Flood Car: My 2004 Porsche Boxster S SE

The next problem...

It wasn't really a surprise, but I was hoping it wouldn't happen. The throttle issue remained rare and intermittent. Other priorities came up, so I put off starting on the major work I had planned for the car. I kept driving and enjoying it. Then one morning on the way to work, the brakes started dragging.

I had this happen once before on one of my 1999s. A little water got into the brake booster. The moisture led to corrosion. The corrosion bound up the master cylinder. The car was still sort-of driveable. It started happening on my 1999 when I was about 500 miles from home and I quickly adapted to pulling the brake pedal back up with my toe every time it stuck. With the SE, I stopped driving it and set it aside for a couple weeks.

Today I got to work on fixing it. There's a great DIY on Renntech.org that I found the last time I had this problem. The biggest difference between the DIY and my experience is that the car they have is a right hand drive and mine was a left hand drive – The ABS unit is blocking access to replacing the booster on US cars and has to be moved slightly to make room. I recorded video of the process and I'll put it together and upload it in a day or two.

I removed the booster from my 2001 S parts car, checked it over, cleaned it a bit, and installed it. I still have to finish up with brackets and trim, then test drive. I'll pull apart the bad one for forensics and post some pics. I actually had considered pulling the booster out of the SE and checking for water in my initial recovery of the car, but that is just as much work as replacing it when it failed. I chose to be hopeful rather than preemptive. In the end, no loss other than a part removed from my parts car. I had the job about 90% done this evening when it was time to wrap up and go to work. I'll finish up tomorrow.

It's all back together and working well again. Here's some pictures of the corrosion that was binding the brake booster:

Here's the video:

Thanks for documenting all this. It's both interesting and informative!

Back in the water for a few pics...

I took a long way home from work and stopped at a ford for few pictures. Did I say few? ...I took over 100. It was a 'candid', unplanned stop. After seeing the pictures, I really want to go back and try different angles, lighting, depth, etc.

It looks like the car is super anxious sitting in the puddle....  I don’t blame it, bad memories and all.

Looking good, keep going and good luck!

In reply to AAZCD :

You have mail.

May we assume all is going well?

In reply to white_fly :

Yes, all is well with the flood car. I just stepped out of the office and took this pic as I work night shift into Labor Day:

As noted, I still have a little work to finish. August has been a little crazy here. Busy month at work, wedding on the East coast, flight simulator in Louisiana, and a funeral on the West coast. I didn't do anything to the car and barely drove it other than back and forth to work. I was going to drive it about 6 hours to Shreveport, LA the week before last, but just wasn't ready to take the chance of a problem so far from home. Had to drive a '99 instead:

I think I'll have time for a few projects in September and maybe drive it to San Antonio at the end of the month to visit family. ...unless SWMBO insists on a SUV.

I finally got around to installing the correct muffler on the car. I've had it for months. I also repaired the minor crack in the rear bumper cover while I had it off.

My painting skill is marginal. I usually don't have the patience to get things perfectly prepped or let each coat properly dry. There was little chance of the new paint I bought being a perfect match for the 14 year old original paint, so i chose a line just below the bumperettes to blend the new with old. There's a nice sharp curve there to mask a slight change in tone.

I'm happy with the color results. It doesn't stand out as being any different unless you get very close and look for it.


The biggest problem is that I didn't completely feather the primer over the repaired area. If you look for it, you can see a slight ridge around the area. Some of that I may be able to correct with fine sanding and polish, but since it is under clear-coat, I expect it will still show on close examination.


In a few days, I'll work on it again to clean it up a little. I can also see a few spots where my clear-coat ends onto the original paint. I had about a 2" overlap of just clear, so I can blend it back. At least now, the car doesn't look 'damaged'. I really need to watch some more YouTube on this stuff... https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AYB4Yxeq_M8
 

Looks great from here!

So no other flood related issues cropping up?

In reply to badwaytolive :

Thanks...

I have had one other issue come up. Occasionally I get a failure of the PSM/ABS. Everything still seems to work fine, but I get the dash warning light. The code I'm getting indicates that it's an issue with the steering angle sensor, so I'm guessing it's corrosion on the connector, like I had with the gas pedal sensor a few months ago. Other than reading and resetting the code, I haven't taken time to fix it yet.

This is not to say that most of the stuff in the car survived the flood. I replaced most of the electronic modules in the car, almost everything with an electric motor, and all of the relays. Before I started this, I had several boxes of stuff stripped off of a collision damaged 2001 that I scrapped and a 1999 that I stripped down for a friend to make into a track car. This would have been very expensive if I had to seek out and buy all those parts individually.

As a 'parts hoarder' It was a great opportunity to say, "See honey, I really needed all of those things."    Now, as for those boxes of Honda, Volvo 850, MR2, VW, Audi, and misc Ford... I should probably start getting rid of some of that stuff. Just need to pick a $2019 project first.

In reply to AAZCD :

Challenge a Volvo 850 (wagon) for the win. Volvo fans check; wagon fans check; BTCC fans check(hint). So we can live vicariously through your build.

BarryNorman said:

In reply to AAZCD :

Challenge a Volvo 850 (wagon) for the win. Volvo fans check; wagon fans check; BTCC fans check(hint). So we can live vicariously through your build.

 

That would have been cool, but not in the cards today. None were available in my area and I saw another interesting option as I searched for possibilities.

I'm headed to a closed junk yard this afternoon to pick up the winter project...

(This could be a mistake.)

In reply to AAZCD :

I have some doubts as to your sanity not many just the one

In reply to smashedfingers :

[AAZCD looks left, right, shrugs...] Looks like I've come to the right place.

Still going well with no significant issues. I feel that it is completed as a 'project car' and future work will be maintaining an '04 Boxster rather than recovering a flood car.
Some pics from my drive along the Illinois River this morning:

Still going strong. I just got back from a trip. I went to Shreveport, Louisiana for some training and decided that it was time to put some miles on it, a little over 750 miles for the round trip. I still need to replace the front tires and didn't think to order them in time, so I swapped another set of wheels on. I took the scenic route home, through the Talimena Scenic Byway.

Not the most scenic time of year, but the traffic was light and the car made beautiful music running up and down through the gears. There were some parts where I had to turn around and go back over a few times...

There were lots of scenic overlooks, convenient for photos or a turn around.

"It wasn't me officer, I have traction control.":

Wow what a road!

Glad it has worked out so well

Nice to see the transition from flood car to project car. Care to share the all-in budget on this car to get it back to this state? I realize you used lots of parts you'd already hoarded/collected from past parts cars, but just curious what kind of money you have into it at this point.

In reply to Mezzanine :

I didn't keep track of how much I spent. I'm curious too, but don't want to bother with the math. If I had to buy all the electronics and other misc parts that I already had on hand, it could have easily gone up to about $10k. Getting the car (Bid+Fees+Transportation) was about $6,000. I did eventually get reimbursed for the Texas Sales Tax, since I had to pay Oklahoma tax. That was a big hassle.

Here's a random stream of what I can remember: Do we count the rear tires? they were well over $450 installed and I just ordered fronts that will be $300 installed. Dashboard I didn't use? around $300. Paint and expendable supplies ~$250. Keys+modules $500, I think radiators were about $150. Suspension parts, $350ish. Correct muffler was $300 shipped. The car hauler that messed it up eventually paid me directly. I think it was $600 that we agreed on to cover the muffler and fixing the rear bumper. Battery was between $150 and $200. I'm sure there's stuff I'm missing.

Parts on hand: Most of the fuses and relays (Woody's Parts LLC helped me out with a spare bag of free relays and fuses too), steering rack, brake booster, rear spoiler electronics, door electronics, trunk latch actuator, and other misc electronics.

Figure out what I'm forgetting and I'll put  $ number on it.

Counting all the plusses and minuses, then doing some proration for what was maintenance rather than repair, I feel like I'm in for about $7,500. I like this car a lot more than $7,500.

In reply to AAZCD :

It’s a gorgeous car to enjoy at that price.

 In reply to AAZCD :

A friend sent me a link to this $2500 Boxter and I thought of yours. It’s probably too far away for you(and you have plenty of other projects!), but feel free to share it if you know anyone in the market. 

In reply to Pete Gossett :

I love those deals, but yes - I have project saturation right now and can not take in another. I will pass it on to some friends.