s time to address my rear spoiler issue. I get the warning light. most of the time I can manually raise and lower, but at the manual raise cycle (and auto I think) I get the light. There is alittle but of fluid on the passanger side, under the ca p around the nut. not much and not enough to stop it operating most of the time, so I'm thinking electrical switch. I've read posts about the two microswitches but I haven't seen any pictures of the procedure to replace them. where are they?
when I remove the bottom 4 inch over under the cylinder, there are wires at for and aft of the bottom of the cylinder. seems like there;s a plug that I can seen in closest one. is that the microswitch?

where is the actual pump for the cylinder's I see a fan and duct on the rear hood but nothing that looks like a pump. have to remove some hood housing? is that necessary to get to the switches.
anyone have a pictured procedure for this? don't want to start pulling wires from places.

here is what I'm looking at.

 

The electric pump is under the fan shroud. Since you got a warning and a leak you should service and bleed the system. Many thread on the subject and the search engine will help you....

 

here's some links....


https://www.6speedonline.com/forums/...ydraulics.html

https://www.6speedonline.com/forums/...r-spoiler.html


https://www.6speedonline.com/forums/...t-s-wrong.html


http://rennlist.com/forums/996-turbo...ms-help-3.html

 

read the threads. thanks. looks alittle too complicated for me to remove the wing. I thought it might be just the switches since the wing raises and lowers, the light goes on when it finishes raising, (don't know whether it's full travel up) could be light goes on because it's not.

I'm sure not going to spend one or 2 k fixing. will try putting some wd 40 on the cylinders, some electrical contact spray on the connectors; jiggle
the connectors around alitte and see if that does anything (hopefully won't make it worse, which is my often result in self repairs).

 

Also interesting reading here: http://rennkit.com/why-factory-set-fails/

 

Pumps are easy to fix pull it apart swap out the o rings re fill with oil mixture 50/50 stop leak and pentonsin or whatever you can find at ur local shop follow instructions in the 996T's manual found on this site for re filling procedure. The re filling procedure is the hardest part.

Should take you an afternoon and half a case.

Cheers
Tim

 

thanks JP, of note, scroll down and there is a factory troubleshooting guide.

djcooper@rennkit.com

 

The cylinders are under the dust shields, those bright metal telescoping tubes.

It won't help even if you douse the dust shields and exposed cylinder rods with WD40. The fluid pressure is very high when the spoiler is deployed and no drag that WD40 could "fix" would hinder the cylinder action.

(The WD40 will just attract dust and the dust will in fact add to any drag but the hydraulic system will probably not care. All that one succeeds in doing is causing wear at the dust shields where no wear would occur otherwise.)

The spoiler hydraulic system is low on fluid. This condition won't get better, but worse. In not too much time the spoiler will no longer go up evenly.

Once the spoiler is down you can "disable" the spoiler by pulling a fuse. Be aware this fuse also is the fuse for the engine compartment lid circuit -- at least in my 2003 Turbo -- and you can't open the engine compartment with the switch on the panel next to the driver seat.

If you drive fast enough the spoiler would deploy the spoiler warning light will come on.

Also, if you "disable" the spoiler, you might consider installing a fuse in the 2nd connector that causes the engine compartment fan to run all the time the engine is on. This fan running all the time blows cool air through the engine compartment all the time the engine is on and since the spoiler no longer deploys could make up for the drop in positive pressure the deployed spoiler creates over the engine compartment lid to help force cool air through the engine compartment when the engine/turbos are hard a work and generating lots of heat.

You should wash/rinse the leaked hydraulic fluid away as this fluid is not nice to some materials.

Some have had success "rebuilding" the spoiler hydraulics, which among other things involves refilling the hydraulic system with the proper amount of fluid and making sure both sides have equal amounts and no air trapped.

Some have resorted to using a stop leak fluid... I have no comment.

Rebuilding was not an option in my case. I had no place to attempt this and no time. The tech at the dealer told me they had no setup to do this and the cost to create one and the labor and what have you would equal or surpass the cost of just replacing the spoiler system with a new one. There was too at least the benefit of a 2 year warranty on the new spoiler hardware.

So, I had the spoiler system replaced with a new one. It was a bit pricey, around $2K. If I still have the car the next time the spoiler system goes out I'm not sure what I will do.

There are the solid mount "kits" offered and someone has come up with a deployable spoiler kit which does away with the overly complicated fragile hydraulic system and instead uses an electrical system to deploy/retract the spoiler.

I know nothing more about this electrically operated spoiler system and its cost.

I will note that my 2002 Boxster with its electrically operated spoiler is working just fine with the car now over the 300K mile mark.

In my Turbo, that stupid hydraulic spoiler system didn't even last half that mileage number.

 

1. Better than pulling the fuse and disabling the lid release, light and spoiler, just pull one of the leads to the spoiler electric motor above the fan. Lower the black shroud and it becomes visible. 2. I am that "someone", in fact you and I have corresponded about the electric mechanism before Macster. Post #7.

 

If your wing is going up and down correctly and you're still getting a light, it's either low fluid or a microswitch.

You could try to bypass the switches somehow, or take them off the ram and manually trigger them when someone else presses the wing control to rule the switches out before you go ripping into the hydraulics.

As far as bypassing the switch and retaining wing function without a light coming on... It's something I'm working on and will share when I figure it out. From what I have studied, these microswitches do not cut power to the pump at certain height level, they simply trigger the warning light if the spoiler does not reach expected levels within a certain time frame.... I could be wrong about it cutting power to pump, but I haven't been able to figure out how it would, the signal would have to go through the gauge cluster somehow if that is an actual function.

I've been trying to figure out the circuit, I believe the top microswitch is NC (normally closed) and the bottom is NO (normally open) and they share a COM (common) that goes to a ground. So raise the wing and trigger the top switch manually-- if the light still comes on, I think that would identify the microswitch being your problem. Repeat by lowering and manually triggering the lower switch and see if that works as well.

 

The microswitches send a signal to the ECU - which kills the pump motor through a set of 2 relays. There is also a short time out function for extend and a longer one for retract. Trust me to develop the "eBox" circuitry that eliminates the warning took 100's of manhours in reverse engineering mode.

 

From what I've looked at, it is an insanely complex system, I 100% believe it took forever.

I was helping a friend bleed his rams and when pulling the microswitches one of them fell to pieces so I gave him mine to replace it. I felt bad because I was the one that disconnected it. Rather than buying another fragile little switch I've been looking at ways of bypassing mine while maintaining the function of the wing... The Porsche wiring diagrams are so complex, to me it seemed that the microswitch signal ended at the gauge cluster.

Maybe I should just buy your eBox or another microswitch to hold me over lol

 

interesting reading especialy the site for the electric actuated system. that's expensive: (like 1400 to 1700) but less than the factory part. since the factory system is so poorly designed, I don't see the value proposition of spending more for an inferior system. so if I were to replace, I'd go with the electrical system.
I recall from another thread someone who replaced the micoswitches for like 60 bucks. is there a write up with pictures on how to do that and where to get the switches? before I seriously contemplate such a big expense for the spoiler, which basically works except for the light, I should probably try a cheaper fix, if it's not too difficult. the switches seems me be under the cylinder in that plastic housing. Can I just take a jewler' screwdriver and work out the front (spoiler close switch) first then the back (raise switch).




and as predicted wd 40 on the cylinder and clearing the housing and some light tapping to make sure the switches were properly connected didn't help.

 

To remove the microswitches there are 4 tiny T15 torx (maybe T10 torx... very small) screws that hold the assembly to the ram. 3 easily visible and 4th one in between the 2 switches. It bolts to the body of the hydraulic ram. Unscrew those and pull the whole assembly off of the ram and you have access to trigger both switches.

You can pop the switches out of the housing without removing it from the ram if you really wanted to, but that's an easy way to break one of them.

 

will take your advice and remove the housing from the cylinder.


assuming I get it off. what's the test to see if it's the switches?






thanks