Hi all, I’m looking for some advice.
Several weeks ago I noticed I was losing power steering fluid. I contacted a local independent Porsche specialist (who I haven’t used before, but wanted to give them a try, as I'm thinking of moving from where I currently have my annual service) and they agreed to have a look at it. They told me that the seals in the steering rack had gone and recommended that I had the steering rack refurbished; they would send the rack away to get that done. I told then to go ahead and 3 weeks ago they had completed the work and I picked up the car. I’m not leaking steering fluid any more, so that would seem successful, but that isn’t what I’m asking for advice on.
I’ll continue....
On collecting the car I was told that they had noticed I had a bit of a dead spot on the accelerator, this isn’t something I’d noticed before. They also told me that it felt quite quick for a standard 944 of this age. I explained that I had replaced the standard throttle cam with a circular throttle response cam; they said that would explain the different throttle response (but presumably not the dead spot!)When I started the car to take it away, I blipped the throttle to help get it started and it revved really high, it has never reacted like this before. On the drive home I noticed that there was a dead spot on the accelerator, at somewhere around 3,000rpm. As I got onto a more open road I pushed the accelerator a bit more and after a fairly large range of no response it then revved really high. More worryingly it continued to rev high after I let off the accelerator. Fortunately the revs dropped back after a fraction of a second, so I drove home carefully in the lower rev range. At this point I was pretty annoyed at the garage where I’d had the steering rack work done, as I’d never had this issue before the work was done.
When I got home I had a look under the bonnet and found a slight fray on the throttle cable. "Aha” I thought, this would explain the dead spot and sticking at high revs, the frayed bit of the cable must be getting caught in the sheath. So I ordered a new cable and called the garage where I’d had the steering rack done to explain that I’d found the cause of the accelerator issues. They said that made sense and I told them that I was going to have a go at replacing it myself, but given my general mechanical ineptitude I might be giving them a call to help me out if things went wrong.
So, a week later I replaced the accelerator cable. However, to my annoyance the accelerator was still getting stuck when fully depressed. I unattached the accelerator cable from the lug at the top of the bar that attaches to the accelerator pedal and pulled on the cable - it was moving freely and returning back to the throttle closed position. However the pedal (with the cable still unattached) was getting stuck at the bottom of the range. I couldn’t tell what was going wrong, but I did notice that the cable wasn’t running through the middle of the hole in the insulation on the firewall. I didn’t know what to do at this point, I knew that I couldn’t drive the car, so I called the garage and asked them to send someone out to have a look at it. I told them that I was concerned that it was something that they had done as it hadn’t been like this before, but they said that it wouldn’t have been them as they only took the steering rack out which is at the other end of the engine bay.
Anyway, they came out and had a look, they thought that it could be due to wear on the bushes at the pivot on the metal arm that connects the pedal to the cable; I said that if that was the case, I’d expect to be able to move the metal arm around so that the cable aligned to the middle of the hole in the insulation, which I couldn’t. I then hypothesised that the arm itself could have been bent slightly. They said that this could be feasible, but that again it wouldn’t have been anything to do with them and that my problems were wear and tear issues on a car with 140k miles. So I paid them for their time on the call out and phoned the OPC parts department again to order a new accelerator pedal arm, return spring, bushes, washers and retaining clips.
These arrived at the end of last week, so I went about replacing all of these this weekend. To my dismay, the new metal arm was exactly the same shape as the old one, therefore dispelling my hypothesis that the old one had become bent. However, I duly replaced all of the old parts with new. This didn't rectify the problem. Could it be that the accelerator cable was rubbing on the insulation on the firewall and that the friction was preventing the pedal from returning? On closer inspection of the insulation it appeared to have slipped down slightly from its original position, maybe when the steering column was disconnected from the steering rack? Sadly this wasn't the answer either , I disconnected the cable from the lug at the end of the metal arm but still had the same problem. On closer inspection it would appear that the geometry of the movement of the pedal and the pivoting of the metal arm are slightly misaligned. I removed the metal arm from the slot on the back of the accelerator pedal, reconnected the throttle cable and pressed the bottom of the metal arm. The metal arm moved freely and returned to the starting position without getting stuck, even though the cable was rubbing slightly on the edge of the hole in the insulation. If I rested the accelerator pedal on top of the metal arm, I could see that the starting position of the metal arm was slightly lower on the outside of the slot than it would be if it was in the slot and on depressing the pedal I could see that there was some lateral movement of the pedal along the bottom of the metal arm. Could the bracket that holds the pivot arms of the metal bar have shifted somehow whilst the steering rack work was being done? This seemed unlikely as the bracket is firmly fixed to the bulkhead and as the garage said, they wouldn't have been doing anything at that end of the engine bay. The pedal was still very firmly fixed to the floor, there was no movement at all. I didn't try to remove the pedal though as the nuts and bolts holding it in looked pretty well rusted on!
So, I resorted to a Google search. I was interested to see three separate articles on different web forums that mentioned similar problems and that this had been caused by improper jacking that had deformed the floorpan where the accelerator pedal was bolted to. I looked under the car and could see a slight mound where the accelerator pedal fixings are and noticed that this looked depressed on the outer edge (see attached photos, although it's not particularly clear from the pictures). Could this be the cause of my problem? If so, how do I fix it? The articles that I saw suggested a piece of wood and a heavy hammer, but this seems a little imprecise and I'd be worried about bashing in the wrong place. Also, this would seem to require the removal of the carpet, which doesn't look easy and I'm not sure whether I'd need a new carpet after doing this, it seems to be pretty well fixed.
Given that I didn't have any of these issues before the car went in for the steering rack work, I'm certain that they have been caused by the garage that did that work. However, they have a pretty good reputation, I'm sure the guys know what they're doing, but I'm also pretty sure that they will deny this is anything to do with them. After all, it's their word against mine as to whether I had any of these issues before I took the car in to them. Do I take it back to them, or do I take it to someone else for their opinion?
In the meantime, I've worked out that the car is driveable with the accelerator pedal resting on the bottom bar of the metal arm, rather than inserting the bar into the slot on the back of the accelerator pedal. I've pressed it up and down fully and there doesn't appear to be any danger of the pedal somehow getting jammed on or behind the bar such that the accelerator would be stuck on. The outside edge of the plastic forming the slot in which the bar is meant to be in remains in contact with the bar through the entire range of movement. I've also been out for a short drive, without any problems. Given that I am going to the Goodwood revival in a couple of weeks and wanted to take the 944, I am tempted to run it like this for a couple of weeks and then get it sorted after that. Is there any reason why I shouldn't do this?
I would appreciate your comments.
Thanks
Stuart
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Several weeks ago I noticed I was losing power steering fluid. I contacted a local independent Porsche specialist (who I haven’t used before, but wanted to give them a try, as I'm thinking of moving from where I currently have my annual service) and they agreed to have a look at it. They told me that the seals in the steering rack had gone and recommended that I had the steering rack refurbished; they would send the rack away to get that done. I told then to go ahead and 3 weeks ago they had completed the work and I picked up the car. I’m not leaking steering fluid any more, so that would seem successful, but that isn’t what I’m asking for advice on.
I’ll continue....
On collecting the car I was told that they had noticed I had a bit of a dead spot on the accelerator, this isn’t something I’d noticed before. They also told me that it felt quite quick for a standard 944 of this age. I explained that I had replaced the standard throttle cam with a circular throttle response cam; they said that would explain the different throttle response (but presumably not the dead spot!)When I started the car to take it away, I blipped the throttle to help get it started and it revved really high, it has never reacted like this before. On the drive home I noticed that there was a dead spot on the accelerator, at somewhere around 3,000rpm. As I got onto a more open road I pushed the accelerator a bit more and after a fairly large range of no response it then revved really high. More worryingly it continued to rev high after I let off the accelerator. Fortunately the revs dropped back after a fraction of a second, so I drove home carefully in the lower rev range. At this point I was pretty annoyed at the garage where I’d had the steering rack work done, as I’d never had this issue before the work was done.
When I got home I had a look under the bonnet and found a slight fray on the throttle cable. "Aha” I thought, this would explain the dead spot and sticking at high revs, the frayed bit of the cable must be getting caught in the sheath. So I ordered a new cable and called the garage where I’d had the steering rack done to explain that I’d found the cause of the accelerator issues. They said that made sense and I told them that I was going to have a go at replacing it myself, but given my general mechanical ineptitude I might be giving them a call to help me out if things went wrong.
So, a week later I replaced the accelerator cable. However, to my annoyance the accelerator was still getting stuck when fully depressed. I unattached the accelerator cable from the lug at the top of the bar that attaches to the accelerator pedal and pulled on the cable - it was moving freely and returning back to the throttle closed position. However the pedal (with the cable still unattached) was getting stuck at the bottom of the range. I couldn’t tell what was going wrong, but I did notice that the cable wasn’t running through the middle of the hole in the insulation on the firewall. I didn’t know what to do at this point, I knew that I couldn’t drive the car, so I called the garage and asked them to send someone out to have a look at it. I told them that I was concerned that it was something that they had done as it hadn’t been like this before, but they said that it wouldn’t have been them as they only took the steering rack out which is at the other end of the engine bay.
Anyway, they came out and had a look, they thought that it could be due to wear on the bushes at the pivot on the metal arm that connects the pedal to the cable; I said that if that was the case, I’d expect to be able to move the metal arm around so that the cable aligned to the middle of the hole in the insulation, which I couldn’t. I then hypothesised that the arm itself could have been bent slightly. They said that this could be feasible, but that again it wouldn’t have been anything to do with them and that my problems were wear and tear issues on a car with 140k miles. So I paid them for their time on the call out and phoned the OPC parts department again to order a new accelerator pedal arm, return spring, bushes, washers and retaining clips.
These arrived at the end of last week, so I went about replacing all of these this weekend. To my dismay, the new metal arm was exactly the same shape as the old one, therefore dispelling my hypothesis that the old one had become bent. However, I duly replaced all of the old parts with new. This didn't rectify the problem. Could it be that the accelerator cable was rubbing on the insulation on the firewall and that the friction was preventing the pedal from returning? On closer inspection of the insulation it appeared to have slipped down slightly from its original position, maybe when the steering column was disconnected from the steering rack? Sadly this wasn't the answer either , I disconnected the cable from the lug at the end of the metal arm but still had the same problem. On closer inspection it would appear that the geometry of the movement of the pedal and the pivoting of the metal arm are slightly misaligned. I removed the metal arm from the slot on the back of the accelerator pedal, reconnected the throttle cable and pressed the bottom of the metal arm. The metal arm moved freely and returned to the starting position without getting stuck, even though the cable was rubbing slightly on the edge of the hole in the insulation. If I rested the accelerator pedal on top of the metal arm, I could see that the starting position of the metal arm was slightly lower on the outside of the slot than it would be if it was in the slot and on depressing the pedal I could see that there was some lateral movement of the pedal along the bottom of the metal arm. Could the bracket that holds the pivot arms of the metal bar have shifted somehow whilst the steering rack work was being done? This seemed unlikely as the bracket is firmly fixed to the bulkhead and as the garage said, they wouldn't have been doing anything at that end of the engine bay. The pedal was still very firmly fixed to the floor, there was no movement at all. I didn't try to remove the pedal though as the nuts and bolts holding it in looked pretty well rusted on!
So, I resorted to a Google search. I was interested to see three separate articles on different web forums that mentioned similar problems and that this had been caused by improper jacking that had deformed the floorpan where the accelerator pedal was bolted to. I looked under the car and could see a slight mound where the accelerator pedal fixings are and noticed that this looked depressed on the outer edge (see attached photos, although it's not particularly clear from the pictures). Could this be the cause of my problem? If so, how do I fix it? The articles that I saw suggested a piece of wood and a heavy hammer, but this seems a little imprecise and I'd be worried about bashing in the wrong place. Also, this would seem to require the removal of the carpet, which doesn't look easy and I'm not sure whether I'd need a new carpet after doing this, it seems to be pretty well fixed.
Given that I didn't have any of these issues before the car went in for the steering rack work, I'm certain that they have been caused by the garage that did that work. However, they have a pretty good reputation, I'm sure the guys know what they're doing, but I'm also pretty sure that they will deny this is anything to do with them. After all, it's their word against mine as to whether I had any of these issues before I took the car in to them. Do I take it back to them, or do I take it to someone else for their opinion?
In the meantime, I've worked out that the car is driveable with the accelerator pedal resting on the bottom bar of the metal arm, rather than inserting the bar into the slot on the back of the accelerator pedal. I've pressed it up and down fully and there doesn't appear to be any danger of the pedal somehow getting jammed on or behind the bar such that the accelerator would be stuck on. The outside edge of the plastic forming the slot in which the bar is meant to be in remains in contact with the bar through the entire range of movement. I've also been out for a short drive, without any problems. Given that I am going to the Goodwood revival in a couple of weeks and wanted to take the 944, I am tempted to run it like this for a couple of weeks and then get it sorted after that. Is there any reason why I shouldn't do this?
I would appreciate your comments.
Thanks
Stuart
