Andrew Spence

hi all,

got huge 27 and 32 mm wrenches, enlisted my roommate to counterhold, applied some liquid wrench, waited 5 minutes, and then pulled as hard we could on this oil cooler line fitting, and couldn't budge it.

i don't have the car jacked high enough to get a big breaker bar in there. is that basically my only option? here's a nice pic courtesy of K27...



any suggestions greatly appreciated (besides "work out more")? the wrenches are about 2.5 feet long as is, so we're getting some serious ft-lb-age on 'em.

-A

sharky47

You need a really big hammer.

Andrew Spence

uh, for real?

i'm missing the two nuts holding the line to the cooler, so i'll have to put them in before i start hammering (else i'll be smashing away at the fitting at the top of the oil cooler.

stupid winter driven car ahahahah

cheers!
A

Mark Parker

You can use two hammers, hold one against a flat on the female half of the fitting and strike the opposite flat with the other,,don't try to kill it, but just to wake it up. Move around the fitting 'til you've given each flat its due, then see how it goes for you. Good luck.

Peckster

Sounds reasonable, you don't want to be hammering on a wrench on a tube without backing it up somehow.

89magic98

Just noticed you were in Ithaca...

I had my 924s in Ithaca when I went to Cornell. Great car in the snow (with tires and ~150 lbs of extra weight in the trunk). I'll have to find the pictures of my car buried in 4+ feet of snow.

Good luck on your repair. I think the closest mechanic I found for Porsches was all the way in Binghamton!

-Kevin

Andrew Spence

hey thanks guys! i'll give the wake-up procedure a try, makes a lot of sense.

Kevin, what did you study here? i have to admit, growing up in Phoenix i had no appreciation for handling---then i moved out here to the land of beautiful tree-lined empty curvy roads, and saw the light. plus a geophysics prof responded when i put a note on his 951 asking if he wanted to sell.... he had picked it up at the factory and driven it to the boat in 87!

are you a grad student in San Diego now?

cheers!
Andrew

Andrew Spence

oh, Kevin, the legendary German VW mechanic Karl Jaentsch is out here, but after he worked on my car once or twice, he said "no more porsche, too complicated!"

so now i'm trying to do what i can myself...

apparently people seek him out from far and wide to apprentice with him--like the younger guys who started Shade Tree garage out here.

the 924s must have been fun around here. i have to admit i'm skittish with my car in snow--maybe i should get some sandbags.


-A

89magic98

There used to be a Porsche dealer in Ithaca, it was changed over (in the early 90's) to Garage de France, nearby the Wegmans.

I think that the Porsche is fairly simple compared to some of the more modern cars now. Although that is my experience with the NA cars, the turbo is more complicated.

The dealer in Binghamton was pretty clueless. He just didn't see enough of those to get the necessary experience on finding commong problems and fixing them.

I had a pair of Bridgestone Blizzaks on the rear tires with 150lbs of sand in the back (make sure that the bags don't break!). With that setup, I could not break the rear end loose in the snow. On the other hand, the sidewalls on those tires were really wobbly, meaning that handling in dry weather with those tires was really bad.

When I was there in the early to mid 90's there were several 924s and 944s around, one turbo. Got a picture of your car? Maybe I remember it.

-Kevin

Andrew Spence

was the turbo grey? i'll post a pic tomorrow. it's the stone grey or zermatt silver or something, with a tan interior.

it belonged to Prof. Turquotte in geophysics, so he always parked it in the lot next to the bridge(s) across Cascadilla gorge coming from College Town up into campus.

i live on Blair street, so i ended up walking through this lot everyday through the engineering quad up to Clark, and one day i spotted it.

i almost bought the black '83 NA owned by a Prof. in applied physics (and some times i wish i had--his car is immaculate, and i wouldn't have so much credit card debt), but he didn't want to sell.

so yeah, i bought the grey turbo that used to live up in cayuga heights and parked next to the bridge to college town.

what were you studying?

-Andrew

Andrew Spence

no, you're right, the 951 may be hard to work on, but it's not overly complicated in terms of software/hardware.

the Porsche dealer was "Woods" or something, right? my car had "Woods" plates on it when i bought it.

i can't imagine there were enough cars around to support it. i've bought some parts from Feduke, the Porsche dealer in Binghampton, but haven't had them do anything.

cheers!
Andrew

Dmitry S.

Use more liquid wrench. Get a paper towel, soak it in the stuff, and zip tie it to the oil line. Come back the next morning. Worked on my frozen tie rod ends.

Andrew Spence

great thanks i'll try both!
-A

951Tom

Are you trying to remove it to do the oil cooler seals? When I did mine, I just removed the housing from the block, loosened the oil cooler mounting bolts, and lowered the whole assembly about 5 inches. Then I could reach the seals. I never had to undo the hoses.

Jake951

I also went to Cornell back in the 70's, but I was not into Porsches at that time. There was a Porsche/VW dealer on Elmira Rd. but I can't remember the name and I think they are long gone. My car then was an early Honda Civic rustbucket--that was all I could afford as "poor" grad student.