Last minute change of plan – I went to the Basingstoke Festival of Transport instead of Beaulieu. A few aircooled Veedubs & vans, but no aircooled Porsches. Well, except for mine in the ‘visitors’ carpark.
What did I learn on this little jaunt
1 – the heaters are staying partially on. Simple on the road solution was to turn the aircon on.
2 – it’s fun with the targa top off
3 – a 4 litre BMW X5 may like to charge up by the side of me at the roundabout and rev his engine, but once we were clear to go, he was left in my wake
So, once home, up on the lift for a quick looksee. The NS heater box was not fully opening. It would open if given a poke, but after cycling the autoheat to hot and back to cold, it stayed slightly closed. Plenty of lube (oh er missus) and still the same. I tried adjusting the cable a bit more but the end snapped off, so I left the heater box in the open / off position and ordered a new cable from Matthew (Type911).
That cable came this morning, so as SWMBO was going out, plans were made.
Plan was to start by removing the cables from the heater boxes, so up on the ramp. Well the original plan was to undo the nuts and just pull the cables out, but although the nuts undid easily, the cables were a bit bent and liked it where they were. A pair of side cut pliers and they soon lost the argument.
Car back on the ground and remove the 4 bolts retaining the autoheat
Off with the rubber boot
And the side panel for access to the connecting rod
Disconnect the various electrical plugs
It had all been going so well …
Top tip – when you unpin the connector, don’t drop the pin down here (especially as it is not magnetic)
Wire reattached to pin and slotted back into the connector
Back on track and undo this small set screw to release the old cable (sorry, the phone was too close to focus properly and if I moved further away, the screw was hidden)
Equally impossible for focus on, were the two tubes that lead the cables towards the flapper boxes
So, having pulled the old cable out, I fed the new cable ends down the tubes and secured the end to the red lever.
More top tips – don’t (repeatedly) drop the small set screw when trying to attach the new cable. I probably should have removed the seat, but I knew better. Haha. At least the set screw and washer were magnetic.
I found it better to pull off the short flexible outer sleeves that run from the rear bulkhead to the flapper boxes when feeding the cables down and through the tubes inside the tunnel. That allowed me to wriggle the flexible outers onto the inners – the inners were originally getting held up passing through the ferrules at each end of the flexibles.
Then it was a case of reattaching everything inside the car, raise it and back underneath. I cycled the autoheat to full heat, then attached the cables to the flapper boxes with them set to closed (heat mode). I then cycled the autoheat to cold and thankfully, the flapper boxes were spot in the middle of the open (no heat mode).