A Day In The Life Of A Poor Humble Mechanic

Sooo ... today i'm working on a 993 Targa with water leaks.. water is running down the A pillar trims .

Pretty obvious fault .. the door seal is what drains the water .. x2 pipes push into the door seal and drain out the water near the lower door hinge .

Downside . i cant remove the old seals to get at this point with out damage .. they are glued in place .

X2 door seals at circa £450 each .. Porsche do know how to charge don't they !!


X1 side didn't even have a retaining clip fitted .. previous job .. and a stupid one at that .

New seals and a pain of a job to do .. contact glue , you apply it to both the metal and the seal , wait for it to go off then assemble .. downside .. it sticks as soon as it touches .. bit of a nightmare to get it in place i can tell you .#


Headlight fault .. repair kit needed to the o/s headlight as the dip beam securing bracket has broken on the bulb ... not the .. i can't get the headlight to secure on the wiring plug the customer mentioned .

Tomorrow ..

991 turbo .. 4 wheel drive failure .. a quick look today and its a pressure sensor failure .. electrics , sensor or control unit .. i have yet to figure that out .. but the test plan said .. END OF TEST .. i guess i'm on my own there lol .

Cayenne 2011 with multiple failures .. 8 in total .. ill guess i'm gonna have to work each system in turn there .. flat battery , rear wiper inop .. pdcc failure and then some .

macan .. eml light on and psm light on .. no idea there atm as the car isnt here yet ..

ever had the feeling you would rather go sick for a day or 2 .
:floor:

someone get this man a cup of tea

Battery?

On the Cayenne - Would it be the battery playing up with all those faults maybe... When i had a duff battery on my past Mercs it played havoc with so many things so did my X's Mini Cooper...

You need a vlog or YT channel, young man.

you should get in touch with Alex, ask him for next available date of him as a DJ and you should attend you will not find better therapeutic experience in UK my level of endorphins, dopamine and serotonin are still of the chart. 8)

The return of Marty Wild said:

You need a vlog or YT channel, young man.

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The UK's Porsche Car Wizard?

https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC2TTf3i4wwsRW8ex1zRXH8A

Aww bless you all .. i didn't think anyone would be interested in my ramblings lol .

An update then ..

Targa all done although i cant stop a bit of wind noise from the deflector .. front seal has a gap and that's a roof off job to replace .

991 ..

fault code was oil pressure sensor for the 4 wheel drive system .. its actually located in the front diff but almost no access ..

Wiring checked out .. its just a 12v wire , an earth wire and a signal wire .. control unit is in the bonnet area and n/s/f.

We had pre ordered a sensor just in case .

I spent about 10 mins just looking at it thinking i'm gonna have to drop this out to change it .. not pleasant .

These are somewhat different from earlier models .. high pressure pump , water cooled .. temp and oil sensors and the one i wanted was inside a cage and above the temp sensor ..

24mm nut so i'm into 1/2 inch drive sockets .. stuff me if i actually found one that with a bit of wiggling i could get it on the sensor .. hell of an angle but a wobbly end extension and out it came ..

Some assistance from the boss holding coolant pipes out the way i must add !

Soo .. that fixed the fault .. BUT .. this is an oil pressure sensor .. a common old garden every day sensor .. try £300 niker from Porsche


Cayenne .. couldn't find anything on the battery discharge but the last 10 alarm triggers were alarm siren , considering this isnt working and i have multiple codes for it then its a pretty sure bet that's the fault .

Now then .. flat batterys and jump starting are not good for these cars .... this is the result of it ..

It basically messed up the software coding in several modules .. i did handovers , auto coding and to get the cruise control working then i had to input the enabling code from porsche to kick this back into life .

this is one of those annoying things .. i spend 2 hours messing about with a tester .. recoding etc .. then locking the car , unlocking , testing , altering more coding .. i haven't actually replaced or even got my meter out .. i've just sat in front of a tester playing with software .

end of the day its chargeable .. but it feels frustrating .. i've not been a Mechanic on this job .. just a computer programer basically .

i've still got the intermittent faults to deal with yet .. but as usual there's no petrol in the car to road test it .. need authority before putting any in .

trust me guys .. put petrol in the cars please .. turning up with 20 miles till empty isn't really fair on us .

Tomorrow will be interesting .. we are somewhat over booked .. over time all round from the sounds of things !

Thank you for reading this far who ever you are

EDIT ..

I read all your comments .. you are all correct !

But ill defer from a you tube account .. im busy enough here as it is


I'm also NOT photogenic :floor:

I took my Targa out of winter storage last week and the roof noises you attended to last year are still staying away! I remember you telling me how they are noisier when cold, how true. As the car warmed up they went to almost nothing, even on the South's Third World roads. I guess wind noises at speed are there to stay though

As a point of interest are non targas noisy in comparison to modern cars?

Keep posting Iain, it's always an interesting read :thumb:

Always good to chat with you young man .

Targas are the most noisy out of all the models .. a lot of it is down to body flex .. if you put your hand on parts of the roof when cornering you can feel it move ..

i don't advise this though lol .

Non Targa 993 and all you really hear is the exhaust .. you may get the odd noise . windscreen seal can creak .. teflon tape under it stops that but over all they are fairly quiet .

rear panel on both models can squeak / creak but thats down to age .. leather on leather will cause noises .. new leather is fine but these are a little old now.

Again teflon tape can stop the noise .. not yet found a leather restorer that works .. seat backs against the seat base is another possible .

targas and its a lot of rubber seals with a flexing glass panel against them .. gummi fledge or the like stops it but it does wear off so needs reapplying i'm afraid .

Temp makes a huge difference .. i'm not totally sure why though .. cold and it seems to be when noises do occur .. perhaps the rubbers heat up a little :dont know:

Wind noise though can be a problem to stop .. there is limited things i can do .. front seal as i said is a roof off to change and its the normal cause .. any sharp edge though will also cause noises .. blow over a blade of grass in your hand .. like we did as kids .. same effect ..

So with that in mind the front to rear roof trims each side .. something like butil pushed in to create a seal is one method .. it sounds horrible but doesn't look out of place .

Fingers crossed yours stays quiet for a while .. i think the more you use it the worse it will get .. what i did should last for a wee while though

Thanks Iain, now about that distributor......

Noooo .. me runs off to hide !!!!

I'm sick i tells ya .. i'm not a well man ... cough ... snifle .. cough ..

deMort said:

Noooo .. me runs off to hide !!!!

I'm sick i tells ya .. i'm not a well man ... cough ... snifle .. cough ..

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Too busy too I feel :floor:

I can sympathise with you 100% Iain :grin:

As I have mentioned before, I fix CNC machines for a living, today I was down in Gloucester on a job that somebody had supposedly done 3 weeks ago, but the customer asked if I would go down and give the machine a once over just for peace of mind. I immediately found that the spindle drive belt was flapping in the wind, having been supposedly checked for wear and tension :hand:

Then I had a phone call from a new engineer who had a problem with a Fanuc control system in Loughborough, he had inadvertantly applied 240Vac to a 24Vdc control system, and thus released the smoke from the computer and it was now as he said " CNC is f****d dude " :sad:

So no guesses as to where I will be in the morning, along with £10,000 of new CNC control parts :grin:

At least it keeps us from chasing girls all day

My dear DeMort, I too share your frustrations in terms of the ever increasing technological "advances" in automotive engineering, and in engineering in general.

I entered the workplace in 1964 and left at age 65... the last almost 40 years spent in one location where my duties were widely variable maintaining and repairing all sorts of kit that was needed to keep the whole place running. After a couple of years of settling in I was pretty confident I could handle just about everything within my remit with a measure of confidence and if I came up against anything new I could use my experience gained over the years to determine the cause of the issue and effect a repair..

With the passage of time and the rate of advance in digital technology I began to feel less effective, I therefore felt lucky to survive the last five years or so in the workplace, and was ever frustrated when I could not effect a repair as having taken every step in the manuals and using my own logic and experience of previous faults on a very complex machine I might arrive at a situation where even substitution of components that had eye watering costs, and still not running, the machine might spit out a seemingly random fault code of which there was no trace in the manuals or advice available from the manufacturers....Of course TIME is ever important, and on reaching a reasonable limit thereof, the manufacturers agent is called in.... On his arrival a memory stick is inserted a few keys pressed new bit of programming installed to overcome the situation and a few minutes later the machine is up and running....!!!

For years the folk around the place had great confidence in the team I was a small part of, in the knowledge that we could get them up and running in any and all circumstances... We could work around all sorts of situations... Though when digital technology (wonderful as it is) came to the fore we were restricted in our access to very necessary information to some degree by claims of the manufactures necessity to protect their intellectual copyright, relative to the design function specification of their equipment etc,etc,etc, add to that the ever increasing restrictions brought about by "health & safety" requirements and the exponential growth in personal claims threats of litigation and I began to feel a tad like a eunuch in a harem in terms of my capabilities to be effective....)-: Perhaps fortunately there was enough of the old kit that the youngsters did not want to dirty their more keyboard oriented fingers on, that still required to be understood, repaired and maintained, and which seemed to justify my continued existence till my time was up....(-:

Sure it was just down to natural evolutionary processes which will never stop or slow down.. Me..? I feel fortunate to have started a job having left school on Friday and started work on the following Monday and lasted in the work environment as long as I did. During that time I was able to buy old m/cycles and fix them up to use as transport and in the process learn the rudiments relative to their design, construction and repair, in time I carried on that process to motor cars and much else.... I am concerned that such processes may not be quite as available to kids today as they were for me.... A great pity.

Where to now...? Electric vehicles...? I worked on them too in the seventies, all very interesting until that stuff was contracted out.... hmm. Interesting as it was electric vehicles never quite grabbed me in the way that those driven by a combustion engine did... Quite how long it might take to restrict usage of combustion engines to the degree that there are ever more limitations on their usage that may effect everyone everywhere in the UK and beyond.. I know not, but combustion engined vehicles do seem to have become overly complex while trying to be less polluting, less noisy more powerful and safer, and in the process become far more difficult and expensive to repair as ever more sensors and actuators are required to be plumbed/crammed into reducing sized spaces in order that those who THINK they need a zillion horse power to enjoy a twisting ribbon of tarmac in order to have any real FUN, desirest of feeling cocooned/protected enough to put the pedal to the metal and still the computers will keep them on the road... hmm.

Yeah well I am an old duffer for sure and thus have the tendency to ramble on a bit though have pity on me if you will with my ageing bones trying to sort out wiring on a Morgan with next to no electronics that someone with little or no electrical training has wired in an immobiliser system and a few accessories using whatever size and colour of wiring might have been available creating a system of wiring joints where al the colours of the rainbow seem to come together confounding me in the process while lying contorted peering up behind a dashboard wearing much needed bi-focal glasses that create focus issues depending on my struggles to get my head into a tight space at a suitable angle to begin to see where the problem may lie...

Wiring diagrams do not exist for my year of Morgan, and Morgan were never renown for their prowess in electrics, perhaps Lucas partly to blame too..? Bring in the complexities of the digital revolution and Morgan were in a bit of a tizz trying to incorperate modern engine technology with the company`s desire to maintain their traditions and customer expectations....Fortunately for me my old car pre dates Morgan`s need to be dragged kicking and screaming into the digital age, though it can still be a PIG to work on... !!!

I had come to the stage where I thought to return to the efficiency and quality engineering design and construction as I once knew it relative to my experiences of Porsche from the sixties till the launch of the 993 in the nineties..... BUT from all I have read here in the recent past..... hmmm ?? Seems to me that just like the engineering "advances" combined with the effects of globalisation that I experienced and the passage of time at my place of employment, my confidence in terms of my decision making relative to a return to the Porsche marque seems to have become a tad more of a complex path than I had hoped for at the outset, when I thought that my old Morgan might just become a tad to RAW an experience for me now, when I finally get it back to being roadworthy after circa four years lying dormant, and that a Porsche as I once knew them to be, might fit the bill a bit better for an old dude before I get carted off to the whatever variety of expected fun awaits those of us so called "baby boomer generation".... :dont know:

So if you have read this far you see that you are not alone or anything like the first to tread a similar path Mr DeMort. More important is that you can still have good days where you feel very worthwhile when you achieve a measure of success beyond your own expectations... :thumb:

Aren't we all analogue dinosaurs in a digital world?

I used to work on my own cars when I was a teenager, because I didn't have any money. Using the Haynes Manual (book of lies) and a set of halfords spanners, I learnt to do all kinds of things on my first MG Midget (a 1973 chrome bumpered version) with a tweaked 1293 engine and twin double webers. So much fun!

I replaced the exhaust, dampers, brakes, wheel bearings, fuel pumps, radiator, most of the cooling circuit, heater matrix, wiper motor, headlights, instruments, steering wheel, handbrake mechanism and much, much more.

In later years I helped rebuild engines, work out electric looms and did some engine swapping. Again to help a mate and because I got an enormous sense of accomplishment. It was a therapeutic change to working in an office.

These days I'm a little more comfortable financially, so I don't have to do it, but with the technology as it is, I think I'd struggle to do anything other than basic component swaps on anything built after the year 2000 ....

In fact I don't even change my own brake discs these days. Sad really. I have all the tools and no time ....

MM.