Porsche Enthusiasts Club Forum

so, car wouldnt start yesterday; cranked fine but wouldnt catch, swapped the dme, same.

didnt have time to get the toolbox out so i fired a hairdrier at the dizzy cap for 10 minutes as it seemed a bit damp, pulled the HT leads off and put them back on again. car started!

ive no idea if it was what i did or just coincidence. there used to be some kind of white grease over the ht leads and dizzy cap but most of it rubbed off last service (must have been ancient).

guess ill have a proper look at the dizzy cap, can damp stop a good one sparking? do HT leads deteriorate with time? i know the rubber cover is looking tired and looks like its absorbing water rather than repelling it, will regreasing it help? (im guessing its lithium grease)

White stuff is silicon grease & if it's on your leads they must be goosed. Buy a new set & a new rotor arm & dizzy while your at it. Don't forget to locktight the rotor arm screw.

for dizzy/rotor ecp have got beru parts or bosch; beru much cheaper and im sure i read they're an oem for porsche and not crap.

is the dizzy cap on a 8v n/a same a as a turbo? as it only lists one for a turbo but think it might be a typo on their site.

ie this one - £20 as opposed to £36 for the bosch.

rotor arm is £5 instead of £22 for the bosch but they've none in stock as of this afternoon.

might invest in some of those fancy magnacore HT leads mentioned on another thread. car seems to get presents all the time; just when im trying to save up to buy the family's some this christmas

Sounds about right, turbo dose shear some off the cheaper 8v parts.

Never understood why 16v stuff is so much more, double at times.

The mangnorcor leads have a waiting time, only thing that stoped me instool them on mine

Remember that JMG will beat ECP by 10%. Though you have to watch ECP as often the parts are permanently out of stock. Usually when I've driven 12 miles to collect them!

I think I just got the last rotor arm then, ordered it early yesterday afternoon./i will let you know what they are like. I bought the beru dist cap as well.

I have read somewhere that the distributor cap is the same as used by Volvo, but Volvo's is half the price. It's on an old thread on here somewhere.

We need to know these things as there's no point in paying for the name. For example, the rear wheel bearings on the S2 are the same as the BMW 5 series of the time.

Just for clarification I'm fairly sure that only applies to the 16v cars.

yeh thats the alternate part thread started by zgacogp over on pcgb forum ;

http://www.porscheclubgbforum.com/tm.asp?m=467365

for 16v engines as rob says. made be consider the beru, but as oct pinched the last one i might buy the bosch after all ;p

great thing about ecp is theyre 5 mins down the road from me, i avoid mail order where possible.

i am an idiot...

the car didnt start again so i took the dizzy cap off and the contacts were pitted, i thought id try sanding them as a temporary measure until i get new parts. tried to take the rotor arm off and it seemed stuck pretty solid, and attempts to lever it off resulted in a small chip so i decided not to push it any further and just cleaned it as best i could in situ. put it all back together (or so i thought) and it fired up fine. I let it tick over.

thought 'ill order the dizzy and rotor from ecp, that seized on rotor arm should get me to halfords and back so i'll buy some loctite for the grub screw..... hang on.... what exactly did i do with the grub screw?.... IGNITION OFF!

no grub screw in pockets, no grub screw in the house, no grub screw in toolbox. i dont remember tightening it up... did i just put it in finger tight after trying to remove the rotor arm? i couldnt remember. took dizzy cap off... no grub screw. search house/pockets/toolbox again. at this point im praying for grub screws and looking over the drive in case i just dropped it.

so upshot is there may be a loose grub screw somewhere behind the belt guards. i took the top one off and the metal one behind the dizzy, couldnt see anything. in the fading light i loosened took the bolts out of the bottom cover but couldnt take it off due to the alternator and power steering pump belts. ran my finger round the bottom of the cover couldnt feel anything.

guess im going to have to investigate further to rule out the possibility of it being lodged somewhere, although its probably pinged out of the engine bay completely. I sometimes wonder if im cut out for classic car ownership.

anyways i read clarkes garage and it just says 'remove alternator and power steering pump belts' is it a case of just levering them off or can they be loosened 1st? once ive done that ill take the bottom guard off again and check visually.

any suggestions or advice (short of signing a declaration never to open the bonnet again) welcome.

Order a new grub screw. It's too small to do any damage. Don't try driving anywhere until you have one. It won't do any damage to the engine but it will stop! Mine came out once & the car died yards from home. Thats why I said Loctite it. Why Porsche didn't key it is a mystery.

don't worry pastry , we all do something like that every time we work on the car. I am seriously surprised if I don't end up with spare screws, bolts bits and bobs after a repair job
The other day I caught myself opening the fridge door to put a cup of tea in instead of the milk !.............



its ok ..I'll go quietly

cheers for the advices, fitted the new rotor arm and dizzy cap yesterday (and a foraged loctited screw) and it fired up 1st time, took it out for a drive to new lanark. all is well again.... for now

used the beru parts from ecp, £22 for the dizzy cap £5 for the rotor arm looks identical to what I took off and the n/a cap is indeed the same as the turbo one. bosch one was twice the price so i'll see if it lasts another 70000 miles.

I've never seen another 944 round here before, I thought mine was the only one. Do you live local? If the car pulled you back up the hill, then there is nothing wrong with the ignition now. Hope it lasts you for 70000 miles.

Nope live in Glasgow, just like to go there for a walk every once in a while and it gave a chance to stretch the cars legs too.