JoeB's964

Hiya Rennlisters! Long time lurker, very occasional poster...

I've been trying to get into some DIY's to clean up a few squawks on my 964, and this afternoon I got started on fixing my turn signals. I had already received a replacement turn signal unit from dcauto.com, and started working through this DIY:

https://rennlist.com/forums/964-1989...-assembly.html

At first, I was kicking butt and taking names: air bag off? No problem! Steering wheel off? No problem! Horn ring and outer housing off? No problem! But then I got to step six, and everything changed. Problem...

The description in the DIY thread linked above says "Gently pull the wire from the bottom of the turn signal assembly forwards from under the dash and unplug the keyed connector." And I promise I did my damndest for a solid half-hour (even pulled the wire just a little bit harder than "gently") but that sucker's just NOT coming out from under the dash. All the other wires are disconnected, and I'm pretty sure that as soon as I can access this one and disconnect it I'm basically good to go, but until I get this figured out I'm SOL.

I think it's *possible* that there's a white zip tie just barely visible back there behind the dash, next to the steering column, that *might* be keeping the wires bundled up back there, but I'm definitely not brave enough yet to start blindly snipping things behind the dashboard until I know a little more about what I'm really doing here.

So: has anybody else done this repair and run into this problem? Taking the lower dash all the way off looks like quite a PITA - any other tips on how to access these wires behind the dashboard? Or on how to get a better look back there to see if there's even enough of a service loop on that wire to be able to pull it out from under the dash? Any advice at all on how to get this done would be *MUCH* appreciated!

Best,
Joe

JoeB's964

Just for future reference in case anyone else stumbles across this thread: it turns out, as speculated above, that there actually was a little white zip tie back there holding the wires back behind the dash. A local Porsche guru confirmed for me that any such zip tie wasn't stock, and while that didn't necessarily mean I could snip away, I kind of made the executive decision that cutting it was my least bad option.

Took about 2 minutes with an X-acto knife, since there's just not enough room to get anything else back there, but once the zip tie was cut I was back in business, and maybe 15 minutes later I was done with the job.

So by all means, think (and think HARD) before you cut, but sometimes you've just got no better option.

smongiovi

I just went through this whole process and I concur with the prior post, there is a white tie binding the wires together, which needs to be cut in order to 'gently' pull the wires through. I think this is true for cars with OBC and perhaps not the case for those without.

Also, to make removing the bottom part of the surround easier, there is an access hole at the bottom of the surround. You can loosen the column switch, with an 8mm socket and extension through this hole. The you can turn the whole column switch as you remove the bottom surround. It's still take some wrangeling but it's alot easier when the stalks can be moved around a bit.

Marc Shaw

Thanks, I added that bit of info to the DIY thread to help others in the future.

Marc

Rocket Rob

Note: I too found a zip tie on the wire harness. We were unable to reach it but found that if you remove the CCU and its support cage, you can easily reach the zip tie to cut it with a pair of wire cutters.
Marc - Thanks for the DIY. It was very helpful.

simonstorey

Thanks for the brilliant DIY. I used this about 4 months ago to replace
my turn signal assy. Worked perfectly.