touareg, and thus shares a lot of the same issues. One of those issues in the 03 and early 04 models was a driveshaft carrier bearing that would fail and cause a knocking, thumping, or as many describe it, a “wummering” sound. It can happen under hard acceleration, light acceleration, when there is an old lady crossing …

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Picked this car up from a customer to inspect and get into top running shape. As soon as I loaded the car in 3rd gear, I could hear and feel the detonation happening in the engine, so I was pretty sure I knew what that was going to be. First thing to do when I got home was to check out the airbag light. Looks like a crash sensor was throwing an error, so I cleared the code and it …

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Tomorrow I will be heading out to HPT for the Chump Car Race. We watched the 24 hour race at Newton, IA and it was a hoot, so this should be a blast as well. Hopefully the heat stays at bay for us 🙂 I will be helping in the Pits for “Car 54 Where are you” as they take the win 😉 Couple local teams and good friends will be racing tomorrow: Car 54 Where Are You: Porsche 944 …

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Of course this kind of stuff never happens when it is moderately cool out, but rather when the temps are constantly over 100 degrees. Squeaks, our 2000 Jeep Grand Cherokee WJ, decided to only blow air out the defrost vents earlier this week. Controls would not do anything. While the AC was still blowing, when it is 105 out, not having that airflow across your body makes it seem a lot hotter in the vehicle. There are a couple of …

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Got the 996TT fired up on saturday afternoon, cams broken in, and fluids topped off and bled. I finished the suspension on Friday, so that is all done as well. And pulled out of the garage. For a purpose of course….. Time to peel off the beaten and marred clear bra. Clearbra peels very easily off plastic…..not so much off metal. The sun must cook the metal a little more and maybe affects the clear bra, but even with a …

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Yesterday I dabbled in hooking up engine connections here and there and getting it ready to fire up. I left one of the turbo couplers on the old turbos which went back to the owner, so I am waiting to get that back today, then the motor can be fired up. After that was time to put the stock suspension back on the car. The KW’s come off…. 154lb anvils are good for a couple things. 1 is for metal …

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After the new FPR showed up, I started shoving the motor back in the car. Last night about 11pm the car showed up on the flatbed, and we got it pushed onto the lift and ready to go for today. Since I need to install the stock exhaust back on, and the table is only so big, I pulled the rear bumper for better access. With a larger table, you can shove it all in complete with exhaust without pulling …

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Adios Project 944T

Our long 86 turbo project left for home today. The car has been done for some time now, but I wanted to put a few miles on it before sending it on it’s way to make sure things were holding up. After getting back from RA on Wednesday, I was able to get some seat time with it and give it the check ride. There are still a bunch of little items that need to be addressed with the car, …

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