911, battery disconnected & hood latch inoperative

[JimHeywood]

Hello all,

Apologies for the cross-post. I just realized I'd posted to the end of a thread in the wrong forum (I have a 911). It looks like my reply never posted there, so trying again (hopefully in the right place this time).

Summary: 2011 911 Turbo S (997), battery disconnected before a long trip, now can't open the hood to reconnect it. My original post is as follows:

Hello all,

Same problem as described here, only this is with my 2011 911 (997). Battery disconnected before a long trip (already bought a trickle charger, won't make that mistake again). Returned to find I can't access either the trunk (front) nor the engine (rear) to reconnect the battery or otherwise jumpstart the car.

Found the red jumper post inside the fuse box in the wheel well, tried to start the car with + to that post and - to the metal loop in the driver's side door, both from a known good battery, but no luck -- the electrical system doesn't even turn on. (Had the remote handy to turn off the alarm and checked that the red light turns on when I press the button, so the battery in the key is good.)

Called Porsche and they said that disconnecting the battery effectively breaks continuity between the jumper post in the fusebox and the entire electrical system, so the only way to deal with this is to have them come and tow the car to their shop (where they would presumably take off the wheel and access the mechanical cable release). But as an electrical engineer, that seems odd to me, unless there are, say, two wires normally on the + battery terminal (sandwiched beneath a hex not), and in the process of disconnecting the battery I further disconnected those two wires from each other. (I honestly don't remember.)

So, two questions:

1) Is it worth trying this with the door closed? (I'd used the door latch for ground, which obviously gets in the way.) Could use the steering wheel shaft for ground instead.

2) If trying fuse C3, "third row down" is slightly ambiguous. My fusebox looks like the one in this picture:

http://www.6speedonline.com/forums/attachment.php?attachmentid=155392&d=1311996304

so the top "row" is about 1.5X taller than the rest and has fuses oriented both horizontally and vertically. Would C3 then be the blue 15A fuse in the second row of all-vertical fuses (between the red 7.5A and the beige 25A ones), third from the left?

Thanks very much in advance for any suggestions,

-Jim

[Chuck.H]

Why don't YOU take off the wheel and access the cable release?

Nothing snarky intended, yours sounds like a beautiful car, but this is exactly why I love my '89 :-)

Chuck.H
'89 TurboLookTarga, 373k miles

[DaytonaCoupe66]

I did the same thing with my 2007 Cayman when I first got it - I am more accustomed to old technology, and removing batteries over the winter months. I purchased an adapter plug for the cigarette lighter with bare wires comving from the non-male end from Radio Shack, some wire, and alligator clips. Attach wire to the adaptor and plugg it in the cigarette lighter. Place a 12 V battery near the driver door, attach the power wire to the + battery pole, ground to the - battery pole, and activate the hood/trunk button. Presto - it opened. I put this new tool in the glove box for potential dead battery events.

Ain't technology grand. Good luck!