secretagent214

I just took my mirror out for some work last weekend. Everything is held in place with snaps. There are two ways to take out the mirror.

1) You can pop the mirror out of the plastic ring. That will access the light bulb and switches as well, so be careful not to pop those pieces out or lose them when you take out the mirror.

2) You can take out the plastic ring and the mirror as one piece. That avoids having to worry about the bulb and switches. You can't take it completely off the visor because of the two small wires soldered in place for the light, but you can move it a few inches - enough to add some felt. The plastic snaps are a little bit heftier for the ring than the mirror, so you have to work a little more to get it out. What I did was put a butter knife wrapped in tape under the top and worked the two snaps out from there. Then I swung it out. It sticks a little bit to the vinyl of the visor so the first time is the hardest.

I've done both. It went back together easily.

Just a side story about a sad chain of events... I ended up having to work on the visor because the mirror cover broke off. It was left open by my passenger while the convertible top was down. Then the sun went behind the clouds, so the visor was flipped up, still with the mirror door open. Then it started to rain, so I put the top up. This closed down on the mirror cover, trapping it in between the convertible top and the windshield top. I didn't notice at the time. Later, the sun came out and the visor was flipped down again, and the mirror cover snapped right off. I took the visor off and noticed that the plastic hinge was broken and unfixable, so I made a metal hinge and put it in. It works, light and all, but it's a little stiffer than it was. I ended up popping out the mirror with the plastic ring on both the driver and passenger side, switched the mirrors/covers because I never use my mirror, and put it all back together. One day I'll replace the visor, but it seems to only come as a full piece and is a bit expensive for such a minor fix.

The weather has been nice and I finally got around to working on my car this weekend. It was indeed a broken ground wire at the switch. Thanks again everyone.

I think it's worth opening the engine compartment just to take a look at the engine. I'm one of those people who took apart old VCRs as a kid though.

Mine is a 986 so I can't help you there.

Thanks everyone. I will check out the ground wire this weekend hopefully. That sounds like it, and if it's not, I have all those pages and pages of posts to reference (thanks for digging those up, Tool Pants).

Here's an odd one. My horn works perfectly except when the engine is running.

I have a 2001 2.7L 5 speed boxster with 125k+.

In the last few months before the horn went out completely, it was intermittent. Now the only time it works is when the engine is off (not very useful).

I think I will replace the relay when I get a chance just because those are always suspect and are cheap. Are there any other, more educated suggestions?

I have a 2001 Boxster with 120,000+ miles on it (many more than yours) that I bought used. It had the same clunk at low speeds from the rear wheels (mostly passenger side). Just last month I replaced the rear track arms myself and it fixed the problem.

I also have a slight leak from the rear seal, which I have also heard is common. It's hardly noticeable, but leaves a little gunk at the bottom of the engine and a few spots on the driveway. It's a somewhat expensive repair (they have to lift out the transmission I think) so I haven't gotten around to it yet. I've heard it's a good idea to replace the clutch at the same time, since they are already working in that area. I'm waiting until the clutch goes bad to fix the rear seal.

Also, keep an eye on the plastic rear window. I replaced that when I bought it because of bad UV damage. I think this looks interesting...

http://www.renntech.org/forums/index.php?s...mp;hl=glass+top

I changed my spark plugs a month or so ago and had basically the same problem. One of the connectors between the boot and wire wasn't tight. Of course, it's a pain to to figure out which one of 6 it is in such a confined work area. I ended up just pulling off one wire at a time, starting the engine and checking to see if there was a change, then plugging that wire back in. If I felt a change, it meant that that plug was firing. When I found one that made no change when I pulled it off, I worked a little harder to make sure it seated when plugging it back in. I started it up, and all was fine. If that doesn't fix it, at least you'll know for sure which plug isn't firing and can take a closer look at it.

It's a bit easier to test misfires on my old Plymouth Neon. All the plug wires are right up front on top of the engine. The Boxster is still worth the trade offs :)

This may not be what you're experiencing exactly. My 2001 Boxster 2.7L had a somewhat erratic idle. It would run fine at idle for a few seconds, then drop to around 700 for a few seconds, then back to normal again. Sometimes this was just after starting it up, sometimes after driving it for a while, and sometimes it wouldn't happen at all. Anyway, I ran some Seafoam cleaner into the air intake through one of the vacuum lines (and followed the rest of the instructions on the package), thinking maybe an air control switch was sticking. Whether or not it was that, it fixed it and I haven't had the problem since then. That was about a year ago.

You might want to do a little research before adding Seafoam. I think it's great stuff, but I've heard it's not approved by Porsche. Also, it'll produce quite a smoke screen when you first start it up after letting it soak for its 5 or 10 minutes.

Has anyone found a Porsche part number or a manufacturer for just the rear track arm ball joint? I'd rather just replace that than the entire track arm, if possible.

2001 Boxster 2.7 L

I guess this is a bit of an old thread. Anyway, just to follow up, the very quiet rumbling rattle that I heard turned out to be a waterpump on its way out. It finally went, was replaced, and all is quiet and well (except for that noisy control arm ball joint...). It's to be expected at 120,000 miles, I suppose.

I have a similar sound coming from my 2001 Boxster, 5 speed. I'm going to be doing some general maintenance (changing the oil, spark plugs, air filter etc. ) soon, so maybe I'll be able to pinpoint the noise while I'm at it.