creekman

I had a conversation yesterday with a knowledgable Porsche airconditioning specialist, he said that the evaporators for our car are not long lived. Does anyone have any information on the longevity of our evaporators? The reason I'm asking is that I have my engine out and plan on replacing the receiver/dryer and if it's prudent I would replace the evaporator at the same time. Thanks,

I had a burnt rubber smell that I couldn't figure out until the serpentine fan, alternator belt came off. The pulley tensioner bolt back out causing the serpentine belt to be out of alignment, finally the bolt came out far enough and threw the belt. Naturally you can't see anything unless the air filter is removed...

I had a problem with my MaxJax lift not wanting to retract, I did the same thing, I bungee the release lever down. However in my case I had installed the diverter valve upside down. The way to tell is to be sure you have the diverter installed so you can see through the top ports where the 2 hoses attach. Also if one arm is not in sync with the other, then disconnect the hose from the lowest arm and hit the release lever until the 2nd arm reaches the same height as the lower arm.I installed 45 degree fittings on the post to hose connection which allows the hoses to lay closer to the floor. I read that tip some where, and I think it will save tripping over the hoses. One other thing that I did was to turn a bushing on my lathe to fit the 5 holes in the post base plate. The bushing had a 1/2" clearance for my rotor hammer bit. So rather than drilling one hole, moving the post, setting the anchor, then reinstalling the post each time for a new hole I was able to use the one bushing, drill all 5 holes with a 1/2" rotor hammer drill, then move off the post, finish drilling the 7/8" holes all in one operation. The holes were centered and it saved a lot of work.Also you want to check the reservoir tank after bleeding and filling the hoses, but only having the arms in the down position. I checked the oil level when the arms were 12" or so above the floor, then it appeared the reservoir needed filling, so I filled it... bad idea because when the arms came down I had hydraulic oil oooozing from the fill cap. I was unsure how thick my concrete slab was so I drilled a 1/2" hole under the center of the base just to be sure I could drill the recommended 5.5". If you get into trouble you can contact MaxJax, they sell an epoxy kit that will also fasten the anchors… BTW: Jason at MaxJax has been very helpful. Nice guy...Lastly, today I moved my garage door opener from the middle of the door to one side because it was going to impair my lifting height. I talked to the garage door company and they said you can do that. I moved the operator/motor and the door works just as well as it did before. I set my base plates at 130" measured from the back of the base plate. Here's the fitting I made that plugs into the receiver on the underside of the car. You have to be a little more exacting on locating the arms, but I know the arms/pads are not going to bend any sheet metal. To do this I cut down the pad extensions and turned the pins to a dome so if I was off a tad they'll find their way home. After this picture I turned some nylon washers that fit down over the domed pins.Lastly, lastly... 3 of my inner arms were really hard to slide in and out, in fact I had to take a single jack and pound on a piece of wood to get the arms to move in and out. Today I took the arms back off the base, retracted the arms as far in as they would go, then used a Sawzall with a fine metal cutting blade and cut the end of the weld that keeps the inner arm aligned with the outer arm. The lift should not have come that way, but as soon as I cut off 1/16" between the weld and the inner arm the inner arms moved freely. At first glance you might think there's a big glob of paint, but it's actually a weld protruding from the inner wall of the outer arm, rubbing on the outer wall of the inner arm.I hope all of this might be helpful to others...

My present tail lights (2003 C4S) have stress cracks in the lens, and the mounting tabs are either broke or cracked. Other than that the lights work fine... :-) If I change out the lights I was thinking of the LED light option, but it appears that none of the after market LED lights are compatible with the C4S (wide body)? Is that a fact? Thanks,

Will the Spyder or Dectane LED tail lights fit a wide body C4S car? Thanks,

I just completed a 3,000 mile road trip in my 996 C4S. All went well until the early morning on my return to Texas when the volt meter went down and the temp meter went up... I pulled off the road on to the shoulder at about 8:00 AM wondering where in God's name I was. Fortuanetly I had cell service and after calling around one tow truck company wanted more information than "about 265 miles West of Albuquerque". He asked if there was a mile marker post anywhere, the surfing Gods must have taken pity on me since there was one just 200' behind me. Anyway it was suggested that I call 911 which I did. 911 was very helpful, gave the names of 2 tow outfits in Winslow. A young man came out with a late model diesel flat bed rig from Dalton Motors in Winslow which was about 10 miles back on I-40. Stratton the driver was very careful loading the car, we used the eye bolt that screws into the front bumper, Statton had a swipe card receivier on his smart phone for charge cards, charged me $84.00, I bet in the big city it would have been $284.00... Any way after being flat bedded into the Winslow Chrysler dealer the young mech showed me the "belt deflection roller/pulley" bolt had backed out . In doing so the mounting bolt was bend and once the pulley got out of alignment it shed the serpentine belt which was undamaged. I called my friend at Truespeed Motorcars in Costa Mesa, CA for install information. Truespeed does a lot of Porsche sales and race car prep. Mark told me yes, you want to use "blue Lock-Tite" and torque to 34 ft/lbs. Unfortuanely before I could get to the mechanic at the dealership UPS for once had come through early so he had already had installed the pulley. He didn't use Lock-Tite and over torqued the bolt so I'll have to remove the bolt and redo it with the correct torque and Lock-Tite. However I had no regrets the people at the Chrysler dealership were excellent and fair. I think the only reason the bolt backed out in the first place that maybe a previous owner or mechanic hadn't installed properly. The pulley hadn't given up, just the mounting bolt back out, bending the bolt so the pulley was not aligned with the serpentine belt. Fortunenatly I had shut down the engine right away so I didn't have to add any coolant. I averaged 26.4 MPG at 70-80 MPH... If you haven't had a chance to make a long trip in your car, do it sometime... for me it made the trip memorable. Here's a pix just before the belt departed...

Here's what I've made for my new MaxJax 2 post lift to lift and positively connect the car to the lifting arms. I'm going to turn some nylon washer that will fit over the pin base to protect the undercarriage receivers. I haven't tried the lift yet since I'm considering moving and didn't want to drill a bunch of holes in the floor and wasting the mounting anchors. The first pix is the factory supplied extension pins that I cut down, the second pix is the new pin welded to the factory cut down lifting extension. I liked the idea of a positive connection between the lifting arm and the car receiver. I'm going to put the car up on a friend's lift tomorrow and determine whether I need to make the pin base a larger diameter. More later...

I didn't try to lift the car, the following was just with the lift posts free standing. I started up the pump to test the 2 posts... right side goes up, but the left doesn't move. Then the right side that went up, doesn't go down. I'm going to bleed the left side to see if that is what keeping the lift arms from going up, then check to see if the bleeder valve is clogged up? Do I need to drain the reservoir before removing the bleeder valve? I thought I would get some input before calling Danmar... Any other suggestions on what's going on will be appreciated...

Well said...

I believe that the trunk light is on the same circuit as the interior lights, so when the interior lights go off the trunk light will go off... I have an issue w/ the trunk micro switch since it doesn't turn off the light. It was suggested by one of our members to try some electrical contact cleaner on the micro switch before replacing the $75.00 switch. However most of the time you don't need the trunk light on anyway so I installed a lighted switch which allows me to control the trunk light.

fpb111, I can't help myself,,, that's half the fun of messing with the car. If I see something that I think can be improved, then I try to solve the problem. Hey, if nothing else it keeps the gray matter stirred up. The hockey pucks seem like a good solution, but lack inter-locking of the car pk pts to the lift arms. I'll report back if my concept works, stay tuned, film at eleven...

Here's a good video for the Maxjax install... I think the directions could be better, and the supplier certainly could supplement the install directions with a good video. Here's one that shows the whole install procedure. On the Corvette forum one guy showed using a 90 degree fitting at the hydraulic hose quick disconnects so the hoses lay flatter on the floor, good idea. I just got one set of disconnects, yet on several pics and videos they show 2 sets, one at the base of the post, and the other at the divider on the hydraulic cart? Am I missing one set or do you have to buy a second set if you want the flexibility of removing the hoses from the cart? I thought maybe removing the hoses from the hydraulic cart would allow air into the system so bleeding would be necessary? P.S. I see that the Parts inventory only show 2 each of the quick-disconnect fittings!

GMAN... Great information... I did a quick search on e_bay, but didn't come up w/ the puck info. I had thought about cutting down the factory lifting pins, then welding a machined turned dowel that had a domed top. The domed top would find it's way into the car body receiver better and the factory supplied lifting pin. The cut down pin would act as a shoulder for the receiver to sit on. I hope you can follow my ramblings. I have the room to go as far as I want, what would you suggest as a good safe separation between the posts? I'm presently at 125" out to out on the base plate. That gives me 20" between the inside face of the post and the door. Many thanks for your reply,

fpb111, thanks for the reply... I think you've just answered my question with what I've thought, but couldn't verify. Yes, right now at 115" there's no give in the car location between the posts. I hadn't thought of that, but your assessment makes sense. I'm already with hardly any adjustments for the inner arms. If the car was slightly off the center line then there's no way to adjust the pad setting on the near side. I still think the install directions should address the clearance between the posts and the side of the car which would also give you some play of the inner lifting arms. I read on the Garage Forum where a professional installer used epoxy to insure that there was no movement of the anchors. I have a good concrete 4" floor, but sometimes that means your at the minimum thickness. I was evening thinking of making a test hole under the center of the post base to confirm the thickness. Also I think I'll turn a 5/8" sleeve x the diameter of the base plate hole so my pilot hole is centered on the base plate hole. My only worry here is that I'm not sure the sleeve will stay in place with the roto-hammer. I like the yellow and black finish on the MaxJax, it goes w/ my Speed Yellow, the blue of the Long Horn unit would have bad color clash... :-) I know from a friend of mine that deals with Chinese manufactures that they'll knock off someone idea without any hesitation. Someone might have approached the Chinese Maxjax manufacture and had them build the same lift.

For my 2003 C4S can someone tell me the distance they used between the posts. I see that the manual calls for up to 115" for "sport cars". My out to out on the tires is 69", that only leaves about 23" on a side for the door opening. Also at that dimension the pick up arms will reach the car body pick points without having to extend the inner arms. I have the room to move the post further apart, but just wondering if that's advisable. My 230 lbs just doesn't go through the opening very gracefully... I can also see that it would be prudent to glue some corner rubber on the post where the door could hit it if you weren't careful. I e-mailed MaxJax, but haven't heard anything from them yet...

Looks like a "knock off"... did I miss the price? If it was cheaper I'm guessing that they would have shown the price?

987_RDC, I looked around for a used one, but even at $1,500 I would have still paid shipping. I ran a wanted ad on Craig's list for a couple of months w/o any results. I started to put the pieces together this evening, as with any product made in China the directions could be a lot better. It's one of those things that you could do a lot easier the second time. It's a nice piece of equipment, everything is built heavy duty. You really need 2 people to get the parts unpacked. I had it on a trailer so it was a bit of a back breaker get everything on to the garage floor. Tomorrow I'll set the post anchors. What dimension did you use for the spacing between the uprights?

Sisuguy, thanks for the info... To use the lifting pads without any "hockey pucks" you must have pushed the lifting pads all the way in to clear the sheet metal skirt? I got my Maxjax on sale at Costco. They also delivered with a lift gate so there was no additional charge for the delivery.

That might be a tough item to find in Texas... I guess a cow paddy wouldn't work? Then you had enough clearance for the arm, factory pad and your "hockey puck" w/o running the car over 2X12's? Thanks,

My question is after looking at the rubber covered lift pads they appear to be to big to catch just the jacking position on the under body. i haven't set the unit up yet so I don't know how much clearance I'm going to have between the top of the pad and the bottom of the car? I can see that you might make a shouldered pin to catch the 4 jack points. Any one been through this? Thanks,

Hmmm, I believe that's the problem w/ mine, if I do that it goes back to the original speed unless I turn off the C/C and turn it back on... then it will take the new speed. So I might have a hiccup on mine. I'll play w/ it a little more and give ya a post update. Thanks for your reply...

I hate to labor this, but on my daily driver I can just push the set button and it will take the present speed. I can click 70 MPH, slow to 50 MPH then click again and it sets the new speed. I don't think the 996 C/C does that? You either have to do as you say, hold down the lever until the desired speed is attained, or turn off the cruise control button on the end of the stalk/lever then reset the button, then push the lever again for the desired speed? Correct? Thanks,

Thanks Bill... Maybe I'm missing something, but I don't see an answer in the manual to my original question?

I'm still trying to figure out the cruise control operation. Am I correct, if you're going 70 MPH on the cruise control, then want 50 MPH you have to turn off/on the C/C before resetting to the lower speed? The use of the C/C stalk/control certainly isn't intuitive at best? I thought my "84" was primitive, the 2003 didn't get much better... maybe it's just me? Thanks,

Great idea, might save me $75.00...