Grant already has a thread going, on the 914 turnout at that event. I'll try to post a couple pics there later when I get them out of my camera, but I wanted to post this story here rather than hijack his thread --
Upon leaving the Marina AutoX sunday afternoon, my friend (& fellow 914 owner) Theo & I decided we needed to make a caffeine stop, but given the lack of Starbucks's in the area we opted to stop at a nearby McD's instead.
Two folks from the AutoX were there (..from the Marina autocross, you say? All of 2 miles from the site - can you imagine that?!) [/sarcasm], one of whom was a lady with a really pretty old blue 912. She was standing in the parking lot by her car, talking on her cell phone and looking somewhat harried, while a guy with a yellow 911 (yeah ok the colors don't matter but WTF, it's my story, OK?) there stood by with her.
[Unfortunately, being AWFUL at remembering peoples' names I've forgotten them both & must resort to referring to them as '912Gal ' and "911Guy" here.]
updated, 8/16: here's a photo of 912Gal's car at the AutoX - about 3/4 down this page;
and here's a photo of 911Guy's car at the AutoX, and with a name - Larry.
While passing them on the way inside, & exchanging brief greetings, I thought I'd overheard something to the effect of, "lost keys". But I couldn't imagine how you could leave a driving event and then lose your keys at your 1st stop two miles later, so I dismissed it as my having mis-heard what was said.
Well, Theo & I headed inside & ordered some food - why bother with just a soda, might as well eat while we're here - and while eating inside we watched as a AAA type service truck showed up. Out came a long piece of wire; the guy futzed around through the rear wing window of the 912 while 911Guy looked on & tried to direct his efforts from the other side of the car. And shortly later, AAA-guy retrieved a "slim-jim" from his truck - ok, she obviously locked her keys in her car. After a bit of trouble (..apparently 912's aren't so easy to slim-jim into - or else Junior wasn't as talented at breaking&entering as he stereotypically appeared he might be), they got the car open. AAA-guy took out his service record book, receipts were written/signed/traded, and it appeared the problem was over & done with.
No such luck.
More standing around, and harried looks from 912Gal while she was on the cell phone again. Hmm, what's up with that, we wondered. Well by this time Theo & I had finished our food and we wandered outside, puzzling over what was going on. After a brief chat we found out that what I'd heard before was true - 912Gal had in fact lost her keys. Talk about a strange bit of bad luck: Apparently she had left her keys on the counter when they went in -- they were on what, she said, was a rather pretty key fob -- and some &^%# *@^#& [you get the idea] walked off with them! Jerks.
It gets worse: According to AAA-guy, nobody in the Salinas area could come out & help with a replacement key for her rare old car (a '67 if memory serves), least of all at that late hour on a Sunday. She would need to contact a locksmith or specialty shop of some sort. So her options at this point were, she could leave the car there & try to fetch a spare key [assuming she had one] from her home, ~90 miles away, or she could have the car trucked home and try to get a replacement key later.
WOW, talk about "sucks to be you"--!!
Now I didn't really want to get involved, because you know the old rule, Never Work On A Stranger's Car, Especially A Very Old And Very Nice Car You Know Nothing About [not to mention, Especially On What Appears To Be An Electrically-Related Problem Whereas You're Mainly Good At Things Mechanical In Nature] -- because then you become the owner of ALL their car's problems. But this situation obviously sucked big-time: 912Gal was looking at a multi-hundreds-$$$ tow fee (more on this, below) to get her car trucked home, and hell, by this point there were now five guys standing around - including a new AAA guy who had just shown up with a flatbed truck to haul her car home (and who in fact joked that he could hot-wire the car, yet wouldn't go near it); someone must be able to figure out a solution, right?
Curiously, our polite inquires to random strangers walking up to the McDonald's, "Hey do you know how to hot-wire a car?", while standing around this pretty old blue gem, garnered no positive responses.
Well, 911Guy figured out you could see - and reach quite easily - all the wires to the ignition switch/module under the dash. But due to a vision problem he was reluctant to start picking & pulling & poking around under there. And it turned out my friend Theo had a "voltage tester" with him (pointy screwdriver-looking thing, light bulb in it, and a wire/alligator-clip running out the end; I may go buy one, after what happened here). Handy for figuring out if/where you have live 12V power. And in what turned out to be the jackpot of the day, I had a small length of wire with a couple alligator clips on it, in my toolbox. Something I had made up ~15 years ago for doing some sort of diagnostic type activity on my old Microbus (a '67, coincidentally) - and something I have kept in my toolbox ever since.
Anyway, long story short (..because, you know, I CAN'T just WRITE a SHORT freakin' story), after some picking/pulling/poking [and a couple large & very startling but thankfully harmless sparks], we were able to figure out which wires did what, and I was able to hook up my little wire-with-alligator-clips jumper to the correct wires (I'm leaving out specifics for what I hope are obvious reasons); we got the car started, and off home she went. TA DAA!!
-- Oh, and yes, as was mentioned elsewhere, I drew a little wiring diagram of the connections: I had awful visions of 912Gal hitting a bump while halfway home, having the wires come loose, and perhaps having to try to crawl under the dash again, on the freeway or perhaps some dark road in the dark (and yes, what I just wrote will likely get me reported to the Dept. of Redundancy Dept.), to try to get it sorted out all over again.
[ : : pulls shoulder muscle while trying to pat self on back : : ]
Ironically, 912Gal only had the "standard" AAA membership/tow coverage, not "Premium" - the difference being 5 miles' free tow, versus 100, which was almost exactly what she had needed -- and a service I have and was, in fact, recently tempted to get downgraded to "standard", due to the higher annual cost and the rather good reliability of my cars in recent times.
Reliable cars notwithstanding, I think I'll hang on to that extra tow coverage.
So, kids, lesson for the day is, whether you bother to carry any tools in your car or not, you might want to carry a few spare fuses in your glovebox (..we didn't need fuses that day - despite the sparks - but a burnt fuse would be much more likely to strand your car and, depending on the cause, probably easy to fix); oh and while you're at it, maybe hang onto a small roll of electrical tape, and maybe, a hunk of wire with some alligator clips on it. Twenty-five cents' worth of small electrical components could save you or a fellow Nice Old Car Owner some big$$$ on towing/service fees someday (I'm stopping at the electrical supply place on the way home tonight to replace mine); you just never know.
And if anyone brings their old 912 to a Porsche gathering which I happen to attend, and if your car's nice, you might want to get a "Club" for it... or else you might want to follow me, if I appear to wandering off early. I might be looking at a new profession, now - or at least a new car acquisition.
