ali4

Is this yellowish residue normal? What is it? It's also on the inside of the oil tank by the cap...

ehall

Absolutely AGREE!
The only dumb question is the one that you fail to ask or are afraid to ask.

As for your oil pan, that might work short term, but you need to replace it. Check Ebay. As long as that hole is there, you need to check your oil almost daily, if not before every drive.

dillon410021

That is normal if you only drive the car for short distances. It will not happen if you go for a long drive and let the motor heat all the way up.

ehall

Does it look like that on the inside of the coolant cap?

Bri Bro

Yup, that is condensation mixing with the oil to make a milkshake. It goes away if you run the engine for more then 30 minutes and boil off the water. Very common for a car that sits outside and goes through thermal cycles with changing humidity,

schip43

+1 ,is this your first car? Not really a good place to learn the basics on. Is there a JC you could take an automotive class at?

But if your gonna jump in at the deep end, one of the first tools you need to get is a good Torque wrench and learn to use it! One of the first cars I worked on was an 80 something Datsun B210 and I cracked the manifold by over tightening it.

Lot's of critical components involved if your talking about dropping the oil pan!

Well, lecture over and welcome aboard !

951Doc

My first car at 14 was a '67 Triumph Spitfire. It was easy to work on, forgiving of mechanical hack jobs, but everything would fail on the car. It made me a decent mechanic by the age of 16. A 951 is complex, unforgiving of shortcuts and not easy to work on, but with a little confidence, help, research, and baby steps, all things are possible. Learning to work on this car will over-qualify you for anything else on the road.
To help you along, download the parts catalog 944_2_USA_85_88_KATALOG.PDF:
http://www.porsche.com/all/media/pdf...88_KATALOG.pdf
and consider buying the 944 shop manuals, available on eBay.
As for tools, wait for Father's day and buy a 200- odd piece Sears Craftsman tool set. Invest in a set of 1/4" drive flex head metric sockets, extra long socket drive extension, extra long screw drivers, and flex racheting wrenches.
If you are blessed with wealth send your car to a mechanic for even the smallest issues, otherwise this is a gearhead's car. These cars need constant TLC.

951Doc
http://www.project944turbo.com

Bri Bro

Look here for manuals.
http://the944.com/manuals.htm

ehall

Yep. In Florida it's a daily occurence. Thanks again Brian!

ali4

Thanks for the advice guys. I'll efinately look into it and also looking for a mechanics class nearby too, kind of hard since I work.

This is not my first car, but it is the first car I have decided to finally try and fix things that I can on my own and increase my mechanical ''skills''.

My first car was a 1992 Mazda MX-3 (never broke down) had tha for about 4 years of university. Then when I graduated I leased a new 2007 Honda Civic Si (had warranty and never broke down so never needed to fix it). I have always been into cars, and liked cars most people dont know about. So after a few years of working I bought a 1992 Mercedes-Benz 500E. This was my favorite car so i searched for a year and bought it. Unfortunately it had mechanical issues which I couldnt fix and couldnt justify paying for so I ended up selling it. After that I got a 2011 Camry SE V6 which is now driven by my wife. So I needed a second car and decided to once again buy a car I liked but had no knowledge of fixing. This time I am going to stick with it. I have always been upset by the fact I had to sell the 500E, so I have decided to learn to fix things on my own and annoy the hell out of people on his forum by constantly asking "noob" questions.

ehall - the coolant cap doesnt look like this. What IF it did?

Also I will be posting a few more times to get help with my flooding back seat, and a few other things.

Also I still have not been able to get the drain plug out. I will try again tomorrow using an electric drill and attaching the socket to it.

Scott 951

go to clark's garage and find the instructions for replacing sunroof gears...follow them until you can see the hoses in the photo below.

Since you new to this.......here is a link to a write up I did with photo's that match the instructions you get from clarks.

http://forums.pelicanparts.com/porsc...ence-list.html

ehall

STOP!!!!!!
Remember lefty loosey, righty tighty! That plug doesn't need much force. Remember that left and right are determined as you look at the bolt head. If you are certain that you are going the correct direction, then get back to us, if it still won't budge.
If you also saw milkshake on the coolant filler cap, you could have a blown headgasket or blown oil cooler seals. You don't. That's very good.
There are a couple of thousand hours worth of info, between this site, Clarks-garage, and various other boards and manuals that you will find, all on the net.

Remember, NOTHING that you do to the car will end the World. It may cost money, but as long as your being safe. all will eventually be fine. Take a deep breath and get back at it in the morning.

Welcome aboard!

ehall

also, your rear hatch glass probably isn't well sealed, which is causing the leak, or atleast contributing to it.

ehall

Great link Scott!

onspeed

Oil drain bolt might take a bit of strength... but you shouldn't have to resort to power tools to get it off, or even a breaker bar for that matter.