Are you sitting down? You might want to, because this is a semi-epic tale, and will require some of your time to read through. Of course, there are plenty of pretty pictures to look at in order to keep your attention. It was a whirlwind 47 hours, and a lot of things happened, some great, some absolutely horrendous, but it’s a tale that needs to be told. Lets start from the start.
Saturday
The Saturday morning of the Monterey Car Weekend, for me, was more like what most people would call Friday night; My alarm rang shrill at the strike of 1AM. I wasn’t exactly awake immediately, but I knew I had to groggily haul myself out of bed in order to make it to Monterey by 7AM, in time for photography registration and the early morning photographer’s meeting. It was five hours over the road, and luckily the traffic was thin. I hopped in the driver’s seat and fired up Project Boxster Clubsport for a long day of travel. I had a few podcasts downloaded in order to make the time pass, and I only had to stop for coffee twice to stay alert. The car just seemed to eat up the highway, and in no time we arrived in Monterey ready for action.
Scheduling difficulties meant that we only had Saturday and Sunday to enjoy “Car Week”, so we made do with what little time we had on the peninsula. Last year, we ventured all over the place, to several different auctions, over to the Pebble Beach Concours to celebrate the 911’s 50th anniversary, and out to Laguna Seca for lots of Motorsport Reunion festivities. This year, though, the anniversary celebrations were past, the auctions sold most of the good stuff earlier in the week, and Pebble Beach didn’t invite a single Porsche this year (unsurprisingly), so we decided out best bet was to stick around Laguna Seca for the best vintage racing the whole year has to offer.
Naturally, the best place to start at any vintage racing event is with the parking lot and the paddock. There were some great Porsche enthusiasts’ cars in the parking lot, and we even spotted Magnus Walker’s beloved #277 on our way into the track. Emory Motorsports brought their fantastic stable, including a 908/3 and a Porsche Cooper “Pooper”. A Reno, Nevada local brought out his Porsche Abarth GTL and a Japan-delivered 935 to run. Porsche themselves raided the museum and brought along their late 1980s Indy competitor, as well as a complete Gulf 917 and a second Gulf 917 currently in the midst of a full restoration. Great stuff everywhere you look.
The parking lot and the paddock
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From our trip around the paddock, we collected our photo passes and got down to photographing the on-track action. We decided to start by shooting the first session from the pitlane. Later, we moved to the inside of the turns 1-2-3 complex before the Michelin walkover bridge. This is one of my favorite places to shoot, because you’ve got a number of really nice viewpoints, including a very high vantage on the cars as they traverse the right-handed turn 3. There are a lot of tire marks on that corner, and it is flanked on both sides by gravel, providing a pretty good backdrop. The second session I shot included some IMSA GT cars from the seventies and included a couple RSRs, a couple 935s, and a pair of particularly interesting 914s.
Saturday’s on track action
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The rest of Saturday, unfortunately, was Porsche-free on track. There was a session for 1950s sports racers like the Maserati’s “Birdcage”, a couple of Lister Jaguars, a handful of Ferrari racers, and a couple Aston Martin DBRs. There was also a session for early 1960s large-displacement sports cars, including a couple Jaguars, a whole gaggle of Cobras, a bunch of Mustang GT350s, and a few Corvettes. They were loud, they were raucous, and they most assuredly contributed to the ever-growing prospect of my developing tinnitus. I stuck around for the end, but there weren’t any more Porsche cars involved, so I started to pack in my camera gear and prepare to head to the hotel for the night.
On the trudge back to the parking lot to retrieve Project Boxster Clubsport I was still abuzz with an appreciation for all things vintage and all things racing. The sound of those race cars throttling around one of the most famous circuits in the world had my adrenalin production running at full bore. It wouldn’t be long until I’d be back at the crack of dawn and could continue documenting the awesome that is the Monterey Motorsport Reunion. I hadn’t even scratched the surface, and I was interested in delving a bit deeper on Sunday. Maybe conducting a couple of interviews, talking to some fellow photogs about their preffered vantage points, and cozying up to the Porsche staff on site to see if I could get some insider information (I almost never can, but it’s worth a shot). Unfortunately none of that would come to pass, as something less than awesome happened.
Whump, BANG!
As I was pulling out of Laguna Seca and accelerating up to speed to keep up with the traffic barreling down on me, it happened. Whump, BANG! That sound is one you might expect from a firearm, perhaps a farming implement, or maybe your head against the wall at the end of a particularly difficult day at the office. When you hear it from the engine compartment behind the seats of your Porsche Boxster, though, it’s even less than unwelcome.
The fears of a million message-board enthusiasts, of keyboard-mechanics everywhere, started creeping into my head. Any bad noise from the engine compartment of an M96 engine powered-Porsche surely has to spell disaster, right? Its an intermediate shaft bearing failure, or a cylinder d-chunking issue, or some new problem as yet undiagnosed. The car is probably a paper-weight, the engine is probably toast, and my investment in the car is all about to come to naught. With all of that running through my brain, I immediately pull the plug, turn the key off, and coast to the hard shoulder of the road. I sit for a second and collect myself, but still I feel the panic creeping in. “Lets investigate a little before we get to freaked out” I said to myself as I got out of the car. There wasn’t any tell-tale steam coming out of the exhaust pipes indicating a cylinder wall failure, and more importantly, I hadn’t belched any smoke out of the tailpipes when it was running. I got down on the ground to inspect the underside, and found no pools of fluid that would point to a total engine failure. Well, how bad could it be, right?
Figuring that there were two ways this could go if I fired it back up, neither within my control, I got back in the driver’s seat. Either the engine is already destroyed, and I can’t do much more damage, or all is well and it’ll drive away. Cross your fingers and fire it up. Everything sounds okay, but there is an “alternator failure” and a “power assisted steering failure” light on the dashboard. Ok great, it’s just a serpentine belt failure, I can work with this. Thinking a little clearer now, I know that I have about 5 miles to go to get to the hotel and a limited amount of battery life and more importantly a limited amount of heat the engine could endure before it all went belly up. With heavy steering and a steadily increasing coolant temperature gauge, I headed toward my resting place for the night. I’ll figure it out once I get there, I reassured myself.
With My Parking Space Secured For The Night, The Work Really Starts
I’m not sure what made me think about it, but that morning when I left, I decided to throw a 10mm wrench in my pocket “just in case”, and boy did I ever need it. Pushing the seats forward and removing the rear passenger-compartment carpeting, there is a small metal cover that is held on with a handful of 10mm fastners and my wrench came in quite handy. Once that was removed, my suspicions were confirmed and the serpentine belt was sitting silent at the bottom of the engine compartment, but it wasn’t snapped or broken. So what caused it to come loose? The culprit was equally sitting still on the little plastic cover at the bottom of the engine compartment, the pulley from the water pump. Oh boy, this wasn’t going to be fun.
The previous owner of the car had suffered a water pump failure just days before we picked up the car earlier this spring, after we’d already paid for it. Being a gentleman and a scholar, he said that he would gladly purchase a new pump and have it installed by his mechanic before we picked it up, but that this would delay things a few days. No problem, the peace of mind of a new pump is always good, and worth the wait. When we got the car, he handed over the keys, and a receipt (including a separately purchased lifetime warranty) for the pump. Fast forward 9 months, and I’m regretting his decision to source the pump from NAPA’s rebuild program. What, on my opinion, is most likely a cheap Chinese bearing replacement, in a factory aluminum casting, does not a new pump make. Now we’re 400 miles from home, stranded with a pump failure only 9 months after the thing was installed. Joy of joys.
No Part Stores Are Open On Sunday
By the time I got all of this figured out, all of the parts stores had closed for the night, and the following day being Sunday, only NAPA would be open. How convenient. The nearest NAPA was about 2 miles away, and the car had proven that it could make it that far without overheating, so I took a shower and went to sleep comfortably pushing all of my worries out of my head. That would be for future-me to figure out in the morning, I guess.
Sunday
Long night’s sleep over with, I patiently awaited 9 A.M. for NAPA to open and trotted in with my dilemma. Of course, they didn’t have the part in stock, had no way to order one for delivery, and none of the local-ish stores had one in stock either. There was one at the local depot, but they didn’t make deliveries on Sundays. Of course they don’t. Running out of options, I walked next door to a small privately-owned non-chain tire shop. I’ll refrain from naming them, because technically working on a car in a parking lot is illegal in California, but they were very helpful, and I couldn’t have gotten through the day without them.
The tire shop was staffed on that fateful Sunday by a pair of very nice guys who could tell I was in a bind and needed a helping hand. They said that they couldn’t do the work on the car because they weren’t mechanics, but rather just tires-and-brakes guys. What they could offer me, however, was a place to park the car for the day, a floor jack, a catch pan for the coolant, and as many tools as I needed (assuming they had them). Better get to work, then, eh? The plan was, since there wasn’t a replacement pump available, to remove the pump that was on the car, re-fit the missing pump pulley as best as possible, reinstall the pump, and head for home.
Wow Is That Hot
Job one was getting the old pump off of the car, and of course the two-mile drive that morning had super-heated everything up to about 200 degrees. There were a total of seven 10mm bolts holding the pump to the engine case, and I proceeded to burn my fingerprints off on every single one of them, each one getting more difficult as superheated coolant seeped out into my palm. The tight space behind the seats is not enough to fit a human, and the tight space between the water pump and the forward firewall is not enough to fit a large human hand, especially considering I didn’t have a proper set of tools at my disposal. Most tire shops don’t have much need for a 3/8ths inch drive ratchet, and a half inch drive was much too large for the job, I guess it was my wrench that would have to do. In the process of the removal, I managed to bash each of my knuckles, smash a thumbnail, and utterly anger myself to the point of near-breakdown. I weighed my options throughout the process, and as I got further into the job, burning the car to the ground and catching a greyhound back home sounded better and better. I managed to persevere and get the pump off of the car, however, some 3 hours later.
After the pump was off, it was time to press the pulley back onto its driven shaft. Was there a press available? Not really. We wedged the pump between a couple of blocks of wood to avoid marring the pump’s vanes, and slammed the pulley back onto the shaft with a huge rubber mallet. Was it to engineer’s specifications? Not even close, but it might work. The sealing surface of the pump did get a bit marred in the process, but I was desperate and willing to make it work. After that was done, I slobbed on a dollop of JB Weld for good measure. If I’d had better tools at my disposal, I probably would have drilled a hole through the pulley and shaft and pinned it with a cotter pin. Alas, it wasn’t to be and I had to make do with what I had.
Time To Reinstall
From there, reinstallation took about half as much time, as the engine was no longer filled with extra hot fluids, and I had started to regain feeling in my fingertips. I felt like I was working in double-time, and was getting excited to be finished. The pump went back on without a lot of trouble, and of course I was forced to reuse the old metal gasket. I wasn’t sure it would seal correctly, but I planned to pack a few extra gallons of water, and make the best of a bad situation. With the help of one of the shop workers, I got the serpentine belt routed correctly and tightened back up. Luckily it looked to be in good enough shape to make the journey. From about 9 A.M. to about 2:30 P.M. I was working on this little debacle, but it felt good to get it buttoned up and back on the road. I was filthy and I was sore, but I felt accomplished. now all I had to do was make it home. Crisis averted, hopefully.
First thing’s first, though, I still had a photography vest to return to the track, and there was still about 2 hours of on-track action that I could catch if I hurried. There was one on-track session that I was particularly interested in, which featured IMSA and Group-C prototypes. Before that, though, there were a couple sessions I managed to catch, including a 1950s sports GT group, and the thunderous Trans-Am cars of the early 1970s.
Sunday’s on track action
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As things wound down, I said my goodbyes and informed a few colleagues of my tribulations from the day passed. I returned my bright orange track-issued photography vest, and trekked back to the Boxster sitting calmly in the shade. It was ready for the 400 mile trek home, and I supposed I was as ready as I’d ever be. I didn’t return any of the carpeting to its proper place, so that I could quickly check on the pump and its pulley periodically when I stopped for food or fuel. That made for a very loud and very hot drive, but it was manageable with the renewed function of the air conditioning and a bit of late afternoon top-down driving. Let’s motor! Reno or bust, as they say.
For the first 50 miles, traffic was pretty slow moving out of the Monterey area. People had had their fill of cars for the last week, and like me, were headed home counting down the days until next year’s trip. Keeping an eye on the temperature needle, I was pretty happy that it settled in to a comfortable 185ish degrees, and stayed there. There wasn’t any fuss, no issues with the pump, and it didn’t seem to be visibly leaking. I babied the car home by never going above 2500 RPM until I was at highway speeds, and even then staying at 2800, cruising at 68 mph the whole way. It took 7 hours to traverse the trip, instead of the usual 5. Keeping gear shifts below 2000 RPM, and completely avoiding sharp acceleration or deceleration certainly helped to keep strain on the pulley to a minimum, and it seemed to work.
About 3 hours into the trip, I stopped for fuel and checked on the fluid levels. I’m not sure if it was a few hours of steady spinning, or the sudden change of pressure, but it was enough to cause a small leak from the pump, as I was pumping in the premium grade, a small thin river of fluid trickled out of the back of the car. It wasn’t enough to worry about, so I just motored onward and kept an eye on the temps.
As I pulled into my driveway around midnight on Sunday night, I threw my fist into the air like Bender at the end of ‘The Breakfast Club’. I had made it, and I had survived. More importantly, however, the car had survived. Now that it’s all over, I hope I never have to do that again. I got home at just after midnight smelling like coolant and sweat, I was covered from head to toe in grime, I was wearing a t-shirt and shorts covered in dirt, both of my thumbs were smashed, every knuckle was busted, and all of my muscles ached like I was mere hours from death. You know what that feels like? It feels like VICTORY!
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View Comments (4)
Awesome!! Control your destiny. 911's are a PITA to work on but Boxster ownership must be a calling. Did you replace the NAPA pump for a OEM? Err, doesn't NAPA sell tools?? I know they were annoying, but it's what you got to do. Oh, never put water into a radiator, just buy the 50/50 pre-mix to top off. Adding water will lower the boiling point.
NAPA did have some tools, but they were pretty well sold out of anything I needed. The 3/8ths drive stuff was pretty minimal, but I did buy a ratchet, a swivel, an extension, and a 10mm socket to try it out. In some places it worked, in other places the 10mm wrench was more effective. The ratchet felt like it had about 5 clicks in a full 360 degree turn, so it wasn't quality to say the least. The swivel extension was even less effective, as it had the structural rigidity of a soup noodle.
I've replaced the pump with one from Gates, as it appeared quality enough to install, and was available much quicker than a new Genuine pump. We'll see if my choice was foolish or not when I'm stranded in Monterey next year!
As for the coolant, I bought some quality Porsche coolant and properly mixed it with the correct amount of water. I have put a few hundred miles on the car since the new pump install, and it keeps temps right where they need to be. While in Monterey, though, I was just looking for the quick fix to get me home!
Just two months ago, on the night of July 4th, had my water pump basically explode on my 02 Boxster-S, and yes I immediately thought the same thing...IMS failure. I had a total coolant loss and the temp gauge went straight to red. I did the right thing and shut off the engine and pulled to the side of the country road in the middle of NoWheresville, AL. Had to wait 3.5 hours for AAA to send a Jerri-Dan (flatbed) tow truck (which isn't saying much for AAA, probably won't renew with them next year...kinda like your NAPA deal). Luckily was the coolant pump and serpentine belt only and had no engine damage or blown head gasket or the like.
Wouldnt have had any of those problems with an air-cooled! Of course you probably would have had a whole other slew of problems instead...