Just going out to vacuum the car ...... 11 hours later

What started as a quick inside clean quickly turned into a mammoth car cleaning lasting 11 hours over two days.


I'd bought all the products months ago and never got around to using them.  But today it was out with the wax, clay and all the other expensive things that had never been used.  In for a penny ..


Day 1


Starting with that quick vacuum.  All the inside wiped down, vacuumed and treated with leather and vinyl products.


Washed the outside with Dodo Juice born to be mild shampoo.  Hosed down and clayed with dodo mild clay.  This was actually way easier than I thought it would be and surprisingly little crap came off the car.


Dried the car and cracked open the dodo juice lime prime lite.  Followed the instructions and did a panel at a time and buffed it off.


Wax coat number one.  Another dodo juice product.  Purple haze.  Went on and came off just remarkably easily. 


Its getting late and the wax needs to cure over night so I turned my attention to the wheels.  Really they are the catalyst for this.  When we were in Wales a few weeks ago allot of the roads where being re-surfaced and unbeknown to me tar and stones had welded themselves onto the inside of the wheels like limpets. 


So a quick soapy wash and then to google for 'clean tar from wheels' search.


Day 2


Wax coat number 2 .. 


Wheels.  Other than expensive products, which I'm certainly not against, the best answer for the tar seems to be good 'ol WD40.  Soak a the corner of a rag and start with the elbow grease.  IT WORKS !  Just takes hours.


Once the tar was off then another wash, rinse and dry. Applied some Rim Wax (snigger) and some vinyl dressing to the plastic and rubber seals, and under the bonnet, and the outside of the tires.






And finished ... An epic session.  But I'm actually really pleased with the results and you can actually feel the coating of wax, which I was surprised by.

The car gods shined down on me

Bertie (the boxster) MOT & Porsche 111 point check for the extended warranty.  There was I expecting an enormous invoice but all we got was a PASS & another PASS.  Even the tires will be OK for the 3000 mile French blast in September.

The OPC (Official Porsche Centre) in Mid-Sussex, Burgess Hill have been fantastic throughout the whole process, purchase and after care.  And they didn't slap us with a massive bill, al thought I'm braced for that ..

And in addition we got to spend the day in a Porsche Panamera 4 courtesy car.  The new 4 seater luxury, family market saloon(?).  Whatever its aimed at it was a fantastic car.  I was in gadget heaven and pulled some good looks from passers by.  

Oh, I just looked up price ! .. starting at £66,900 - no wonder we got funny looks with Vanilla Ice cranked up.  Probably thought it was stolen.

Couple of niggles which would bug the crap out of me if I owned one, not that I can afford it ..

• The warp factor 1 & 2 buttons (Sports & Sports Plus) are on the centre console but on the other side of the shift stick.  They'd be better on the drivers side.  I'm guessing this a RHD conversion cost saving thing.
• Whatever I tried I couldn't get road numbers - other than seriously main ones, to appear on the sat nav.
• The fuel gauge takes about 5 mins to really display what's in the tank after filling up.  A pain when you have to get the car back with 'just under full'.

Engine Cover

Step one: Park the car on a flat surface, leave the car in gear, and set the parking brake.

Step two: Open the convertible top approximately 24 inches; just enough to raise the rear cover to its highest point. Now remove the key from the ignition, to prevent accidental operation of the top.

Step three: Disconnect two tension rope the ball–pivots located on either side of the convertible top. Just pry gently, and they should pop right off. You may need to remove the convertible top hinge covers (if not now then later to access the Bose speaker plug).

Step four: Release the cloth cover. Gently pull straight down on the plastic cover, preferably right at the clip holders (there are two) one is shown below. By the way, that’s a “mid” strut bar.

Step five: Lift the top up and grab the attached strap to secure the back of the top. I used a bungee cord to help. You just want to secure the back of the top so it’s out of the way.

 

This is the access you’ll have after removing the speaker and carpet cover.

Step six. Remove the Bose speaker by rotating the four black twist – locks. They secure the Bose speaker. Then you can rotate it to get better access to the plug connection.

 

Shamelessly copied from http://www.planet-9.com/cayman-boxster-tech/33919-how-remove-engine-cover.html

Checking Boxster Drainage Holes

There are two drainage holes in the space where the roof retracts to. When up the water from the roof will run down into this area, and in theory down the holes and out the bottom of the car. If these holes get blocked up the water backs up and enters the cabin. The first place it heads is under the seats where the cars brains are. So its a good idea to check these and the two holes in the front by the battery.

Open the roof into 'service' mode. Which means just open it 30cm which causes the rear cover to open. The holes are in each corner, check they are clear and pour some water down to confirm.

There are also two holes for the front, each side of the battery. Looking at the car the left hand hole is pretty easy to spot and there's what looks like a mirror on the right, its not, that's some kind of grommet.  The actual hole is about another 5-6 cm to the right.

986 Diagram - http://mike.focke.googlepages.com/drainsdiagram

Treating Boxtster Roof

As the winter approaches and theres a chance, a slim one, but a chance the car might get caught in the rain I thought I'd treat the roof with some waterproofing. The roof sucked up water, I don't know if it leaked as its not been in the rain since we bought it but better safe than sorry. I guess it all helps.

I pretty much got the instructions from www.boxta.net and then did some follow up reading in the TVR and Lotus forums.

Theres a couple of options which all start with a good clean and then apply a product, spray, bottles, tins .. theres a few to choose from. I went with Fabisil liquid. All the other treatments required you (for a good job) to mask off the windows etc. I wasn't comfortable doing this, worried about sticky glue left around and using a liquid meant you could apply with a paintbrush which I was more confident with.

1. Give the roof a really good clean. I heavily diluted some baby shampoo in a bucket and used a stiff brush in circles to work the shampoo in.
2. Soak the roof with water and using the same brush scrub until you get no more soap suds.
3. Sit back and wait for the roof to dry.
4. Grab a clean 2" brush and poor some of the Fabisil in a clean container. This was the part the heart starts. Its an expensive car and worried this could wreck the roof. I started my first coat front to back. Keep a cloth handy to mop up any spills on the paintwork or windows. It goes on really easy, keep overlapping the previous part so you keep a 'wet edge' and you should get good coverage.
5. Sit back and wait for the roof to dry. The tin says 6 hours, but mine was dry enough, outside on a sunny autumn day about 12 degrees, in a couple of hours.
   
6. I applied a second coat, which is optional, some apply up to 4. My second coat was side to side. Others then go on the diagonal both ways for coats 3 & 4.