Randy V

This topic contains most everything a 928 owner will often ask about.

Anything from how to do a pre-purchase inspection, adjust the suspension, troubleshooting electrical problems, selecting the correct custom wheels, to proper forum etiquette and terminology.

First off - read your Owner's Manual!.

If you don't have one, here's a link to most model years:

https://rennlist.com/forums/928-foru...al-online.html

Do yourself (and us) a favour and skim through all these pages before you post for the first time.

Thanks!


Oh, and watch this:

V-Fib

Please read ALL posts (4 pages worth) within this topic BEFORE posting for the first time. If you do, we won't get the first impression that you are a dolt. Thanks! - Admin.




1st, Let's congratulate you on your fine choice of automobile machinery. I too, a few months ago purchased a 79/928 silver metallic. In that time I have learned a few things.

1. Most of the common problems we are having can be found with a little effort on our part by searching the archives, and tech sections from the various 928 sites.(many great ones!)

2. We experience more electrical problems than mechanical.

3. There are many fine experienced people who will help you out with a question, don't be afraid to ask!

4. Read the Owner's Manual - twice. If you don't have the original owner's manual, get one now from your dealer or other source, a lot of good info in there.

5. BUY the MANUALS! Either from the big 3 or Ebay or wherever you can find them. paper/cd/microfiche, whatever you can afford. (They will pay for themselves if one trip to the dealer for repairs is avoided)(Wiring diagrams fill two volumes in the binders.)

6. When asking a question always state: year/model/auto or manual, and be as specific as you can.

7. Routine maintenence should be done RELIGIOUSLY!

8. The properly equipped owner CAN fix most problems.

As I do not know everything, I hope others will post suggestions for "maximum enjoyment" of your 928, and hints to NEW 928 Owners.

Anthony Tate
79/928 silver metallic
PCA/928 OC
<img border="0" alt="[byebye]" title="" src="graemlins/wave.gif" />

Randy V

Very good points Anthony. Let me add a couple:

Say Thanks. If you pose a question to a discussion forum and you get helpful response(s), post a follow-up message in your original thread, acknowledging those who helped you. By doing so, you let those folks know you've seen their advice, plus you increase your chances of getting further assistance in the future.

Be Specific. When you start a new topic, make the topic title something that references the issue you are posting about. You'll get better responses to a post titled "Request 928 Buying Advice - 1987 S4" over one titled "What About This One?" "Newbie Needs Help", or "Now What?", for example. In addition, an issue-specific title allows much better results on future archive searches when searching by 'Topic Title'.

Post a Follow-up. After you have asked a question and received one or more suggestion on how to resolve the issue, please post a follow-up in your original topic, indicating what was done and what was the result.


This is the 928 Forum - Post Only Related Topics. Please stick to 928-related issues when creating hew topics. Rennlist has an Off Topic forum - it's the Wild West of Rennlist where anything goes - but it is accessible only by paying Members. Post your non-928 stuff over there - NOT HERE.


See page 2 of this FAQ topic for specific guidelines. Those rules apply to everyone - yes, even you.

THE RENNLIST RULES

Know the obligations and responsibilities that you agreed to by creating a Rennlist account -

The Terms of Service: https://rennlist.com/TOS.htm

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RENNLIST SPONSORSHIP

If you are interested in becoming a Rennlist Sponsor, for information click on the 'Sponsors' link located at the upper right of any forum page.

____________________________________

The information presented here should be very helpful to new visitors looking to learn about their 928, as well as provide some guidance on forum 'etiquette'. Feel free to add anything that may be beneficial to new owners... or even wizened veterans for that matter.



Please start a New Topic outside this thread if you have questions or comments about any information presented here.

jim morehouse

Thinking of Buying a 928? Read this Pre Purchase Inspection (PPI) Info:

https://rennlist.com/techarticles/92...inspectfaq.htm


I also put together a "New Owners" document a little while ago that may be of some help/amusement listing sources,vendors, some sites, etc. Tony Harkin is one of the folks who put it up at his site at:

http://members.rennlist.com/v1uhoh/fornew9.htm

I hope it's of some help and if you see any errors or have additions, please let me know!

oh, and welcome!

Jim

928 Mechanics

Dana has but together a listing of shops that are familiar with the 928. This listing may or may not be up-to-date- so call ahead first. - RV

http://www.eatel.net/~dslabat/mech.htm


.

Randy V

Plan on buying a 928? Get a Pre Purchase Inspection (PPI) FIRST!

Use a mechanic that knows the 928 - these guys are difficult to find, so ask the forum for recommendations. A good PPI will cost $150 - $250 dollars. Use the results to negotiate a better price.

If you can't find one, use Dan the Pod Guy's excellent PPI checklist:

http://www.kondratyev.com/porsche/ppi/ppi.htm

(click on the links at the left on that page to get into the various checklist sections)


Other Stuff About Using This Forum:

Searching the Archives

We encourage you to ask all manner of 928-related questions here.

To augment your informational quest, use the search link located at the top of the page to cull archived 928 Forum discussions.


Help With Uploading Photos, Adding/Changing Avatar and Other Forum Use Stuff

Go to the Rennlist Help & Test Forum where there is lots of helpful info posted.

Also use that forum for 'testing' things, like photo attachments, etc. Do not do testing in Off Topic or on the model-specific forums.

Ed Ruiz

Quite often, the answers to many 928 questions are found in the Owner's Manual. If you don't have one, get one. They're only about $25, and all of the Big Three sell them.

I once helped a friend inspect a 928 that he would eventually buy. When I went to check the headlight washer, the seller said, "Oh, I could never get that to work." Just after he said it, I turned on the lights, then pushed the washer stalk, and viola - it worked! He asked, "How did you do that?" I said, the way the Owner's Manual says to do it. He then reluctantly admitted he had never read the manual. Sure enough, it was in the glove box, still in the shrinkwrap. :^(

~ Merry motoring ~

Max

I would like to address what Anthony touched on as “We experience more electrical problems than mechanical”.

A major contributor to the 928’s electrical problems is that most new 928 owners will not be privy to a very important and ease Electrical Preventative Maintenance (PM) task. Because most are not familiar with these types of problems, they will become distraught over chasing those Evil Electrical Gremlins around for days if not weeks prior to coming here for help.

Let’s start by strongly suggesting to all new 928 owners to find and clean all our ground point, ground straps and sensor connectors! Replace them if necessary, you could even add a few new ground straps if you choose. Appling moister barrier grease or spray to the terminal ends and contact point is also a good “while your there” task.

GROUND POINTS
Pay close attention to the small ground points throughout the car, if you don’t you’re going to have problems. The problems may show up as intermittent hard starts, rough idle, bad gauge readings as well as poor performance.

BATTERY and GROUND STRAPS
If your battery is not at full charge, with clean terminals and the ground straps are oxidized or corroded, the engine and it’s sensors will not be properly grounded to the chassis and can give you the same problems as listed above.

SENSORS
The Porsche 928 is loaded with sensors. The Brain (s) in our cars read these needed signals from its sensors and if corrodes, will not be getting the correct reading from them and can give you the same problems as listed above.

You could and will be on the hunt for the “Evil One” for days if you don’t do a little electrical PM, say once a year.

HTH

Max

Randy V

Read Your Owner's Manual!

If you don't have one - buy one.

Here's on-line versions to hold you over until then:

https://rennlist.com/forums/928-foru...al-online.html


Rennlist Membership and Benefits + "Rennlist Member" Designation

If, after awhile, you find this place to be informative and entertaining, you might consider pledging your support of this great Porsche resource - Rennlist - by becoming a Rennlist Member.

For particulars click on the 'membership' link located at the upper right of the page.

https://rennlist.com/forums/payments.php

The benefits include Rennlist Member designation under your Forum name.

Plus your own personal Rennlist web-accessible email account.

Also included is your own website space for hosting your personal Porsche-related stuff.

As a member, you are also granted access to Members Only forums such as Off Topic (The Wild West of Rennlist), Member to Member Sales, Rennlist Classifieds, and others.

Paid members are also granted much more detailed Search capabilities to help you locate answers to your questions.

We'll bet that the assistance, money-saving tips, and camaraderie you will enjoy at Rennlist far outweighs the price of membership.

Your support is appreciated by us all.

WallyP

If you want to repair or maintain your own 928, this forum, and the email lists, can help a great deal - BUT:

You MUST buy the Workshop Manuals.

It simply is not practical to try to maintain a 928 without access to the Workshop Manuals.

While these manuals seem awfully expensive at about $350 plus shipping, there is an old cliche that is appropriate: "If you think that education is expensive, wait until you try ignorance."

Using the manuals will allow you to repair and maintain your 928 much more efficiently and effectively. You can save enough to pay for the manuals the first time that you avoid a trip to a shop.

If you decide to sell your 928, the manuals make an excellent "deal sweetener and closer" to give a
prospective buyer that final nudge. Or, you can sell them on eBay and get most of you money back - and sometimes more.

There are a lot of people who will try to help you - but a two paragraph message will never replace a
twenty-page section from the manuals!

You can get the manuals on microfiche for a lot less money (about $35 plus shipping). This format is much less convenient - you have to hunt for a microfiche reader ($25 - $100 on eBay), or you have to go to your local library to read/print the info. The wiring diagrams are almost impossible to use in the fiche.

But the microfiche is better than nothing!

Bottom line - if you want to repair or maintain your own 928, buy the manuals.

UPDATE
This post was actually prepared several years ago - and things have changed!! The manuals now list for over $1200 from Porsche, so buying new manuals is no longer practical, unless you find someone with old stock.

Jim Morehouse has gone to an incredible amount of trouble - and quite a bit of expense - to gather a HUGE amount of 928 tech info, have it professionally scanned, made into pdf files, and burned onto CDs. This includes the Factory Workshop Manuals. You can contact Jim by email at jim928@ptd.net

Highly recommended!

Max

Intermittent Electrical Problems (86-95)

When you first discover some part (s) of the electrical system is working intermittently, take a close look at the fuse panel. Pay extra close attention to any fuses that have been tampered with (i.e. Radar detector, cell phone or stereo connections). Pull each fuse out one by one and make a mental note of how hard it is to pull each one out. They should be almost impossible to remove with your fingertips. The ones that have a loose fit or are marginal, simply take each fuse out, using small needle nose pliers bend the legs in a "S"/"~" shape, then reinstall. This will force the fuse legs against the internal contact points in the fuse panel.

If you still have a few problems, turn the ignition key to the on position, switch on what ever is not working and start wiggling and pushing in on the relays. If this works then you may need to replace a relay.

Randy V

Timing Belt and Water Pump Replacement by Dwayne:

http://dwaynesgarage.norcal928.org/1...0Procedure.htm





The proper way to align the 928 - critical info

Courtesy Greg Nichol's Tips:

Alignment

And courtesy of Captain Earl:

http://members.rennlist.com/captearlg/928align.html

Print this out and hand it to the alignment tech before he gets started:

http://members.rennlist.com/captearl...hydifshop.html


Ride Height Adjustment

Courtesy of 928UK:

Proper Ride Height Adjustment


From Dave Cooley:

It should be noted that 928 suspensions, especially in the front have a huge amount of friction in them and it can be rather difficult to get them to settle easily. You can make yourself really crazy trying to do one axle at a time because of this, but yhe steps outlined below will get you close the first time around.

As a data point to be passed on to ANY alignment shop, raising the front end
during an alignment will completely defeat what they are trying to do
because most cars will hang up as much as three inches high in the front
until driven enough for settling. They can be bounced back down, but you
won't know if they're completely bottomed unless ride height is measured
before the car is raised, then after it's back down on its tires. FAILURE
to do this WILL RESULT in front toe settings so far off that they will wear
out a new set of tires in only a few thousand miles. So if you ever have
your car aligned, it's really best to find a shop that will do "rolling
compensation" rather than lifting the car. It can be hard to find such a
shop.

While the above might sound slightly off topic, it ain't. Raising and
lowering the front of a 928 WILL affect the toe setting. If you have
raised or lowered the front of your car any significant amount, you owe it
to yourself to have the car aligned lest you say bye bye to those expensive
Michelin Pilots. The reason toe is affected is that the steering rack is
attached to the body and the tie rods attach to the steering arms at an
angle. When you change ride height, the tie rods will pull or push on the
steering arms which are directly connected to the wheels, resulting in the
toe change.

Typical questions, and answers supplied by Theo and Dave:

> How much does a single turn raise the height of the car

3mm/turn front, 1mm/turn rear. A 5mm change of the nut raises the
car approximately 10mm.

Threads on a 928 spring adjusting sleeve are 60 x 1.5, with the latter being
the pitch of the threads. This means that a one thread change will move you
up or down 1.5 mm.

An inch is 25.4 mm, which is a LOT of ride height change. Remember the
advice in the opening paragraphs.


> Should I continue to set the front and ignore the rear or should I set the rear down to spec first.

Not indicated in the manuals, but I would do the rear first, adjust the front
accordingly and then verify the rear. The front changes the most when lifting.

Doing it without corner scales is simply a trial and error process. Drive
the car at least three miles (I believe the FSM specifies five km) to make
sure the suspension has completely settled. Then, without lifting the car,
measure ride height and write down the variances for all four corners.

Then do what you have to do in order to wrap a piece of masking tape around
the threads at a point that will mark the distance you want to raise or
lower the car. Then do what you have to do in order to crank on the
adjustment collars until they are even with your tape markers. When all
are adjusted, drive the car the required mileage and check your ride height
again. You'll be pretty close at this point, maybe not for a racer, but
easily close enough for a street driven car. Remember that you really
must have the front toe checked, not because of any small differences, but
because any change in ride height will affect it.


> Is there a quick way to insure that one side is not holding up the opposite side >by too much without going to the trouble of corner balancing.

Probably not. All four corners mutually affect each other. The larger
the differences among the four corners, the greater the chance that you'll
have to fine tune your settings before you get them right.

I hope this helps. No reason not to do this much at home, but you need to
know the effects one aspect has on others.

Alignment Update by Heinrich

V-Fib

As stated above by Max, and Wally, check the fuse panel for electrical gremlins first. Example: I had a fuse (condenser fan) that was getting so hot it melted down to the point it wasn't making contact. I also had the right signal light flashing at twice the normal speed. Rear bulb was working but front wasn't. Needed new bulb, right? NO. Both problems were caused by the fuses being loose between the contacts. I cleaned the contacts (all of them) and tightened down (all) the fuses. I also cleaned the grounding points and all the corrosion that I could find while in there.
Anthony Tate
79/Metallic Silver

michael

Here's another list of LINKS that any new 928 owner should have... most of the commercial links on this list are already covered in Jim's great list... but this one contains almost only 928 specific vendors - and a whole bunch of the personal 928 web sites that have been put up by owners... many of these detail problems and how they were solved.

You can VIEW this list of links online by clicking here: http://www.928trackcars.com/928_Links.doc

or DOWNLOAD the (zip) file here: http://www.928trackcars.com/links.zip


Hope this is helpful.

- michael
www.928TrackCars.com

WallyP

There are many people on both RennList and the Owners Club list who are both willing and able to help you with your 928 problems. If you want help, there are some things that you can do to ensure that you get it.


Rule number one - Always, in every message, tell us what year your 928 is.


Rule number two - Never assume that we will remember you, your car or your problem. We all get a LOT of messages, and I can assure you that we aren't likely to remember that you asked us for help last week. The easy way is to simply include the earlier correspondence in every message.


Rule number three - The more you tell us, the better the chances are that we can guess what your problem is.


Rule number four - What you get is a guess. Sometimes, it is a guess backed up by hard-won experience, but it is still a guess. Long-distance diagnosis is uncertain at best. No one on this list accepts any liability for trying to help you.


Rule number five - It is nice if you tell us what happens. Did our guess help solve the problem? Did you learn something new that the list needs to know? This is a community effort, and feedback increases the knowledge base.


Rule number six - If you are unhappy with the results that you get, we will happily refund every cent that you paid for our advice.

Greg86andahalf

The 928 Help List

I am maintaining and distributing a email list at 928roadhelp@atlanticbb.net

This list has the contact information of those people willing to lend assistance to 928 owners who may have roadside emergencies, especially away from home. To get a copy of the list, you must be willing to add your information to the list. Bear in mind that willingness to help may be as simple as receiving a phone call from a stranded 928 owner and providing local yellow-pages assistance and making a few local calls on their behalf. You may know a local shop or towing company who can be called, or you my be willing to go out and help the stranded owner. On the flip side, if you are a driver who breaks down away from home, having someone local you can call for help can be a valuable tool. Requiring people to be on the list to get the list is only fair. You are as likely to be called as you are likely to have to call someone else. I doubt the phone will be ringing off the hook.

The list has name, location and contact information along with a resources/comments section. The resources/comments section is where you can list how you can help, along with instructions, like "no calls after 10PM", "have tools" "can point you to a good local mechanic" or "social calls OK", etc.

The contact information of the "big three" vendors will appear if they choose to participate and send their information, although they will not receive a copy of the list

This list is updated regularly and sent via email in a .pdf format for easy printing and is to be left in the car.

To participate, send an email to 928roadhelp@atlanticbb.net including this info:

name, city, state, (street address not needed).

contact phone numbers

your general proximity to major interstates or large cities.

coments/resources/restricitons on when to call, etc.

Your information will be added and a copy of the list will be sent to you. Updated lists will arrive as new contacts are added. If you need to update your information, send the changes and it will be done.

Thanks to those who have participated. I hope your list is printed and in your car for that unexpected roadside emergency.

Greg