auzivision

I gave it my best and it’s not looking good. My day has been full of ups and downs. Got a call this AM, my Phaeton is ready for delivery, great! In route to take delivery, my daily driver the 2000 E430 won’t go when the light turns green on Allisonville Road. With a lot of throttle I get to the VW dealership. All is good I take delivery and leave it there for inspection/warranty repair, bla, bla, bla. Craw home in the Benz stuck in third gear bucking and kicking all the way. Put that behind me, she is for sale anyhow.

Stopped the mail, mowed the yard and back on the 928 project by 11AM. Installed the radio head unit, front shelves. Finished dyed the front seats, assembled and installed seats (Thanks to Bill Ball with the pin outs). Hey, they really look pretty good!

The front seat wouldn’t move forward and back. Tilted them on side to tap with hammer, all is good. Then I found out I ruined my new carpets in a few spots because of those grease long screws that move the seats back and forth. Oh well, I can clean that up later.

Checked the oil, topped off the tires, and turned the key… she fired right up. Back to VW to pick up Phaeton for real this time only to find out they didn’t ship it with temporary plates. Screw it, I’m going outlaw. Have a friend following close behind in my shark. Get home no problem. Drop off the Phaeton, but forgot to feed the dogs, wife gets home, not happy. Sorry, but I got to take my buddy back to get his car at the dealership.

Drive the 928 back to VW once again. All is cool until I get to Allisonville road. Once again light turns green and this time my shark won’t go. There I am, in the middle one of the busiest intersection in Indy and my car won’t roll. After a few light cycles I get her start (spitting and sputtering… it took at least 20 seconds to clear the intersection and get to a gas station).

Can’t keep her idling, I’m suspecting fuel delivery. Fuel pump fuse good, relay I can’t get out, call everyone one I know and actually get Mark A before he left for home. Trying to trouble shoot with him, she fires back up like nothing happened. Get almost home and dies again. Fiddle with it for 45 minutes and finally get her home.

We are thinking maybe fuel pump or filter or something. I couldn’t hear the pump prime up like I usually do. Decided to have a look. Hey, why not try out those new Porken lift bars. Come to find out they are nicely packaged with syrofoam peanuts. Invert the box into a trash can to extract bars any contain peanuts… works great!

Grab a bar and proceed to line her up. Position lift and realize I’m about a quarter inch short of getting it under the car. No biggie, I’ll just grab the little bottle jack I used on the MM project to coach up one end. It’s hiding right behind the trash can. Oh shinoli… what about the other Porken bar… too late! It tipped over onto my 928 scratching denting it in several places. That really hurt!

Decided to press on… Got car up, removed cover, and listen to pump. It’s making a lot more noise then I remember hearing before. I’m still thinking that maybe it’s a plugged filter. Besides, that’s the only part I have on hand that I can replace. Possibly I could get a new pump in the morning.

After almost burning down the house… I decided I’d had enough. Besides, even if I got a pump and replaced the filter along with the fuel line with the half rounded bolt. Would I really trust driving it down… not anymore.

Trying to look on the bright side I contacted the dealer in Oregon where I purchased the Phaeton to see about getting a temporary tag shipped over night. Come to find out the title and tags went out two days ago via certified mail. That means it should be here tomorrow… oh that’s right. I stopped my mail.

I’m going to contact the post office in the morning to see if they have my letter. If I can get plates I’ll still be there, just not with a shark. If not I’ll see you in Hell!

tommytomaso

man thats a nice interior!!!!!!!!!!!!! i love the contrast stitching.
Nice VW too.........

CaseyH

The interior on that VW looks a lot like the 928 interior.

Rod Underwood

Beautiful interior!!!

Rod

AO

Kurt-
Relay, relay, relay. I'll bet if you swap out your FP relay she'll fire right up! One of those church-key paint openers (free at lowes) works great for opening beer and removing relays! You might want to give it a shot...

auzivision

The fuel pump relay was replaced last summer. I wish I had tried jumping it when it was acting up, but of course she worked fine once I got her home where my relay puller resides.

It was probably wishful thinking that the fuel filter would be all plugged up. I’ve never done one of these but it appeared to be flowing okay… blew the remaining gas into a bucket… some sediment/junk but nothing major.

That means something is intermittently going in and out. I believe the culprits could be fuse, relay, LH brain, wire connection or pump itself. The fuse and LH (according to Mark A) wouldn’t be intermittent. The relay is 6 months old with about 1K miles. What else cause the pump to turn on?

I used to hear what I thought was the pump kick on for about 2 seconds when I first turn the ignition… not hearing it now. However, the pump was turning on in the garage, but only when cranking and running. With the cover off it was making a fair amount of noise, but I don’t have anything to compare it to. I thought I could hear it buzzing off and on when limping home.

At this point even if I did get her running, I wouldn’t have the confidence that she’ll make it. I really need to identify something broken or get a few hundred local miles without incident. Also, I might be focusing on the wrong system entirely.

Anyhow, the post office is supposed to call the AM if my certified letter has arrived. If so, I can get a plate for my new car and still drive down and have fun… I could use a little of that right now.

auzivision

Relay! Relay! Relay! I think that might have fixed it going for a cruise and going to sign up with AAA. Looks like we might make it after all.

Alan

Kurt - Was this 6 month old replacement relay a porsche/bosch/vw/audi relay or a no name brand?

For critical functions I would always use a high quality relay from a well known manufacturer. For some functions - their use is infrequent enough & non-critical enough that it may not matter... but you have to think about it - for a few dollars more - it probably makes sense to stick to known quality brands (maybe you did!).

Alan

Bill Ball

The latter is how it is supposed to operate. The former was your imagination. No pump until the starter is engaged. Hopefully you're on your way now with that new relay.

auzivision

LOL... this project I started over two years ago is almost done... certainly by SITM 2010 it will be... maybe that's too agressive?

pcar928fan

OMG...not much action on this thread for awhile...sorry it has taken so long. Don't these things always do that?! My race car had a nice conservative 1 year plan to put it back together so I could run it... FIVE YEARS that took!

Good luck and you will have a GREAT shark when it is all said and done!

Alan

Well - I did warn you....

doing it right takes time - especially when you have to steal that time away from real work, family, vacations, other fun things... The longer term/bigger the project the more difficult it is to stay at it.

Mine is a driver so all my projects have the be split into little chunks...

Its a pain for getting things done - but at least I have to get it back together at the end of every weekend I work on it...

Alan

ksucat90

Kurt,

You are an inspiration. I think it looks awesome! What would you do differently?

auzivision

My parents were both born in Riga, Latvia and there is a well known myth about this town. It goes something like this….

Old people use to tell a story about a person in Riga who is interested in the city’s future. The details differ – he can be both a gentleman in a black evening coat or a pale virgin, a magpie or merely a voice from the Daugava Riga – and there is also no consensus about the timing of the appearances – they can be every year on New Year’s Eve, or only once in five or even one hundred years. However, the question posed by this being to the first person it sees is always the same: “Is Riga completed?” Until now, all those whom it has met – night watchmen, builders or simply passers-by - have replied that it is not yet completed. It is believed that as soon the reply is that the city has been completely built, the city will sink into the waters of the Daugava. However, the wise people of Riga know the right sort of answer – Riga will never be finished!

So my car will never be done for fear it would self destruct.

As far as what would I do differently… for starters, plan more time. Actually, I look a working on this as cheap therapy… so it’s ‘fun’ time spent in the garage.

I’m really not too pleased with the leather redeye. I should have had an exact match mixed. Instead, I used a standard SEM color that was close. Now, were this stuff is flaking the darker older color shows through… saving money now for Paul’s seats and will be adding a few smaller tid bits soon.

I also wish I cut out the sound deadening material around all fasteners that go through the carpet. The black gooey stuff manages to find its way back out when even any of these screws are removed. It’s impossible to clean the black out of the grey.

The 5.25 speaker in front are barely adequate… wished I’d fabricated 6.5 instead and still might. Also, 800 watts RMS isn’t that impressive either… probably need more like 2000.

Probably should include a link to this thread regarding the Amp rack:
https://rennlist.com/forums/928-foru...atch-area.html

Big thanks to Chuck Z for helping me find motivation to finish this aspect of the project. Also, a big thank you to Hans for keeping me on track and setting up my iPod.

heinrich

I love the carpet Kurt!!