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YOUR RESEARCHMy eBay Porsche has arrived!
Leading reported evidence
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Suggestion
I hold fast when I talk to buyers of our 996s to the old Fram commercial “Pay me now or pay me later” if yu buy one on the cheap side of the market factor in the repair costs to get it back to a safe driving car.
Leading evidence: 'Repair costs' (no explicit attributable resolution; this is a reported action or suggestion). Across 1 matching discussions, The most frequently discussed action is 'Repair costs' (1 discussions). For that action, 0 discussions report a resolution and 0 report an unsuccessful attempt. No action has an explicit, attributable resolution report under the current rules. These are forum reports and suggestions, not a confirmed diagnosis.
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Suggestion
It�s a full day of labor, though, to replace the top, so add another $1000 to budget to pay someone else to do it.
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Suggestion · Original poster
and he was kind enough to run a Durametric diagnostics on the engine and everything looks good!
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Suggestion
My understanding is the piwi OBD reader can test the switches individually(durametric can't).
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Repair costs
No successful repair reported for this finding.
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Reported fixes
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Unsuccessful attempts
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Suggestion
I hold fast when I talk to buyers of our 996s to the old Fram commercial “Pay me now or pay me later” if yu buy one on the cheap side of the market factor in the repair costs to get it back to a safe driving car.
Counts describe captured discussions, not unique people or a diagnosis. Author identities are not reliably stored. Exact duplicate evidence is counted once across matching discussions; one discussion counts at most once per action/state. Multiple repairs reported together remain a combination. Suggestions and failed attempts do not establish a fix. Matches cover whole discussions and can include related faults, model variants and incomplete threads.
33 eligible posts · 0 unverified posts · 1 discussions match the subject in their title or opening post.
Rennlist: 1 discussions
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Outcome without a verified action link
When I got my 02 cabriolet the owner disclosed the top didn't work properly but it was a half manual / half automated workaround.
Oh man this car is gonna need A LOT of work. Busted passenger seat, door doesn�t open from the outside, top leaks into cabin, stinks, no AC, wipers don�t work. So far.
MIL lights
Airbag failure
rollover protect failure
brake sensors
Others I�m sure
Engine starts (with a knock)
brakes are trash
I cant wait to work on it. Just need to finish my Audi. Be sure to follow me on
YouTube
(link below) to see all that I�ve found like a picnic set and baseball hats, etc.
Yogi
Wife�s car got the boot because this car leaks.
Party time... and by party I mean swearing at the car as you wrench away on her.
Sounds like a blast, I’ll be waiting on an invite to come thrash on it with you.
I won it last week for 15002 on eBay Motors. it was about 3K more than what I feel it's worth but Pandemic prices are in full effect. Be sure to follow my restoration!
I have a couple of brake sensors you can have.
Also depending upon the airbag issue, I might have what you need.
I have spare side airbags and airbag controllers.
We can scan it with the Durametric and see what it finds.
I have, what appears to be, an airbag for the dash I found under the seat.
I�ll be in the market for replacement tail lights for sure. They�re cracked and one is out.
That is a bummer about the lights, feel like those aren't cheap unless it's just the high-end ones that are expensive. I have a small crack in my rear driver side tail light and figured I would replace it but even used ones were expensive.
I'll be visiting some junkyards for some of these parts for sure. The top is shot, torn fabric, broken springs and won't open under its own power. Probably hydraulic. However, I can't seem to figure out how to manually release the latch in the front. I got the panel open and stuck a allen key in there and tried to push to open position. Nada.
Couple of questions:
Can I just buy the fabric that goes on the convertible frame?
Do I need to have hydraulic pressure for the lock to operate? I'm guessing it's probably a series of steps and since it can't operate it won't unlock. But just a guess.
You can purchase an aftermarket replacement top ($700-$1000) and re-use the headliner if it�s in good shape. The original top made by Porsche is nearly extinct and way more money (dealer told me $7k). Supposedly aftermarket is what 99% of people use.
It�s a full day of labor, though, to replace the top, so add another $1000 to budget to pay someone else to do it.
The cab top mechanism is a combination of hydraulic and mechanical. First thing to check for are leaks by the hydraulic rams, and reservoir fluid level. The reservoir needs to be nearly full to work properly. If the rams are leaking, you can rebuild them yourself, pay a company to swap yours for a rebuilt kit (what I did), or buy new rams (not cheap).
The reservoir was full. I�m hearing clicking but no movement. I would very much like to lower the top if at all possible. The front latch is my enemy at the moment.
I don't know if anyone has suggested this but the first thing I would with so many unknowns would be to drop the sump and cut open the oil filter. If those are clean it at least gives you a little piece of mind to start buying parts for the little things.
I hold fast when I talk to buyers of our 996s to the old Fram commercial “Pay me now or pay me later” if yu buy one on the cheap side of the market factor in the repair costs to get it back to a safe driving car. The alternative is to pay the higher side of the market and get a better car but even that is no guarantee that there are not items that will need to be addressed. So there is no right or wrong level car to buy just do what feels right.
good luck with your rejuvenation of a fine car.
Rich
To open the front latch for the convertible top you need remove the cover. Insert the Allen key in the ratcheting wheel and turn the wheel several times and the hook should deply.
You will then need to put the back seats down and remove the verticle carpet piece behind the seats. There is a bolt in a blue circle. tighten the bolt all the way. This pulls the driveshaft out of the clamshell drive so you can manually move the clamshell. Next to the blue circle is a Allen screw which opens the bleed valve for the top hydraulics.
Opening the bleed valve let's you manually move the top.
To get it all the way open
1. Undo the front latch
2. Screw in bolt in blue circle and open the clamshell
3. Open the bleed valve and close the top
4 push clamshell back in place
The process is better detailed in the manual if you have that. If not I can post some pics of the process from my Bentley when I get off work
Thanks for this. This was in the user manual that I found in the car. Using that allen key to undo the front latch is where I'm stuck. It doesn't appear to rusted or seized up but I can't move that wheel/gear/cog one inch. In fact, when trying to force it the tool slipped and I punched myself in the mouth. Pretty funny now but not so much when it happened. I may just unbolt the entire assembly.
You're getting good information here on how to open your top but I wanted to chime in with my $0.02 about the link between failed hydraulics and your non-functional electronics. When I got my 02 cabriolet the owner disclosed the top didn't work properly but it was a half manual / half automated workaround. Depressing the "top down" button lowered all the windows, opened the clamshell, and disengaged the latch. You then got out of the car and lowered it manually into the stowed position. Get back in the car, depress the top down button some more until the clamshell closed and the driver and passenger windows went up fully to signal the evolution was over. Putting the top up was the exact opposite.
After I have fully sorted the situation my only malfunction was the blown out hydraulic cylinder seals. I removed them, shipped them off to Cabriolet Hydraulics in Sarasota, and then reinstalled per their instructions. After a breath-holding frustrating number of up and down cycles I finally purged all the air and have a fully properly functioning top without plugging in any further diagnostics tools or having any other timing recalibrated.
I tell that whole story to signal that you have something more wrong with your system than just the hydraulics. Likely a fuse or relay out - perhaps deliberately since someone knew something was wrong.
Interesting. When I press the button the windows did go down but the clamshell didn�t open. I can hear clicking from the rear clamshell latch and from the front. But nada, no movement. I�m going to rebuild the pistons but not until I sort the engine. I just want the damn top down. Living in Houston affords me a small window of top down weather. Besides it�ll help me pull all the disgusting interior out.
I�m going to retry that latch, bleed the hydraulics and try to lower it again.
Unfortunately, opening the top is a 14 step process. So there are several points of failure. The clicking usually means it's waiting on a microswitch. My understanding is the piwi OBD reader can test the switches individually(durametric can't). The windows dropping is a good sign. Do all 4 windows drop?
You will also have to recalibrate the top. I'll try and dig up my documentation
M
The windows dropped once, and never came back up. I can raise the front ones with the center switches but the rear click and nothing. I even tried the key in the lock trick. Click and nothing. None of the windows go up. The MIL states the top is not fully extended.
The back windows won't close if the car thinks the top is open.
I think the front hook engages a switch that lets the computer know the top is closed.
M
Appreciate the offer. I had to shake the rust off them. They're good now. Thanks!
In fact, I just got back from visiting
@TexSquirrel
and he was kind enough to run a Durametric diagnostics on the engine and everything looks good! So this means I can move forward with the restoration! Be sure to sub to my channel, I hope to have the first Porsche video up tomorrow. Should be fun.
This is a source reference. Confirm exact model applicability in the original material.
