996 neglected, time for some love & maintenance

I have a few pressing jobs I have been postponing on the 996 and thought it would be worth documenting them as a lot of these jobs will be of use to others. I have three weeks to get everything done and in usual tradition for me it will be a close run thing to get everything finished in time for a big road trip early June. With the 944S taking up most of my time in the garage over the last 12 + months I have neglected the 996, it hasn't missed a beat but I have an oil leak misting near the AOS and the N/S silencer is blowing along with the cat joint. I will be removing the gearbox to replace the release bearing as it is noisy and fit a poly insert into the existing gearbox mount. I also just had an OPC health check who spotted a corroded O/S front brake pipe and whilst I'm on the brakes, I broke a bleed nipple off that will need extracting without ruining the caliper. The list goes like this but will have to miss some jobs if I run out of time. Exhaust silencer (and bypass mod) CAT to Silencer clamp sleeves Oil leak near AOS, (replacing AOS whilst in there) Gearbox mount poly insert Brake pipe O/S front Caliper bleed nipple extraction Front caliper seal kit. Bank 1 lambda sensors Oil/filter service. Brake bleeding. Clutch bleeding. Creaky clutch slave cylinder. Coolant weep, cover at rear of engine. Powder coating underside cross braces. Drilling disc vents. I started off today by getting the car at a height to remove the gearbox but as I will also be needing to get around the engine for the AOS and exhaust I was thinking of removing both engine and box together to make the work a little easier. This is where I am at as of today. And a few of the issues I have to deal with. Coolant weep Top of engine oil weeping. Silencer corroded. And CAT joint blowing. Some of the parts I have already acquired. Also on a good note I checked my manifold bolts and they are still in great condition since swapping them for A40 grade stainless bolts a few years ago.

I did my front disc vents last week in situ (only jacked up with wheel off). Took about 1.5 hours. Gearbox mount is on my to-do list.

All looks very interesting Chris, if you want new bolts for the exhaust brackets where the silencers attach to the bracket on the engine let me know as I have some spare stainless ones from when I did mine. I am interested to see where your oil leak is from as I have one around there. I'm not about to drop the engine to find it though, I'm not as adventurous as you!! What are you doing for silencers? I have a pair of very good ones which originally came from ECP. I took them off when I fitted the PSE. MC

I just had fairly extensive amount of work done in this area - engine out, AOS replaced, and also the VarioCam solenoid as that was misting oil around that area. The coolant pipes needed replacing as they'd been contaminated by the oil, also. Did a few other jobs "whilst in there" as having the engine and box entirely out of the car it seemed worth doing. I've now got a £5,350 bill to pay when I pick the car up, however.

I had those powerflex gearbox inserts fitted back in march, they lasted all of 200 mile before I removed them. They did make a difference as in tightening things up a bit, but the gearbox noise I was getting at most speeds and vibrations higher up the rev range that were transferred throughout the car made them a little unbareable. They kind of made the car sound like my friend race car, not was I was wanting for a road car. Not that hard to remove though so see what you think. I read a few mixed reviews and still chose to fit them. Good luck with the repairs! :thumb: Craig

I have some bolts that are stainless already but unsure how many left from last time. I think it may be the AOS O rings or crankcase pipe leaking oil and I do need a silencer but only one and a 3.6 one at that as there is a slight difference between that and the 3.4, I will still need to do the bypass mod on this side to match the other side. I also still have an A/C leak that can't be found so I may need to borrow your black light one day. I'm blowing warm again and only had a re-gas last year. I did ask for reasons why people didn't like this Powerflex bush but I didn't get an answer as to why it was so much different than the Function 1st one, so for the price difference i went ahead and got this one. The poly material on the powerflex bush is very supple so I'm surprised it made so much difference. I'll review them once fitted.

The inserts take up all the possible movement in the original bush therefore making it a kind of solid bush. This, along with the brackets mounting over the top of everything, it clamps the whole unit together and you get all sorts of noises and vibrations transferred through the mounting brackets and through the floor that are normally taken up by original bush. I'm interested to see if its the same on you're car :dont know: My Indie said they can be a bit of a pain to get in so make sure you have some washing up liquid to hand :thumb: Craig

I can confirm that ^^^^ as I spend quite a bit of time behind the wheel of Craig's car. They were pigging awful! Buzzy, whiney, whirry, and I've had race cars with solid engine and gearbox mounts. It ruined Craig's car as a nice focussed road car. It was still focused but bloody horrible. Good thread though Infra, look forward to watching your progress. :thumb: PS Where do you source your caliper seals from? I aim to refurb mine red next winter so will be stripping them then.

Point taken and hopefully they turn out OK as I have a 3000 mile road trip pretty much as soon as the car is back on the deck, I have heard some good things about them but only time will tell. As for the caliper seal refub kits I got the rears already and also ordered front seal kits from Biggred but they don't list them on their site for our cars so I have had to measure the pistons in the calipers which for Carrera (Targa) calipers are 36mm and 40mm for the front and 28mm and 30mm for the rears. I managed to strip a little more from the car today. The underside cross braces are rusty but still serviceable and I hope to get these blasted and powdercoated, I think I have caught them in time before getting too corroded like some of the older 996's I've seen. New mounting rubbers are required though. I also removed the sleeve clamps from the CATs and although the nuts did undo (I used domed nuts and copper grease last time I assembled) the sleeves themselves turned to dust. I also removed the coolant cover where it was leaking and the face of it had a little pitting, I have refurbed the face ready to go back on once the gasket arrives. Hoping to have the engine/box on the floor before the weekend.

Interesting that there is pitting on the coolant cover. Possible electrolysis?

My cross braces looked like they had been under the sea, I whizzed them off with a wire brush on a grinder 2 years ago and painted up with 2 coats of POR15, did the roll bar too and my shocks. They still look fine now. I'm not convinced with power coat, as it doesn't seem to have the same sticking power, all it takes is a nick in the coating and it starts peeling off with a bit of water and corrosion. POR15 is pretty tenacious, I think something in it reacts with the previous corrosion - it doesn't stick well to new, clean surfaces.

You're dead right, POR stands for 'Paint Over Rust' and that was what it was developed for. It doesn't resist UV very well so if you're putting it anywhere where the sun does shine, cover it with a coat of something else.

I've never used the POR15 before so will give it a go although it's probably the same price for powdercoating as a 473ml tin of that stuff.

It doesn't keep well and it's very messy, be prepared to throw away brushes and wear rubber gloves but it really does stick!

POR15 is available in red, grey and black, that and Res-Q-Steel were the mainstay of what we put on things that didn't move and did move respectively when I apprenticed as a marine welder. Still use them both, and fair amount of both under the porsche ;-) POR15 isn't a top coat, but once dry nothing sticks to it. Trick is to paint polyurethane over it while its still drying. POR15 will stick to anything if its warm/mildy hot. The brush is always a throw away, but if you pop the item in the oven and get get it warm and all the moisture out of it then paint a couple coats on then spray on some paint from a can to finish, you won't every get it to rust again.