I know I know. We are so backed up right now, my blogging has come to a halt for the time being. Right now it is cool in the office and about 100 degrees in the shop, so at least I can get something productive done while staying cool 🙂 Last week in between prepping chump cars and other odds and ends, we finished up the Boxster motor swap. With the used motor we were putting in, we went ahead …

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Had this 2.7L Boxster come into the shop the other day on the tow truck. Engine started knocking, so the owner and a friend with some mechanical know how pulled the oil pan and apparently found chain tensioner material in the pan. This car had already had the LN bearing upgrade on the IMS, so we were confident that was not the issue. I thought tensioner pad material in the pan a bit intriguing, but they wanted to go ahead …

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I’ll save you the carnage though, it isn’t a big failure that we see on the Boxster, but instead a fairly minor one. This problem is also seen on the 996 cabs as well. The Boxster came in with the complaint that the top was not opening. When there isn’t anything happening, typically the parking brake switch is bad. That was indeed the case. After pulling apart the center console, you can get to the switch. In our case, the …

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Had this little Boxster come through the shop after 6 years of storage. The owner was coming back to the states and needed his car back in running shape 🙂 We gave it a good look over and found a few minor things here and there. The storage unit was starting the car every so often, and they had to jump start the car and crossed the battery terminals. All of a sudden the radio didn’t work. Luckily it was …

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Swapped out the factory beefy exhaust on this 2.7L 986 for something with a little more growl to it. While Borla states the exhaust only fits the 3.2L S, it can be made to fit the 2.7L with some modifications (the exhaust to transmission mount specifically). The old OEM muffler. The weight savings is substantial. And the new exhaust installed. VROOOOOOM!

As you can tell today, I have been blogging like crazy trying to catch up. We have been so slammed at the shop, my duties here have been severely neglected. We finished up the yellow boxster IMS upgrade the other day. Being a tiptronic 2003 we had a couple of things working against us in terms of ease of replacement. #1: Tiptronic transmission: This requires removal of the center intake plenum and throttle body so we can remove the starter …

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Had this little Boxster come in (ok I towed it in, lol) with a coolant leak and rattle in the motor. Pretty common for the waterpump bearing to fail and start leaking as well as rattling like crazy. With 90k miles on it, i’d say this waterpump had a good life. Like the 944, these pumps should be replaced as a maintenance item. Whenever we do a belt change, we try and inspect the pump as closely as we can …

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Have this 2003 boxster in the shop right now for an IMS bearing upgrade. Another 19k mile car with a pretty bad oil leak underneath the car. The later cars can be a real bear to pull the transmission on. This car has the glass rear window, which severely limits access to the top of the engine bay (even for me), and it is a tiptronic, which means disconnecting the torque converter to the flex plate has to be done …

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With the warm weather upon us, this little boxster rolled in for a little spring maintenance. The passenger side headlight bulb was burnt out and the owner knew the bracket was broken to the headlight, so we ordered a new bracket so we could remove the headlight assembly, change the bulb, then get it back in to where it will hold. When I got it up in the air, I realized the exhaust was flopping around more than normal….not good. …

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Finished the white boxster up this week with a new upgraded intermediate shaft bearing kit. The updated kit. Once the exhaust, subframe, and transaxle were out of the way, we could see the IMS bearing flange. The RMS was completely dry and only the IMS was leaking. Old bearing removed from the engine. New updated bearing and flange installed. Back together she goes!