Before I had a chance to make strides towards passing smog, an existing vacation to the east coast arrived. This can be a difficult situation for a car guy with a new toy. Will the Porsche be okay all alone for almost two weeks? Will I come back to find it had caught fire? Sometimes more extreme unrealistic concerns come to mind. Such as rapid rust formation due to excess water in the passenger foot well. This came to my mind. I decided it was absolutely necessary to remove the carpet in passenger side where the heater core was leaking. The carpet felt damp but not overly soaked. I gave the carpet a tug but found that it was glued to the frame and surrounding sound proofing. Searching the internet I discovered many individuals with 911’s battled what this horse glue that bonded the carpet to the frame. No one had a clear solution to this problem. Some suggested steam, dry ice, acetone or MEK (which would also dissolve the sound proofing foam) or 3M adhesive remover. A friend suggested using Goof Off. That seemed like a good place to start. The night before my flight I began work. I went ahead to remove the seats. It appears that the previous owner that installed these seats had some difficulty with the fasteners as the threads on the seat bolts were almost stripped. Signs of anti-seize were evident on the threads, likely an attempt to “make it work”. I was surprised to see that Porsche used floating nutplates for the seat attachments. Very common on aircraft but I have never seen that in cars. Luckily all the bolts came out without much trouble. With the seat out I had clear access to the carpet. Yanking on the carpet more, I found that it was only bonded on the vertical sides and the seams between the sections. That was a huge relief as this horse glue is some nasty stuff. I went ahead spraying the goof off onto the glue. As the glue was being pulled apart, I was able to see the Goof Off foam when reacting with the glue. Knowing that the carpet might be delicate I used my hand as a wedge between the carpet and the frame. In about an hour the forward section of the passenger carpet was out. Under the carpet I found a soundproofing mat, deteriorated rubber on top and mixed fiber on bottom. It looked like there was mold growing on the top portion while the bottom was completely soaked through. It was soaked to the point when upon removal water was dipping everywhere.

Pleased with my progress I decided to put the Porsche to sleep for my several days away from the car. Made sure no lights were on, everything put away and all locked up. As I cleaned up, I noticed what felt like horse glue on my fingers. Without looking I started to rip it off not noticing that it was not horse glue but actually my own skin. Maybe I should have read the warning labels on the bottle of the Goof off. For the next three days all the skin was peeling off my hands. I suspect the goof off breaks down collagen, a key ingredient in glues such as horse glue. It must have broken down the collagen in my skin. Lesson learned, use gloves with long exposure to Goof Off.

When I got back from my trip I went to check on the car. Again, what could have gone wrong? It was still there. But this time there was a ticking sound coming from the passenger side. I open it up to find that the battery was almost completely dead. Yay! I begin investigating where the ticking sound is coming from. It seems to be coming from the DME (the ecu that is immediately behind the wooden kick panel). I unplug the large connector but the ticking does not stop. A bit relived as ticking from the DME could end badly. I started removing some fuses in hopes the ticking would stop but that didn’t work out. The one thing that did stop the ticking is if I opened the hood. Somehow the ticking was linked with the hood being open. Interestingly enough, when the hood was closed, it took about 3 seconds for the ticking to start. It would start slowly and then would reach full speed after a couple more seconds. I could only suspect that this has something to do with the aftermarket alarm that is installed but never activated (well at least I don’t activate it). This gives me more reason to remove the alarm system. Another project to the list.