Robert Henriksen

I'm in waterlogged Houston, and I'm a bit concerned about my car. Was trying to escape town for a track weekend, and pushed through some high water in the process. (Never did get out of town, BTW).

While driving back towards the house, and through some more water (though not as bad as the first batch), I noticed that the drive-block light was illuminated on the dash. It went out after 10-15 minutes, and I made it home w/o problems.

Tonight (about 22 hours later), I went out into the garage & noticed the red alarm indicators on the tops of the doors were on solid! The alarm was not armed at the time. I tried turning on the alarm, which worked, but then the lights were on solid (but fainter than in full 'flash', and then they'd flash on top of the lower-level constant illumination. I might have been hallucinating, but I think they were flashing at about double the normal frequency for a minute or so, then dropped to the usual, slow flash rate.

I turned off the alarm, got in and started the engine - no problems, battery didn't appear to be weak the way the starter cranked over. No lights on the dash that shouldn't have been there.

Stopped the car, still a steady weak red light on the doors, and still a solid/flash red with the alarm activated.

Anyone know what this signifies? I'll be calling the dealer on Monday, I imagine, but was curious if any geniuses out there can satisfy my curiosity/concern any earlier.

many thanks,

RNH



[ 09-06-2001: Message edited by: Robert Henriksen ]

TT Gasman

Robert,
I can't help too much on your problem, sounds like a small electronic glitch. Hopefully the dealer can take care of it for you. That is if the dealership survived. I heard they had some high water out on I-10. Glad to hear you and your car survived this weekend. I too had planned to track my 996 this weekend but I couldn't even get out of my driveway on Saturday a.m.in Bellaire. I went into the hospital(St Luke's) to help out (with the SUV). Today we spent cleaning up and taking in some donations to those in need. I wonder if they had a big turnout at TWS? I don't think many Houston people were there. Take care
Doug

Robert Henriksen

After I posted the above I discovered that I really hadn't gotten out of the water scot-free; the floorboards were wet, the insulation was saturated. So I stripped it to the metal on the floor, and have had a fan on it for the last 24 hours. The alarm light isn't on anymore.

My neighborhood O'Reilly's happened to have Castrol synthetic 75w90, so I changed the tranny fluid (thanks, Robin!) which turned out to be a breeze. Since I had the car in the air, I did the dreaded clutch slave cylinder flush/bleed... which turned out to be a breeze, too! Everybody's made that out to be Chinese water torture, but I was able to knock it out pretty easily. 'Course, having everyone else's experience available at Robin's DIY site made the difference.

I was really confused not to find a separate clutch reservoir, I know other cars I've worked on had them. Didn't know you could share one reservoir between the brakes & the clutch.

Going to take it out for a spin now, see how it's feeling.

RNH