Unconventional Boxster S rescue (battery/frunk)
10-25-2020, 01:57 AM
#1
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Unconventional Boxster S rescue (battery/frunk)
One of my very good friends called with a problem... Dead battery in the 01 boxster S and a driveway repaving job coming up the next day, car stuck in unmovable location down a slope in a corner.
No problem I thought, here's my Ctek charger with a cigarette lighter plug, leave overnight, done... Except nope: Immediate red light on charger, Battery no bueno, negative ghostrider the pattern is full. Crap.
Ok I'll just grab my emergency starter pack and plug that into the fuse box like a pro... Pulled the + start plug in the fuse box, ground on the door strap... Meep, meep, meep.... The alarm goes off, but the car is still dead...
The trunk won't open, the car will not light up, the battery is DEAD and apparently that messes that way of doing things ! And annoys the neighbors.
Fine, I know what to do, pull the fuse box surround and look for the cable, pull on it.... 4 screws later, there's not a cable to be seen, none..hmm...
Ok then, pull the liner in the fender, find the emergency cable... no problem...
Ah but the wheel is really in the way, the car parked next to a hedge, my *** is in the thorn bush and no.... Let's pull the wheel first...4 lugnuts later I get to the anti-theft lug bolt. "Where's the special tool to remove that buddy ?" Ah you guessed it, in the Frunk. F$%$#%. This is going south !
OK, let's not pull the wheel... Remove the fender liner "in situ", *** in thorns, with great difficulty and triple jointed arms. We pull it mostly off, observe the sights with a comparison picture from google, his car does NOT have a hood release loop ANYWHERE near ANY location on those pics.
In fact the pics look nothing like his car, there's a gizmo with 4 hard lines going to it, it should be near that, his has 1 line and no cable anywhere - only hard metal lines and huge AC lines!!! Now I'm getting pissed off... Also look back towards the cabin, there appears to be remnants of what might have been that cable shroud, empty. Not sure what that is...
I button it up and I'm about to tell him to set the car on fire and collect insurance instead (honestly not a bad idea, its getting pretty rotten underneath - low miles but dry rot of all the bushings). But before raising the white flag I figure let's try the bush pilot solution..
I have a cigarette lighter cable that is designed to charge my starter pack (not feed the car - other end of the plug only goes into charging port for starter pack). I grab a blade, strip the wires at different lengths carefully to avoid contact, and connect the starter pack clamps to each wire, power that, and..... miracle, dash lights up, trunk opens, victory !
Replaced the 100% dead battery with my old 991 battery (still good but had lost 100 CCA so I had replaced it and kept it as spare) - it fits, miracles never cease. Add Ctek pigtails for him for future charge... vroom... friend is ecstatic - my *** is itchy from thorn bush !
So in conclusion, a lot of the more difficult tips I read online are crap (for his car), no cable anywhere... no fuse box solution (too dead? open circuit?) the easiest way is to feed power thru the cig lighter somehow, some start packs may come with one (generally though it's used to charge the pack, so you gotta bush-pilot it and use it in reverse)...
Man card validated ;-)
No problem I thought, here's my Ctek charger with a cigarette lighter plug, leave overnight, done... Except nope: Immediate red light on charger, Battery no bueno, negative ghostrider the pattern is full. Crap.
Ok I'll just grab my emergency starter pack and plug that into the fuse box like a pro... Pulled the + start plug in the fuse box, ground on the door strap... Meep, meep, meep.... The alarm goes off, but the car is still dead...
The trunk won't open, the car will not light up, the battery is DEAD and apparently that messes that way of doing things ! And annoys the neighbors.
Fine, I know what to do, pull the fuse box surround and look for the cable, pull on it.... 4 screws later, there's not a cable to be seen, none..hmm...
Ok then, pull the liner in the fender, find the emergency cable... no problem...
Ah but the wheel is really in the way, the car parked next to a hedge, my *** is in the thorn bush and no.... Let's pull the wheel first...4 lugnuts later I get to the anti-theft lug bolt. "Where's the special tool to remove that buddy ?" Ah you guessed it, in the Frunk. F$%$#%. This is going south !
OK, let's not pull the wheel... Remove the fender liner "in situ", *** in thorns, with great difficulty and triple jointed arms. We pull it mostly off, observe the sights with a comparison picture from google, his car does NOT have a hood release loop ANYWHERE near ANY location on those pics.
In fact the pics look nothing like his car, there's a gizmo with 4 hard lines going to it, it should be near that, his has 1 line and no cable anywhere - only hard metal lines and huge AC lines!!! Now I'm getting pissed off... Also look back towards the cabin, there appears to be remnants of what might have been that cable shroud, empty. Not sure what that is...
I button it up and I'm about to tell him to set the car on fire and collect insurance instead (honestly not a bad idea, its getting pretty rotten underneath - low miles but dry rot of all the bushings). But before raising the white flag I figure let's try the bush pilot solution..
I have a cigarette lighter cable that is designed to charge my starter pack (not feed the car - other end of the plug only goes into charging port for starter pack). I grab a blade, strip the wires at different lengths carefully to avoid contact, and connect the starter pack clamps to each wire, power that, and..... miracle, dash lights up, trunk opens, victory !
Replaced the 100% dead battery with my old 991 battery (still good but had lost 100 CCA so I had replaced it and kept it as spare) - it fits, miracles never cease. Add Ctek pigtails for him for future charge... vroom... friend is ecstatic - my *** is itchy from thorn bush !
So in conclusion, a lot of the more difficult tips I read online are crap (for his car), no cable anywhere... no fuse box solution (too dead? open circuit?) the easiest way is to feed power thru the cig lighter somehow, some start packs may come with one (generally though it's used to charge the pack, so you gotta bush-pilot it and use it in reverse)...
Man card validated ;-)
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melzap (10-25-2020)
10-25-2020, 12:53 PM
#2
Racer
One of my very good friends called with a problem... Dead battery in the 01 boxster S and a driveway repaving job coming up the next day, car stuck in unmovable location down a slope in a corner.
No problem I thought, here's my Ctek charger with a cigarette lighter plug, leave overnight, done... Except nope: Immediate red light on charger, Battery no bueno, negative ghostrider the pattern is full. Crap.
Ok I'll just grab my emergency starter pack and plug that into the fuse box like a pro... Pulled the + start plug in the fuse box, ground on the door strap... Meep, meep, meep.... The alarm goes off, but the car is still dead...
The trunk won't open, the car will not light up, the battery is DEAD and apparently that messes that way of doing things ! And annoys the neighbors.
Fine, I know what to do, pull the fuse box surround and look for the cable, pull on it.... 4 screws later, there's not a cable to be seen, none..hmm...
Ok then, pull the liner in the fender, find the emergency cable... no problem...
Ah but the wheel is really in the way, the car parked next to a hedge, my *** is in the thorn bush and no.... Let's pull the wheel first...4 lugnuts later I get to the anti-theft lug bolt. "Where's the special tool to remove that buddy ?" Ah you guessed it, in the Frunk. F$%$#%. This is going south !
OK, let's not pull the wheel... Remove the fender liner "in situ", *** in thorns, with great difficulty and triple jointed arms. We pull it mostly off, observe the sights with a comparison picture from google, his car does NOT have a hood release loop ANYWHERE near ANY location on those pics.
In fact the pics look nothing like his car, there's a gizmo with 4 hard lines going to it, it should be near that, his has 1 line and no cable anywhere - only hard metal lines and huge AC lines!!! Now I'm getting pissed off... Also look back towards the cabin, there appears to be remnants of what might have been that cable shroud, empty. Not sure what that is...
I button it up and I'm about to tell him to set the car on fire and collect insurance instead (honestly not a bad idea, its getting pretty rotten underneath - low miles but dry rot of all the bushings). But before raising the white flag I figure let's try the bush pilot solution..
I have a cigarette lighter cable that is designed to charge my starter pack (not feed the car - other end of the plug only goes into charging port for starter pack). I grab a blade, strip the wires at different lengths carefully to avoid contact, and connect the starter pack clamps to each wire, power that, and..... miracle, dash lights up, trunk opens, victory !
Replaced the 100% dead battery with my old 991 battery (still good but had lost 100 CCA so I had replaced it and kept it as spare) - it fits, miracles never cease. Add Ctek pigtails for him for future charge... vroom... friend is ecstatic - my *** is itchy from thorn bush !
So in conclusion, a lot of the more difficult tips I read online are crap (for his car), no cable anywhere... no fuse box solution (too dead? open circuit?) the easiest way is to feed power thru the cig lighter somehow, some start packs may come with one (generally though it's used to charge the pack, so you gotta bush-pilot it and use it in reverse)...
Man card validated ;-)
No problem I thought, here's my Ctek charger with a cigarette lighter plug, leave overnight, done... Except nope: Immediate red light on charger, Battery no bueno, negative ghostrider the pattern is full. Crap.
Ok I'll just grab my emergency starter pack and plug that into the fuse box like a pro... Pulled the + start plug in the fuse box, ground on the door strap... Meep, meep, meep.... The alarm goes off, but the car is still dead...
The trunk won't open, the car will not light up, the battery is DEAD and apparently that messes that way of doing things ! And annoys the neighbors.
Fine, I know what to do, pull the fuse box surround and look for the cable, pull on it.... 4 screws later, there's not a cable to be seen, none..hmm...
Ok then, pull the liner in the fender, find the emergency cable... no problem...
Ah but the wheel is really in the way, the car parked next to a hedge, my *** is in the thorn bush and no.... Let's pull the wheel first...4 lugnuts later I get to the anti-theft lug bolt. "Where's the special tool to remove that buddy ?" Ah you guessed it, in the Frunk. F$%$#%. This is going south !
OK, let's not pull the wheel... Remove the fender liner "in situ", *** in thorns, with great difficulty and triple jointed arms. We pull it mostly off, observe the sights with a comparison picture from google, his car does NOT have a hood release loop ANYWHERE near ANY location on those pics.
In fact the pics look nothing like his car, there's a gizmo with 4 hard lines going to it, it should be near that, his has 1 line and no cable anywhere - only hard metal lines and huge AC lines!!! Now I'm getting pissed off... Also look back towards the cabin, there appears to be remnants of what might have been that cable shroud, empty. Not sure what that is...
I button it up and I'm about to tell him to set the car on fire and collect insurance instead (honestly not a bad idea, its getting pretty rotten underneath - low miles but dry rot of all the bushings). But before raising the white flag I figure let's try the bush pilot solution..
I have a cigarette lighter cable that is designed to charge my starter pack (not feed the car - other end of the plug only goes into charging port for starter pack). I grab a blade, strip the wires at different lengths carefully to avoid contact, and connect the starter pack clamps to each wire, power that, and..... miracle, dash lights up, trunk opens, victory !
Replaced the 100% dead battery with my old 991 battery (still good but had lost 100 CCA so I had replaced it and kept it as spare) - it fits, miracles never cease. Add Ctek pigtails for him for future charge... vroom... friend is ecstatic - my *** is itchy from thorn bush !
So in conclusion, a lot of the more difficult tips I read online are crap (for his car), no cable anywhere... no fuse box solution (too dead? open circuit?) the easiest way is to feed power thru the cig lighter somehow, some start packs may come with one (generally though it's used to charge the pack, so you gotta bush-pilot it and use it in reverse)...
Man card validated ;-)
10-26-2020, 02:42 AM
#3
Rennlist Member
