All posts tagged projectcars

Changing Brake Pads on the Porsche Boxster S

The Porsche Boxster S came with brakes that squealed when you drove it to a stop, so it was in desperate need of change of pads. Finally, I spent the ~$400 and purchased original Porsche brake pads from Pelican Parts. Turns out compared to changing the brake pads on the Miata it is much easier to change it on the Porsche Boxster S.

Buying New Jack Stands

Harbor Freight had all their jack stands recalled. I returned all the jack stands I had and took store credit. So I was in the market for new jack stands and wanted something more sturdy that would not have the problems that the Harbor Freight jack stands were recalled for.

So I went with Pro-Lift T-6906D 6-ton jack stands with double locking pins as that would be much safer to use on my cars. This would also enable me to change wheels or brake pads on my parent’s vehicles which are the compact crossover SUVs. This post describes the unboxing of the jack stands that I purchased for a total of $92 on Amazon.

Changing the Front Brake Pads

The Miata had gone two years without any brake changes by me, and having never done it before I thought it would be a good idea to learn how to change brake pads. This would be a skill very useful before going on the track or for an autocross event. In this post, I demonstrate how to change the front brake pads.

Changing the Valve Cover Gasket

The Miata’s engine has an easy to change Valve Cover Gasket, which I chose to replce because I saw some potential oil leak at the bottom of the car. I asked on reddit and the users said that it was probably a bad valve cover gasket and should be replaced, which is what I ended up doing. I am not sure if that has fixed the problem yet but will keep checking. It is quite an easy fix.

Jump-starting the Porsche Boxster S

First I added 2 gallons of gasoline in the Boxster. Then I tried to start it with the key in the ignition.

The Boxster was completely dead. So probably the battery was dead and needed a jump-start.

The battery is in the front trunk and the trunk does not have a manual lever to open it, in the event that the battery is dead. The Boxster fuse box (Figure 1) has a special red terminal (Figure 3) for a spare battery to turn on just enough electronics in the car to pop the front trunk. Once the front trunk is popped, you can access the battery and jump-start the full car.