Living with a Porsche 944

I can't believe it's taken this long to track down a 130mm x M10 shoulder bolt! But I found a pair on eBay and they've arrived in first class post. Great service from Spalding Fasteners . Refitting the alternator with the correct length bolt was a great relief. The best I'd found was a 120mm M10 from B&Q but I could just see this alternator ripping off and shredding my engine bay. So I am glad I waited and found the correct bolt. And I have a spare. It was a little like Haynes say "refitting is the reversal of removal" but with almost zero degree temps in my garage - my little blower heater keeping the ice age at bay - it was a fiddly affair. I'd left the tension arm bolt in place to have the correct tension on the belt when refitted - the problem of course was then getting the alternator to line up with the fixing bolt. In the end I used a little ingenuity and pushed it up into place with the trolley jack from MachineMart as recommended by Car Mechan...

Right. Finally there was a break in the snow and I got to collect my alternator from Power Components. It seems almost criminal that some companies are charging almost as much for a replacement voltage regulator as Roger is for rebuilding the whole alternator - with new bearings too! It just goes to show - I could be spending a heck of a lot of money getting this 944 on the road if I wasn't prepared to get my hands cold & dirty, and make a few phone calls. It's also great to know that there are people like Roger at Power Components in the world who don't feel the need to rip people off. The bracket is off the alternator but the pivot bolt is seized in the bracket. So I popped round a local garage who have a hydraulic press and they've pushed it out, as well as drilling out the pivot bolt hole so a replacement will fit easily. £25 well spent I'd say. So far I haven't found a bolt to use. It's 130mm x M10 shoulder bolt. Neither Porsche nor VW (it's the...

It's freezing cold all over England. I'm sure you've seen the pics. It's the ice age in my garage - not the best of times to get the alternator out for it's rebuild. To make matters worse I think I may have just botched this whole rebuild idea by breaking the pivot bolt. The head just sheered off completely, requiring the removal of the whole alternator bracket with the alternator attached. Thankfully there was a bracket to remove or it would be game over. Hopefully Roger from Power Components can sort this for me - if he can get to work in all this snow!

I have a fan - it works well. But I don't have hot air. Which means that the school run I do with my eldest is a pretty freezing cold affair. It's also impossible to defrost the windscreen let alone ourselves! I've been watching eBay and the Porsche forums for a replacement heater control unit after checking virtually everything else in the HVAC system for faults. The heater control unit is an expensive item from Porsche, and so far they've been selling for more than a ton on eBay. Thankfully one came up on eBay that was a fair bit less - sure it was used but the seller assured me it was fully working. To be honest it was cheap enough to risk and with positive eBay feedback as meaningful as it is it was well worth getting some hot air in the cabin. It looks like it's going to be a cold winter. Removing the old control unit was straight forward. Before I fitted the replacement I cleaned up the two connectors just to make sure 23 years of crud wasn't going to keep...

Right so the new 72Ah battery is a stormer, but my newly acquired multimeter from MachineMart showed that my alternator was indeed not up to the task anymore. A couple minutes on the internet and a replacement was looking at at least £160+vat plus my alternator in exchange. Didn't seem like good value at all. I had heard that alternators can be rebuilt, and often it's just the voltage regulator needing to be replaced. That's not something in my capabilities I thought so I contacted a mechanic friend of mine who put me onto a chap who rebuilds these things for a living. My concerns about cost evaporated when I heard how much he'd rebuild my Bosch unit for. I just had to remove it. It was about 2 degrees in my garage earlier so I'm not looking forward to that and it looks like it's going to be a while before things settle above zero. I hope the new battery holds out until then.

So the battery was flat this morning, which can be expected for cold weather and little use, and so began my tale of two batteries. The first battery was supplied by my local Kwik-fit. This was contrary to my gut feeling and I reinforces just why I will never buy anything on the spot like that again. I took the 944 down to have the battery checked after having to jump start every time I shut down. Turns out the battery was nuked and the helpful tester reckoned the alternator wasn't charging correctly either. As I didn't feel like any more inconvenience I enquired about a replacement. What was recommended to me by the gent behind the counter according to the "blue book" he held, was a 59Ah replacement. The problem was that a 72Ah battery sat in my car. I was informed that the higher Ah unit would overload the electrical circuits. I was puzzled. I should have just walked away there and then. But no... Later that evening when I needed to start the 944 to go to my kids Ca...

With MOT, insurance certificate and Road Tax reminder in hand I headed off to the Post Office - purveyors of all things postal and the holy grail of road tax. Permission to drive on Her Majesty's roads without threat of arrest or crushed 944. It should be such a simple affair: hand over the documents and a cheque, and get handed that colourful round little disc to put in your car window. But no, am I the only person who thinks that I shouldn't have to lose a month of road tax because it's more than 2 days before the end of the month? I couldn't buy road tax from the beginning of December, I had to buy it as if from the beginning of November. That means I pay for 6 months tax and only get five; or pay for a year and only get 11 months - especially when the road fund is raided for other government spending. I think we're taxed enough not to want to pay for a months road tax and not get it! So as a matter of principal I'm parking the 944 in the garage and waiting a...