Boxster 981 - How does it go back together?

[LunarOne]

Suicidal pheasant ran across the road right in front of me. I was doing 60mph on the way home from collecting groceries for Easter day. Any idea whether those slats can click back in somehow, or do I need new parts?

https://youtu.be/oMtUHyfD7IQ
Impact 28 seconds in. I need to find a better dashcam mount!

Edited by LunarOne on Monday 13th April 14:54

Edited by LunarOne on Monday 13th April 14:54

[lyricalgangster]

Sorry, I can't answer your question, but pheasants really are the stupidest birds known to man!

[speedyman]

I'd eat the bird.

[mark2604]

If no damage should clip back in, but do check that the little pesky has not ruptured the radiator first

[LunarOne]

I can't see any damage to the radiator inside, although it was a mass of feathers in there which I have vacuumed out!

[LunarOne]

speedyman said:

I'd eat the bird.

I wouldn't - it's been lying at the bottom of the garden for a couple of days now and it's swarming with flies!

[LunarOne]

So upon further inspection I can see that plastic parts are definitely broken. The slats will stay in place when the car is stationary but I don't know if they would when subjected to the airflow at motorway speeds or vibration from the bumps of our potholed roads. Looks like I'm going to have to find replacement parts and see if I can fit it myself.

I also need a new battery as I am constantly being warned to start the engine due to low battery voltage. MDS battery recommends a Yuasa YBX9115 AGM battery, but my current battery is a non-AGM Banner unit with a Porsche part number. I can't say I've ever heard of Banner before! If I install the Yuasa battery and don't get it coded in the gateway (which my research tells me I should) will it really matter? The car was due to go in for a service at Brooklands service centre a few weeks ago but it couldn't go in when they closed due to COVID19. It's rebooked for mid May, but I don't know if I can last with my current battery until then.

[anonymous-user]

LunarOne said:

I also need a new battery. MDS battery recommends a Yuasa YBX9115 AGM battery. If I install the Yuasa battery and don't get it coded in the gateway (which my research tells me I should) will it really matter?

Please let us know how you get on. I'm running with a battery that's now getting old (2012) and face the same questions as you!

[DJMC]

rockin said:

Please let us know how you get on. I'm running with a battery that's now getting old (2012) and face the same questions as you!

My 2014 battery gave me warnings for a long time, kept alive with a battery conditioner, but finally died in the garage with power to turn the engine but not start it. Consequently this led to flooding, confusion as to what the issue was, and eventually the realisation it was just the battery. New one now installed.
My advice? When you get "battery low" have it changed soon as.

[Cabsi]

I wasn't getting any battery warnings, but my 2013 981 S recently failed the 111 OPC warranty inspection due to low CCA. New expensive Banner battery for me

[DJMC]

Cabsi said:

I wasn't getting any battery warnings, but my 2013 981 S recently failed the 111 OPC warranty inspection due to low CCA. New expensive Banner battery for me

I've gone indy now, so refreshing.

[LunarOne]

anonymous said:

[redacted]

I can't see any newly bent fins on the radiator, and in fact there are surprisingly few at all considering the car is 6 years old. I don't know if you've seen the photo in the OP, but the bird was wedged into the slats with a wing still out so she (I'm told it was a hen pheasant) didn't get all the way down to the radiator. I've also run the car and I'm not seeing any coolant leaks. What's the worst that could happen if there is a coolant leak? Would I not get a low coolant warning in the dash display?

I'm proposing to replace the radiator grille frame and perhaps the two outer slats which came loose but don't appear to be damaged. I gather I'll need to remove the front bumper to do the work, but I'm pretty handy with a spanner.

Design911 quoted me as follows - I'm sure a new radiator would bump up the total tenfold:

[LunarOne]

I also found a downloadable copy of the Porsche workshop manual for the 981 Boxster/Cayman cars so that I wouldn't be flying blind. You can download it here if it's of any use to anyone:

https://drive.google.com/file/d/19BOqokjiMWSuEycqD...

[LunarOne]

The parts arrived from Design 911, but they've been sitting in the enormous box they came in for a couple of weeks as the more I looked into the job, the more complicated it looked. But yesterday I decided to knuckle down and have a go at doing it. Having watched a few relevant Youtube videos, I knew that there were screws that needed removing in the wheel arch liners, one screw on each side under the wheel arch liners, three bolts under the front black trunk liner, some sliding clips behind those covers, and finally a row of screws underneath the car. These bottom screws presented a bit of a problem as I couldn't fit underneath with any screwdriver or my impact driver.

The first step was to build some ramps out pieces of a length of 2"x4" wood that was left over from building a workbench. This enabled me to wedge them under the front wheels, and by driving the car a few inches forward I was able to lift the front of the car up enough to be able to undo the bottom screws with my impact driver on a low torque setting:




After removing the two side indicator repeaters, I then needed to turn the wheels in each direction to access the screws in the wheel arch lining, after which I could undo a third screw oriented vertically behind the wheel arch liner near the side indicator repeater:




Once that was done, it was time to undo all the screws attaching the bumper underneath the car. I then unclipped the black plastic covers surrounding the front boot, and then I was able to remove the front cover which revealed years of built up dirt. I gave it a good soaking in Muc-Off, leaving it a few minutes before removing it with a soft car valeting wheel brush:




I then pulled out the two retaining clips in the corners by bending a piece of metal that I could use to pull the hole in the tab and then unscrewed the three bolts that live in front of the hood release latch:




By the time that was all done, it was just a case of pulling the pumper forward as a whole. I couldn't pull it far due to the electrical connections for the parking sensors and DRLs, as well as the hose for the headlight washers. I couldn't figure out a simple way to disconnect the washer hose which runs from the nearside, but I found that by disconnecting the electrical connector plugs on the offside which was the side I needed access to, I was able to pull the bumper away on that side:




I then removed the grille frame from the bumper. Sounds simple enough, but it took me half an hour to get it off as it took me some time to realise that it was held in by some very stiff plastic tabs all around the edge of the grille that needed bending out of the way before it would release. I also needed to unclip the headlight washer unit from the grille and DRL unit, as the hoses were going to stay on the bumper and I didn't want to risk any leaks by disconnecting hoses:




Then it was just a case of unclipping the parking sensor and removing the three screws holding the DRL unit to the old grille and transferring them to the new grille. As I wasn't able to fully remove the bumper without disconnecting a lot on the nearside, I had to work with the bumper in its natural orientation. That limited the amount of force I could apply to the grille as I needed to push hard from the inside while holding the bumper still in order to get all the grille retaining tabs to seat properly. In the end I used a screwdriver and hammer to apply a sharp but light blow to each clip, which was enough to get each tab to seat. Before replacing the bumper, I cleaned every newly exposed part of the front of the car and meticulously as well as the bumper, including the inside of the radiator housing which still had feathers and dried pheasant blood. That needed plenty of Muc-Off and then liberal application of water from a pressure washer, being careful not to damage the radiator:




It took me about 30 minutes to get the bumper lined up, all the cables reconnected, the washer unit clipped back into place, and the bumper in position, at which point I could replace all the screws, clips, covers and re-install the indicator repeaters. A test of the headlight washers, parking sensors and DRLs as well as a short test drive showed that everything was working correctly.

Total time taken was two and a half hours, but now that I know what I'm doing I think I could do it in half the time!

[LunarOne]

For anyone wondering, I've also replaced the Porsche Banner non-AGM battery with a Yuasa YBX-9115 AGM battery. The car was supposed to go in for a minor service at Brooklands Service Centre, but that has been rescheduled to June due to lockdown closure. As my dying battery was risking stranding me while I carried out essential journeys, I could not delay replacement of my battery with a Porsche item, but the service advisor at Brooklands has agreed to program the gateway to tell it that the battery is now AGM (the other specs such as capacity are the same as the original battery) when it's in for service despite the fact that I have fitted a non-Porsche battery.

[croyde]

Well done.

I had a stone through a much smaller plastic grill in the bumper of my Mustang GT.

The part was about £30 but according to YouTube videos about 2 to 3 hours of faffing as the whole bumper had to be removed, much like yours.

I resorted to gaffer tape in the end. The second owner did replace the grill around the fog lamp but he worked for a body shop

[anonymous-user]

LunarOne said:

I've also replaced the Porsche Banner non-AGM battery with a Yuasa YBX-9115 AGM battery. ….the service advisor at Brooklands has agreed to program the gateway to tell it that the battery is now AGM (the other specs such as capacity are the same as the original battery)

Question: If that Yuasa battery was used as direct replacement when removing an original Porsche battery, would any programming be required? From what I've read on the internet it seems to be "recommended by car manufacturers" and probably "desirable" but I've not found anything that says it's "essential". I've had the start-stop switched off* for my car so that aspect isn't an issue.

By switched off* I mean the switch toggle is opposite way round. i.e. start-stop remains "off" unless I use the button to turn it "on". My battery seems to be lasting longer than other people's at 8 years already - I wonder if that's related?

[LunarOne]

rockin said:

Question: If that Yuasa battery was used as direct replacement when removing an original Porsche battery, would any programming be required? From what I've read on the internet it seems to be "recommended by car manufacturers" and probably "desirable" but I've not found anything that says it's "essential".

My research tells me that it's not essential, but is preferable. Apparently it doesn't only change the way that stop-start works, but also alters the way the battery is charged. Apparently AGM batteries require a different charging strategy for optimal lifetime, which is why lots of smart battery chargers have an AGM mode.

But even without reprogramming the gateway, start-stop works much more effectively in my car. For the two years that I've had it, start stop would barely ever shut off the engine, and when it did it would restart after no more than 15 seconds. After replacing the battery a couple of weeks ago, the car will now shut off the engine at almost any opportunity, and I'm yet to find a situation where it restarts before I'm ready to move off - even if I'm at a level crossing and have to wait several minutes. The former behaviour was the same in my 2012 Boxster S which was sadly written off before I bought "The Carrot". I'd always assumed that the start-stop function was just a bit rubbish, but perhaps the battery just wasn't in good shape. 99% of the time I press sport plus and then hit the PASM button to soften the dampers, but now that stop-start actually seems to work, I'm more encouraged to leave sport plus or sport mode off. But then I still have to press the PSE button.

Is there any way I can make PSE come on by default in the same way you have disabled start-stop by default? If there's a way I would like to activate it. I wish the switches latched so that the car would remember your last used setting!

Edited by LunarOne on Saturday 30th May 14:39

[LunarOne]

Since this incident, it has become apparent that the offside A/C condenser must have been damaged, as over time the coolant has leaked out and the air conditioning efficiency has dropped to zero. I'm driving down to Portugal this summer, so have decided that it's high time that I replace the condenser and get the system recharged. For the sake of the cost of an extra condenser, I'm replacing both, along with the desiccator. As the system is currently empty, I'm going to have a crack at it myself. I've done most of the work to get to the condensers previously and it's not very difficult.

I have a question though - I know that there's oil in the A/C refrigerant lines, most of which I believe stays in the compressor. But given that I am replacing both condensers and the desiccator, should I be adding some oil? Thanks!

[andygo]

Take it to Kwick Fit who will do the whole job with the correct equipment to pressurise the system. Just dont tell anyone that you went there though - the shame and reputational damage!