2024 | A 986 S

2023 ended before I completed all the items on the maintenance list so I picked up where I left off, starting with the cabin air filter.

Accessing the cabin air filter is as easy as getting to the engine air filter was difficult. Just pull off the battery cover and remove one screw and there you are.

There's the filter! The old one slides right out and the new one slides right in...

We also flushed new fluid through the brake lines. The Boxster didn't seem to like my MityVac so my son Ben pumped the pedal while I twisted the bleed screw. I'll assume you know how brake bleeding works so I didn't take photos of that process. There are a couple of things that I did want to point out.

Brake fluid is notoriously bad for paint, so I use the same splash guard that I use when adding oil when I add brake fluid.

It's wise to verify that the thickness of the brake rotors remain within spec while the wheels are off. Easy to do with my dad's micrometers..

The passenger side window had not been lowering the expected half-inch when opening the door and was the source of wind noise as well. Time to tear into the door and address this issue.

Ready to start. You'll recall that I replaced the regulator on the driver's side window years ago, but this side was different.

The door card is held in place by five fasteners, including one hidden under this fragile clip.

Another is hidden under the door handle cover. To my surprise, I found that one of the door card screws had a stripped-out head. My first clue that someone had been inside this door before me.

Each of the door card fasteners is different. I keep track of what goes where by inserting them in a scrap of cardboard in the same orientation as they were in the door. A new replacement for the damaged screw is in the bag.

With the door card loose you can disconnect the cable to the inside door handle.

And the various electrical connections.

Removing the door card revealed that the door liner had been cut (just left of the air bag) and that the rubber plugs for the openings above the liner were missing.

Using a heat gun to soften the glue made it easy to un-stick the bottom half of the door liner so it could be folded up and out of the way. Here I'm removing the door speaker. At this point it was obvious that the regulator wasn't original.

Before ordering the new part, I thought I'd see if a bicycle cable adjuster could take up the slack in the regulator cable thus allowing the window to operate properly.

Here it is in place, looking like it should work. Well, it didn't, partly because the aluminum adjuster wasn't stout enough (a steel adjuster would have been better) and partly because of the cheap aftermarket regulator that was in the door.

We'll call the adjuster attempt a failed experiment. Here in the process of removing the window motor and regulator.

The new part just arrived. This part at least appears to be better made than the one I'm replacing. Hopefully that's the case.

New unit and old. Note the expanded spring on the old unit and compressed spring on the new.

Putting things back together is just the reverse of taking them apart. It's really a pretty straight forward project.

If you compare the way I changed the driver's side regulator in 2018 with how I changed the passenger's side in 2024 you'll see that my process was different. The regulator that I replaced on the driver's side appeared to be original, correctly installed when the car was built in Finland. I made a point of carefully marking its position so that I could install the new regulator in exactly the same place as the old. This time around, I had no such confidence that the obviously cheap aftermarket regulator I was replacing was installed properly. It seemed a better idea to follow the directions in my Boxster references (Bentley manual, 101 Projects book, Factory manual). This seems to have been a good choice. The window works the way a window should and the wind noise has gone away. We'll chalk this up as a win!

Although I had read horror stories about the terrible things that can happen to a Boxster's electrical system if it's drains become blocked and water overflows, I never thought my car could ever have such a problem. The last time I had the convertible top in "service position" I noticed a few leaves in one of the drains. It wasn't completely plugged, and I was able to pull them out with forceps, but finding the leaves made me realize that the drain could be clogged more easily than I thought. It seemed like a good idea to see what I could do to keep debris out of the drains in the future.

This is the drain on the left side of the convertible top compartment, just behind the driver's left sholder.

These screens clip into the drains to keep leaves and similar debris out, hopefully preventing clogs.

The new screen in place of the left-hand side.

And one on the right side too. Well worth the nominal cost of the screens for the peace of mind they give me.

When I had the behind-the-seat storage cubby out to access the engine air filter I noticed that the foam surrounds on the rear shelf speakers had deteriorated and were srarting to crumble. Obviously, that made repairing them my next project...

Note that part of the foam surround on the right speaker had broken away. The surrounds on all four of the rear shelf speakers would crumble with the lightest touch.

Carefully removing the old foam. You'd think that the old foam would be dry but instead it had broken down to to sticky, gooey stuff...

Here's one pair of speakers with the old foam and adhesive removed along with the replacement surrounds. Hopefully, the rubber replacements won't break down like the foam did.

Glue applied, ready to set in place. As is typical for this type of project, I couldn't find replacements with exactly the same size as the originals. These are pretty close and should work just fine but their smaller inside diameter made installing them a bit of a challenge.

The speakers with new surrounds in place, ready to be reinstalled. I made a point to label the speaker wires, so it was easy to reconnect them properly.

Everything back together, ready to be put back in the car. The storage box is back in place and the speakers connected. The car's audio sounds great!

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