Living with a Porsche 944

Since I bought my 944 the temperature guage has danced about. It was disconcerting but I'd randomly stop and check under the bonnet for signs of overheating and it's all been well. On Monday morning I discovered a dead 944 in my garage. No sign of life. When connecting the jumper cables the fan started up without the car even running. An obvious problem and pointing to the temerature switch sensor on the radiator as the cause. This little £6 brass switch on the back of the radiator and below the top inlet pipe tells the fan to switch on and off. It had failed on ON and ran the fan till the battery was kaput. It's very easy to replace this temp switch from underneath the engine bay. Just disconnect the two spade connectors; use a flat wrench to untighten; and quickly remove and replace with the new switch before you get covered in coolant. I did position a catch bowl below the radiator but there was hardly any lost due to a swift hand! The fan is now working perfec...

You'd think that after giving my 944 a wash, wax & polish on Saturday, followed by a short blast through the countryside yesterday, that it'd be on my side today. We it was dead this morning. Not even the slightest signs of life. After jumper lead were connected the fan immediately turned on! Before the car had even been started. So the fan must have run since the drive yesterday until the battery had been drained. It turns out that other 944 owners have experienced this before, and the culprit has been the radiator temperature switch. So I'll order one today and see if that sorts the issue out. In the meantime I've gone and bought a battery charger so I can fire the 944 up tomorrow morning.

When I bought my 944 the passenger door locking pin was missing. This meant having to lock & unlock the door with the key. This afternoon I removed the door card and thankfully found the locking pin & arm laying in the bottom of the door. It was easy to reattach and refit the door card to complete the job. All done. Simples. I also discovered that my door speakers have already been upgraded at some point to Alpine units. What is apparent though is that there must be some broken wiring in the driverside door jam causing the hissing & poor audio. That's next on the list to fix.

With the sun beaming in the new season under volcanic Britain; it seemed a good time to try out the roofless option. Ok so it's semi topless driving but boy does the exhaust sound good from through the hole in the roof!

Today may be April Fools Day but passing 200,000 miles in my '86 944 is no joke!