My 1998 Porsche 911 Carrera has several unique factory options including sunroof-delete and 15” Fuchs (most ‘88s were ordered with 16” Fuchs). When I purchased it in 1997 I needed to replace the tires and because I was autocrossing I appreciated the slightly lower gearing provided by the 205/55R15 (F) and 225/50R15 (R) that were recommended to me. In the end I actually really liked the look of these slightly lower profile tires as well.
However, the slightly lower OD resulted in my speedometer reading 5-6% high and my odometer measuring miles travelled 5-6% too fast. I just lived with both these conditions until this week. The “rich” speedometer always made me feel like I was going faster than I was which probably helped me avoid some tickets.
Normally the errant odometer would not be a big deal but when I bought this car in 1997 it only had 6800 miles on it. But the fact that I was racking up “extra miles” was not THAT BIG a deal to me, or I would have done something about it like sending the speedometer into be recalibrated.
The car now shows just under 33K miles. This means it really has traveled about 31.5K miles.
Last week my temperature gauge stopped working. I was able to prove it was not the sending unit by verifying that touching the lead that goes to the sender to ground didn’t cause the gauge to peg, so it was either a broken wire or the gauge. My mechanic (Squire’s Autowerks in Bellevue, WA) had another ’88 in his shop and was able to hook it’s gauge up to my car and it worked fine.
So now I have two gauges that are in need of work. I’ve decided to send them off to North Hollywood Speedometer. To do that I need to pull them. Besides changing the oil, replacing the battery, and a few other little things I’ve never really had the need to actually work on m Porsche. Given out pristine this car is I was a bit nervous about doing this myself. My other adventure in car rehibilitation was much less stressful: a ’78 Toyota FJ40 that I restored. A slip of the screwdriver there was really no big deal. It could take it. But my Porsche!?!?
I decided to dive in and poked around here and elsewhere for pictures and instructions for pulling gauges and didn’t find anything very helpful. The Bentley manual is sorta useful but not really.
In the end it was super easy and I didn’t scratch or mar anything. I would have had a lot more confidence if I had seen some pictures though. So I’ve decided to post the pictures of this job here in the hopes that the next guy benefits.
Enjoy!
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wow your car parts looks good! really awesome! i also experienced that gauge removal on my 350z..i was pulling the needles off of the shafts.. it was about half the time that shafts pulls out of the gage motor..
Hi,
Some of the pictures for gauge removal are no longer available on your blog. Do you still have them, and if so, would you mind re-loading them? I need to pull my gauges, and I think your pictures would be very helpful. Thanks in advance!