Weeping PDK service

I’ve been keeping an eye on oil that’s been collecting on my rear diamond chassis brace. I’m not entirely sure where it is coming from, yet, but I’m fairly confident it is one of the pdk fluids. 2 main questions: 1) aside from the plastic pan seal (current best guess), are there other leak points to evaluate? 2) If it is the oil pan weeping, I’m kind of keen on swapping the plastic pdk pan with the URO aluminum one - is this the straightforward swap it seems to be? (Drain oil, drop pan, bolt up new one, fill, star car and warm up oil to ~40c, top off, close it all up). Thanks

An easy way to track whether the source is the PDK is via the fill port level. Refill and observe, also, keep it at the appropriate level while you decide on the remedy you like best.

I have the URO pan, but haven't put it on yet. Looking for any tips.

This only works for the clutch fluid, right? The gear oil seems to require a more involved process with either tipping the car on its side or using PIWIS. Thanks for the simple and good idea!

Does it seem like reasonable quality? I know it isn’t fancy billet like LN engineering ’s, but as long as it is flat enough and the casting isn’t porous, I view it as an upgrade for this application.

The gear oil side is more involved with the cooler and lines, however, in general, you see this fill, if it’s below level after it’s checked sometime in the future in a recheck then it confirms a leak, maybe not where but a leak in the system.

My understanding is that you can’t just crack open the fill port on the gear side of the pdk. It has to be running and at a specific temp and in “fill mode” with PIWIS, correct? Clutch side is just open and check for level, right?

You can do a simple drain and fill or endeavor the way you described. Mine had 15 k on it, I did a drain and fill and called it even, drained oils were very pure to the eye. I just got back from a 12 hour round trip run, first long one since service and the car ran and shifted excellent.

There's a telltale weep hole on the differential. If oil is dripping there it means at least one of two seals has failed. If the second seal fails, the fluids mix, and the PDK is toast.

Do you have any information on where that is?

Well I got back under the car today to inspect the weep hole and see if the clutch fluid was low. The weep hole was dry, and any wetness started at the pan below it. Then I cracked open the pdk fill port next to the left CV axle. Nothing dribbled out (ruh roh!), so I got my new bottle of Motul pdk fluid and the little pump cap and started putting some in. And more in… and more. Almost 600mL! I definitely have a leak to address, and it seems to be getting worse (no longer a mist down there - I’m getting drops off the car and a spot on the driveway). Next step is going to be getting a new oil pan (the metal one), disassemble and inspect more as I continue to learn more about what goes where, and reseal it up. That won’t be for a couple weeks though as I have some impending travel. On the plus side, things still drive well! Topped off the power steering fluid and wiper fluid, too. Just a juicy kind of day.

Thanks for sharing that. I appreciate it! i recently purchased an Icarsoft PorV4 which supposedly has the pdk fill function, which I need to confirm after I return from my trip. One thing I’ve learned from this experience is that PDK fluid level is NOT mL precise requirement. I am definitely going to do my best to get it to the right level using the right procedures and if I can’t, I’ll get a local Indy to confirm, but given my car was working fine at least 600mL low (again… not saying this is good!), there is clearly some functional wiggle room in the fill level. Certainly enough wiggle room to drive to a local Pro (if needed). I unfortunately can’t totally follow your procedure and measure what I’ve drained and simply replace due to driveway stains. Alu pan + seal + filter + steel pan bolts + fluid either arrived or on its way for a drop and refill when i get back in a couple weeks. The Australian PDK pro who (I think) is both on this forum and has incredibly insightful YouTube videos has de-magic-ed this transmission enough that I’m feeling pretty good about doing this service. I’ll update this thread when I become future under the car again, but also super open to more people’s experience.

You can't go wrong following Jeff Richardson's YT videos; an invaluable resource, even for 718 owners like me. They are a pleasure to watch in their own right. I think of him as the Bob Ross of Boxster DIY.

I had oil seepage in the same area on my 987.1 , it turned out to be a missing sump bolt, along with a few loose ones. I bought a new sump bolt and loctited all the bolts, removing them one by one and torquing them to I believe 7nm. I know its a different transmission, but wouldn't hurt to check.

While I can’t close out this thread yet, I did get to spend some of m my day addressing this issue. 1) check the gear oil level to make sure fluid isn’t jumping from one to the other 2) drop the pdk pan and look for something that could be causing a leak 3) assemble URO aluminum pan and refill with dct fluid Gear oil Removing the gear oil fill port showed just the slightest of dribbles coming out. This is exactly what I was hoping for. Closed back up and torqued to spec. Pan Drop This is where things got a bit more interesting. Removing the skid plate/diamond brace really unearthed a smoking gun. The car sat the last two weeks so leaks just had gravity to deal with, no wind from driving. Dropping the tray exposed a drop clinging to one of the forward most pan bolts Looking down, the brace looked like this Definitely a correlation between the two with that puddle in the brace under where the front of the pan sits. And just a little more supporting evidence with wet spots where the leading edge of the brace bolts to the cross member. Draining the fluid, it looked quite clean. Dropping the pan itself didn’t show anything obvious but I cleaned the mating surface anyway. I’m going to look more closely at the plastic pan for clues tomorrow, but I was running out of sunlight. The only drop I can’t quite explain was one behind the pdk pan. The fact it is above the pan line is a little confusing to me and don’t have a clear explanation of it. Assembly Unfortunately, I don’t have any pictures as I had to speed up. Did take it for a test drive, all good there, and then took the wife out to dinner a 20 minute drive away and also ok. My only hiccup was that I ordered a set of steel pdk pans, but only received 9 of the 13 I ordered. Begrudgingly, I figured I’d just reuse the bolts that I pulled off that are supposedly 1 time use due to being aluminum. Turns out, they were steel? Is this oem for the 987.2? Ultimately just cleaned off the steel ones I had removed, added a bit of blue loctite and torqued them down to 9.5Nm. Fill was uneventful. Just added until overflowing, closed it up, started the car while still in hover mode, cycled through R, N, D, reopened the fill port and added more (~0.6L) until overflowing again. Total was about 4.1L. Did take it for a test drive, all good there, and then took the wife out to dinner a 20 minute drive away and also ok. Will check for any leaks tomorrow, and the weeks beyond, but so far so good.

I'm rooting for you! Let us know what happens..

Thanks Don, So far so good. I checked under the car and felt around as best I could without disassembling anything, and so far so dry. Still only ~60 miles and 24 hours, but I’m cautiously optimistic. Looking at the plastic pan I removed, there was no smoking gun/anything obvious in the place it seemed like it was leaking. It would be nice if there was an obvious cause, but I’ll just be more focused on keeping an eye on the results. I will say, for a plastic pan, they designed it as right as they can. The MechE in me just trusts the full aluminum pan more. Fortunately, I’ve enjoyed working on this car, so keeping an eye on it won’t be too much of a burden.