[tevake]

This story started yesterday. When I thought that the SC Targa that I have been working to get back on the road over the last year (after a 11 year layup), was finally ready to be driven over to the other side of Kauai to get a new safety check and a new registration. It was going to be a milestone, all legal , and good to go.

It drove flawlessly the first 30 miles to the shop to get the safety check. But then had trouble getting started. would crank but not start. I ended up pulling the fuse for the fuel pump, then cranking it a bit till it fired. I had learned this when sorting some fuel pressure related issues that I had thought were sorted all ready. Put the fuse back in and continued on towards the County building in Lihue.

I was feeling pretty good at this point. the car drives well, the new brakes are stopping great, the engine pulls strong and runs smoothly. yep I was feeling good.


So I go in to do the registration. I knew this was going to hurt, 11 years of back road taxes plus penalties. All because the PO had put it into storage with the plates on the car. I knew this was coming but it was still hard to plunk down the 1,200 plus dollars to get through this. Well I paid up and walked out with the new Title and registration in hand. Walked out to the parking lot to the shiny red and black targa waiting there for the now legal drive back home. Or so I hoped.

I hopped in and tried to fire it up, with no luck, Bummer. So back to the fuse trick and crank and crank. nothing. Over the next 3 hrs I tried every thing I could think of all to no avail, nothing. So finally I called a friend who lives near by to come give me a tow to his house, thinking that it surly would fire during the tow, Not one splutter, nothing. We parked it in my friends driveway, and he tried to loan me his sons beater car to drive home for the night. But I had had enough car troubles for one day, so I hitch hiked , very quickly too, to the North Shore (All that hitching hiking Karma coming back, I pick up folks all the time, even in the porsche) It is a small island here, and we try to help each other out.

Hang in there with me. This is getting a bit long winded, I know.
So today my main go to buddy and I drove over in my tundra with some tools to get the targa one way or another. Turns out there is no spark. Coil bad? I just don't know.
It will be much easier to sort at home.

So we hooked up a tow rope and headed out in mid day saturday traffic heading home.
Whew, what a drive. We tried to keep a gap from the car in front of us to avoid any quick stops. But you can guess that along the way other drivers thought that gap was just the chance they were waiting for and the pulled out in front of us or tried to cut thru from the other lane to cross thru the traffic on our side of the road. There were some exciting moments. But mainly it was the challenge of keeping an eye on the tow rope at all times so as to not get the dreaded slack.

At any rate an hour later we were pushing the shiny red targa back into the garage safe if not perfectly sound.
I know that I will get into sorting out these electrical issues soon, or may just wait till my porsche guru comes to visit in june, to have him help me.

But I did want to share that it is possible to tow our cars, its just not easy. It takes a coordinated pair of drivers, and some luck with those other crazies out there.

Cheers Richard
I don't know where the paragraph indentations went, sorry