{"id":2157,"date":"2025-08-29T12:21:04","date_gmt":"2025-08-29T16:21:04","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/crankydriver.com\/word\/?p=2157"},"modified":"2025-11-07T22:14:58","modified_gmt":"2025-11-08T03:14:58","slug":"weichei","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/crankydriver.com\/word\/weichei\/","title":{"rendered":"Weichei"},"content":{"rendered":"

While vacationing in Germany this summer, a friend there called me a \u201cWeichei<\/em>.\u201d We were in Regensburg at the time, and our friend and the rest of the family wanted to check something out. I did not want to be under the hot sun so I said I would wait for them on a park bench under a tree. That\u2019s when she called me a \u201csoft egg.\u201d A wimp. A Warmduscher<\/a><\/em>. A Schattenparker<\/a><\/em>. All of the above, that\u2019s me.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

\n\"Regensburg
\nMy favorite city, Regensburg, back when the it still had a sugar factory (11\/2003)<\/p>\n

\n<\/div>\n

Of course, I have my lame excuses for sitting in the shade. For all of the technical advances Germany is known for, they have apparently not invented air conditioning yet. And it was hot everywhere we went. The only time I was in an air-conditioned environment besides the rental car was in the Munich airport when I left the country. (It wasn\u2019t even on when we landed there.)<\/p>\n

\nHot town, summer in the city
\nBack of my neck getting dirty and gritty
\n\u2014The Lovin\u2019 Spoonful\n<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

I was born in a tropical country, so when I arrived in Michigan as a kid, I loved the summers and marveled at the winters. Now I hate both. My temperature tolerance over the years has converged to 72\u00b0F, \u00b11\u00b0. This is one reason why I don\u2019t like driving the Porsche 944 Turbo in the summer. It gets hot in there, and its air conditioner (a\/c) hasn\u2019t worked this century.<\/p>\n

For those who don\u2019t know, a 944 Turbo generates a lot of heat. There\u2019s heat from the motor. There\u2019s heat from the turbo. There\u2019s heat from the transmission in the back. There\u2019s heat just from sitting on the black leather seats. <\/p>\n

\nIf you can\u2019t stand the heat, get out of the 944.
\n\u2014Harry S Truman\n<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

A few years ago a $2.25 tiny plastic clip that held the rod that controlled the flap for the HVAC (heating, ventilation, and air conditioning) broke while I was driving home. The failure mode when this happens is to immediately channel heat into the passenger compartment so people don\u2019t freeze to death. Unfortunately, this happened to me<\/a> not in winter but in June while sitting in I-75 rush hour traffic. At least, that\u2019s when I noticed it because I realized I was literally baking. Hot air was blowing on me from the vents. I shut the fan and closed the vents, but there was still air coming from under the dash somewhere. So whenever the car was moving, it air fried me for my entire hour drive home.<\/p>\n

\n\"The
\nThe Clip of Hell. Literally.<\/p>\n

\n<\/div>\n

The problem with the a\/c was a leaky Nippondenso (now Denso) compressor. It seemed like all the Denso compressors of this era eventually leak. So as I was dreaming about fixing the a\/c, I stumbled onto griffiths.com<\/a>, who sell a\/c compressors for old Porsches. In addition to Denso compressors, they carry a \u201chouse\u201d brand they call Kuehl (k\u00fchl<\/em> is cool in German). I don\u2019t know who makes it for them, but I decided to try it out. It\u2019s not quite a drop-in fit for my car. A hose has to be cut and an adapter added; a mounting ear has to be removed; and some other fitting has to be adapted. But after much time and money, it was installed and running.<\/p>\n

The a\/c in the car had been converted to R134 years ago, which is when I first found out the compressor was bad. I can\u2019t say if this new compressor with R134 is colder than the Denso compressor with R12 it originally came with, but it\u2019s more than cold enough.<\/p>\n

So of course, like bringing an umbrella with you when there\u2019s a chance of rain, now that the a\/c is fixed, the temperatures of our late Michigan August dropped unseasonably low, hovering around 10\u00b0F below normal. But whenever the temperatures climb again, this Weichei<\/em> will at least keep from being hard boiled by the 944.<\/p>\n

\nAnd now that my life is so prearranged
\nI know that it’s time for a cool change
\n\u2014Little River Band\n<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

\n

Crankiness Rating:
\n
\nMoney, money, money \/ Must be funny, in a rich man\u2019s world<\/em>
\n<\/sup><\/p>\n

\n

Feature photo:<\/strong> Nikon CoolPix P900, 1800 mm, f6.3, 1\/1000 s, ISO 100 (August 2023)
\nTaken in the early morning during the Canadian wild fires that year. The spots in the image are not from the camera, they\u2019re on the sun.<\/em><\/sup><\/p>\n

\n

\"Schlu\u00df\"<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

While vacationing in Germany this summer, a friend there called me a \u201cWeichei.\u201d We were in Regensburg at the time, and our friend and the rest of the family wanted to check something out. I did not want to be under the hot sun so I said I would wait for them on a park […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":2156,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[261],"tags":[198,285,12,95],"class_list":["post-2157","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-repair","tag-198","tag-air-conditioner","tag-porsche","tag-weather"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/crankydriver.com\/word\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2157","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/crankydriver.com\/word\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/crankydriver.com\/word\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/crankydriver.com\/word\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/crankydriver.com\/word\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2157"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/crankydriver.com\/word\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2157\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2164,"href":"https:\/\/crankydriver.com\/word\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2157\/revisions\/2164"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/crankydriver.com\/word\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2156"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/crankydriver.com\/word\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2157"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/crankydriver.com\/word\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2157"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/crankydriver.com\/word\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2157"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}