Goughary

The misting of the wires is to check for leaks in the wires and connectors. When I had the Xmas tree, it was simply bad coils, but misting wouldn't have shown me that.

Good luck tracking it down. I would try a new set of coils first, since it seems to be the usual suspect, but careful to not jus throw money at it. It gets expensive. Some free things to try are to take off all the grounds on the main wiring looms, clean and reinstall them. There are quite a few around the car. Take off each plug wire and connect a multimeter to each end and check to see each one reads at or very close to 3ohm.
Then inspect the wiring looms that you can access and check for cracked wires and shorts.
And since it's happening when your lights turn on, pop out the lights and check the wiring to the bulbs and trace back as best you can. I'm sure there are a few other free things to look into, but can't think of them off the top of my head.

In the end, when all else fails, after you have exhausted the easy stuff, pull out the clock and send it off to be resoldered...or if you have the expertise, check the soldered connections in there as well.

PhatPhlatSix

I don't believe that guide is for a 964. I have just removed struts front and rear and the anti-roll bars don't attach to the damper bodies. Also that link arm was not present.

cobalt

That is for a 993 not a 964.

Rennbahn

Great advice!! I'll use that for my roadmap. I should have been more specific, after misting I DO see sparking around both the coils and dizzys but it appears faint and I'm not sure if I should see any at all.

Mr.Alex

Indeed not a 964 DIY, which is great because the 964 seems simpler. Usually I would have a look before asking but it was pretty cold the past few weeks. While doing the SSK today I took a look at all the bolts and hit them with pb blaster. The HD's were put on something like three years ago so I don't think they should be on there too tight.
Thanks guys.

Goughary

You shouldn't see any arcing sparks. Just means you have leaks. Pull all the boots and rub some dielectric grease inside them and reinstall and most again. It may be that simple, but if you are seeing sparks after that, it's new wires...sounds like you may be due for wires anyway? How old are they?

Rennbahn

That's what I thought, I'll give that a shot and see how it goes. Not sure how old the wires are they look fairly new but I doubt that means anything.

Mr.Alex

Back with more silly questions. All bolts popped off without any strenuous effort, but the shop that had originally put the HD's on did not cut the slot for the line to pop in or out and it would seem either I have to do that OR, I could disconnect the line. And bleed once everything is finished.

I'm just not sure what to expect in terms of fluid pouring out, will it be a lot? Should I plug or clamp off once disconnected?

Rocket Rob

Yes, you can clamp and disconnect as long as you bleed after you are done. How much fluid will come out? Not much if its clamped. That's the method that I used. You can get inexpensive fuel line clamps at your local auto parts store.

Mr.Alex

Thanks for coaching me through this. This is the first car I wrenched on myself so its quite a learning experience. I bought small L-shaped hose pinching clamps but they seem to weak to clamp the rubber line. I'm considering just wrapping line in duct tape and using long nose vice grips, would that be ok? Seems doubtful it would damage the line.

Plus another crap move of the day was semi-stripping the strut tube, even though I was using the half open socket with a allen key, it seems like its on there too tight.

Sooo, I did the rears instead, which was easy except reaching over the lines behind the rear blower to undo the nuts.

Rocket Rob

Alex - You don't want to damage the brake lines with a vicegrip. You want a clamp similar to these

Don't worry about the struggles. We have all been there. That's how we learn to do things.

Mr.Alex

Do you by any chance **** the diameter of the brake line, I suppose I could also just use a brake line plug?

Rocket Rob

The brake line fittings are M10 x 1.0. Yes a plug would work too.

Another option is to go to your local auto parts store and see what fuel line clamps they have. They may have something like this. You don't need a lot of clamping pressure. You are just fighting the head pressure of the brake fluid.

Mr.Alex

I got those little pichers, but it would seem the rubber line is too stiff for them to constrict the line. It would seem as it if barely compresses it.

John McM

Been there and tried that. In the end I cut a channel on the old shock bracket to release the brake pipe and then fitted the new one. I can't recall how but it was possibly without cutting and the car is now in the UK so I can't check - sorry. The point I wanted to make is that it is possible to do without detaching the brake pipe fitting.