DDK - Die Deutschen Klassiker

Just caught up on this thread Wayne, lots of good detail work there! I can feel the satisfaction in your words from when the fan worked

I wear a welding cap the whole time working on the car now as I seem to misjudge the position of my head relative to hard objects with disturbing regularity!

Cheers Gary - we do seem the most accident prone DIYers!

Good news this morning that the bonding worked perfectly, so a little trim of the excess and the dash is good for the next stage




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Despite having some padded overalls I have been finding it a challenge getting motivated to go out in the garage, especially knowing I had a right old Horlicks to sort out!

The Horlicks was something I started on Monday, ballsed up, then left for a few days. The plan was to start the conversion of the interior from grey to black with the rear parcel shelf. My original idea was to cover the acoustic cloth I had already used, in order for it to act as a backing and maintain the shape. So I removed it and took out the speakers to get my base starting point.



I then chopped a length of rough old batten to length, to make up the void between the shelf and the rear seat. This gap has always annoyed me, and you can also see the little sub unit I have from outside too.



Then back out of the car, I trimmed the current covering back to reveal the mounting holes which I covered over last time. Bad form that, it was held in by gravity only, and not a long term solution if I was going to transport the dog around with the seats down once he has got bigger




So onto the covering. Basic black vinyl off eBay, very cheap, so I bought plenty to allow for balls ups. Just as well.

My first mistake was not recognising that vinyl is much less forgiving than fabric - I thought this would easy! Second mistake was gluing the new fabric to the old, which preventing pulling anything tight - it was a one time only deal putting it on. Third mistake was under-estimating the glue (which I had bought to do the carpets). Oh my word, this stuff sticks like wotsit to a blanket!



The result, a couple of minor creases I could not pull out, and in trying too the previous fabric pulled and stretched onto a position it could not return from, leaving lumps and bumps. It looked a right old mess, so I took it off



Sadly, I had glued the old stuff to the sponge base too, so both came off together destroying sections of the sponge too



This left me with a problem. The vinyl showed up everything, so I would have to take everything off and start again, repair what had pulled off or something else

Several days ruminating in the warm and I had an idea. I ripped the vinyl off the old fabric which was a job in itself. I then stuck the old fabric back onto the shelf, which also had the old sponge on the back of it this getting me back to a smooth base. Then, unlike last time I trimmed all the edges off so it there was less fabric to cause creases



For the most part, it worked


.


I did find I had to keep reworking it one way then the other until all the creases were gone. The glue is so sticky that actually this worked well, allowing it to be stuck and unstuck several times



The more fabric I could remove from the rear the better it took shape





Then stapled back on the seat belt guides and a first trial fit





Then covered the batten on my closing panel and fitted




This pic shows why I want to colour change they light grey to black






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If anyone has ever tried to connect the speakers on a 964 it is kind of like trying to make the connections through a letter box - it’s a proper pain in the wotsit. I had a better idea. I marked the wires and chopped both left and right speaker looms off (of course in retrospect this was completely unnecessary because they are totally different colours)



and then stripped, made new connectors, heat shrunk and fitted to a connector block



If you are wondering why I have used a 6 wire connector block for 4 wires, it is because when I have the alarm fitted the obvious place to put the movement sensors is on the rear shelf. So I can then break these wires and add them to the block, so it is a one connection deal for the whole shelf. Back out of the car I connected the speaker looms and taped in place



I then applied some sound deadening pad to dampen vibrations on the rear shelf as well as stabilising the loom





That’s job done on the shelf, and I must admit to feeling happier about it now than I was earlier this week! I have set aside the vinyl for when the door cards arrive (bare) hopefully later this week.

Another thing I have been meaning to do is replace the interior and under bonnet / engine lid bulbs with LEDs. The reason for this is that working on the car the lights are on all the time, and because the interior lights come on when either lid is open, the battery drain is quite high. Only completely closing the front lid makes them go out. So, having researched LEDs panels at £20 each, it was going to be not far off a £100 job, until I found these LED festoon bulbs for less than a tenner



The difference is amazing in terms of light output too...



Last job of the day was to fit the temp sensor into the heater duct in the engine bay. This is the very last step in a long saga, but basically means that all the problem areas that could have caused the relay failure have been addressed. It is a two minute twist and lock affair, but the old one does not sit nicely in the duct and I think needs an isolator of some sort to ensure that it sits properly without twisting. So I risked my fingers and cut a grommet in half, which fitted like it was designed to be there


So I fitted it to the new sensor and it works brilliantly, fitting tightly in the duct.



The ultimate test though was whether it has stopped the fan running with zero temp after turning on the ignition. And it did.

Issues solved - boom!


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Excellent progress Wayne

Cheers Ian. Hope you and the family are well

Cheers Wayne - we are all good thanks.

Looking forward to seeing the car finished.

Been following this. Very well written and lots of good photographs.

Super thread, where did you get the LED's from ?

Ta

BILLY BEAN wrote:Been following this. Very well written and lots of good photographs.

Thanks Kirk. And several terrible ones!!

milhouse914 wrote:Super thread, where did you get the LED's from ?

Ta

Thank you. Here is the link. They were actually £23, but for all 5, so still the price of one LED replacement lamp unit so still good value I think


https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/Porsche-911- ... 1502947484

I have spent a few hours investigating the wiring loom for the headlights, to find where the headlight wires are in the main loom to tap into them for my relays (these were to be my control wires for the relay). This has turned into a bit of an internet rabbit-hole.

I stripped the front, headlights out and started removing taped joints to see what was going on. There is a loom down each side of the luggage bay, and as you would expect grommets in towards the headlights. What was immediately odd though was that the loom on the passenger side above the battery is heading towards the back of the car at the point of exit through the inner wing. This suggested that the wires are coming from the other side of the car, from a section of loom from the drivers side, across the front and then onto the NS lamp. Removing some of the insulation tape proved this to be true.



Behind the green wire in the above pic are the NS headlight wires. So, if the loom terminates there, the headlight wires must run down the OS boot



This loom was extremely well joined at the factory, so I decided it was easier to look under the wing. Wheel off, wheel arch liner out and actually the wiring runs around the top of the wheel arch, with the bottom section running into the frunk (presumably containing the NS wires) and the top section connecting to the OS. Keeping up?



What I deduced from this is that to run my relays together behind the trim of the front lid would entail extending these in a new loom from each side, and then running new feed wires to each headlight. Not terrible, I had all the bits, just not as easy as I was hoping.

With that in mind, I thought I would test the voltage drop first, to see if worth the chase. I had seen a table which showed that even a small voltage drop at the bulb (say 10%) equates to more like a 30% drop in light output. So I put an old bulb in and with a battery reading of 12.8v, at the bulb it was 11.8v. Quite dramatic, I read the guide again and it said to have all bulbs in place. So with another bulb fitted, I took the readings again , still 11.8v.

I ruminated over dinner to the joy of my family and thought I was better doing the test with the engine running because that’s when you use your lights...

This time with a running voltage of 13.6v (alternator healthy then), the reading achieved at the bulb was 13.1v. When you consider that the wattage output of 55/60 is calculated on a 13.2v output.
Essentially, despite the current all going through the switch the drop is so low that it probably isn’t worth the chase. The bulbs would be brighter with a higher current, but even the full 13.6v would be only an 8% or so improvement


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So this is how the car looks!




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That said, 8% with the same bulbs and protecting the expensive stalks is probably not a bad return, given I have the parts (as you can tell, I am torn on this issue!)

The reason that so many people do this in the US, where the guide originally came from is that US cars used inferior H5 lamps, which are about 20% less efficient for the same wattage than the H4s that European cars came with. Presumably the US cars also have a different wiring harness too with thinner gauge wires, as owners are worried about overloading their wiring.

I’m going to sleep on it

Slept on it - decision made, I’m going to press on.

So catch the odd half an hour in between home schooling and bonkers work, I stripped out the other wheel arch liner tonight. The route of the wiring was a surprise from the NSF...



So you might just be able to set it on top of the aluminium front bumper cross member and then it joins at this funny grommet joint on the offside (which should probably be located on something rather than floating in thin air!)



So the next job is to remove the front bumper to access and modify the loom, then re-run it in the original location. If all goes to plan, the mod will be completely invisible and give the front headlights the full charging current value of the battery with no voltage drop. This is a mod that could be done on any 911, so hopefully will be useful...


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Some stubborn Porsche engineers. After 25 years of producing the 911 without headlight relays they finally had a whole new electrical system with a fancy fuse/relay box on the 964....and still no headlamp relays!