As I eluded to a few posts ago, I had a little coolant leak to fix on the 997TT. Step 1: Remove engine. This reads just like a Chilton’s manual eh? If you were about an inch tall, you could walk into that cave there under the cooler and get to the leaking coolant pipes! Since I am not an inch tall, I have to remove a lot of stuff from the top of the motor to get to the …

Read more »

Had this nice 997.2 come into the shop for a OE GT3 shifter upgrade. This particular shifter only slightly shortens the throw, but makes the throw much more precise, which makes for much smoother shifting. It also has metal bushings versus the plastic bushings that can fail in the regular shift units. While the 997 SSK is a decent short throw shifter, I feel it is also a little hard on the transmissions, and easier to miss getting the shifter …

Read more »

After finishing the big IMS/RMS/M030/Brake issues with the 996 C4, I noticed it had low oil pressure when starting, and the when driving never really got much above 3 bar. There is a common issue happening with these cars, a broken oil pressure valve spring. If the car is extremely noisy on start up, your spring may be breaking or broken. How it looked when I removed it from the engine. About as half as long as it should be! …

Read more »

Had this 997TT come into the shop this week with a coolant leak. While I could see the trace of coolant, it took awhile of pressurizing the system before I could get it to leak. Unfortunately, the coolant was coming from on top of the engine which isn’t good. That means we have cracked plastic coolant pipe fittings or metal fittings that have separated. Either way, I’ve got to pull the motor down to replace the plastic fittings with Sharkwerks …

Read more »

Had a little boxster come in today for an oil change and voltage issue. Turns out the alternator was only charging at 11v, so a new one was in order! Access is behind the seats. It is like trying to fit a square peg in a round hole! Old one coming out, and new one installed. Back up to proper voltage!

Porsche 930 PPI

If you follow the blog, you know that PPI stands for PRE purchase inspection…..well this is another POST purchase inspection, aka “The Heart breaker.” This car came in for basically an evaluation of what the car needed, and what plan of action to take. I noticed the upgraded turbo was puking oil, and the intercooler was in need of replacement, but the owner said the car smoked on both start up and while driving, so I figured we had better …

Read more »

This 996 showed up this last week to install a customer supplied M030 suspension (shocks/sway bars/springs). While I have no problem install factory parts in this case, once I got the car on the lift, I noticed we had a lot of other stuff that was in dire need of repair first. I often like to check out the car before recommending parts replacements, as some times there are more dire items that need replacement. A lot of expensive Porsche …

Read more »

I’m not really sure what else to call it really. Unfortunately in the coming years, we are going to be seeing a lot of this stuff happening. This is one of the reasons I highly stress a PRE purchase inspection before buying a used Porsche, especially a water cooled one. With Boxster and 996 prices at an all time low, many uninformed people are buying these cars up without knowing the real cost of ownership and potential for major expense …

Read more »

Well….not much has been going on with the 911T project. Machine shop is slow, so the motor rebuild isn’t done yet. I hear the lower end is together though, so we are making some progress. The car came back from paint and looks incredible. With the glass still out, I took the opportunity to pull the dash so we could replace the center speaker. In the early 70s, many of the 911’s had dash issues. The original dash had a …

Read more »

We were down for the PCA club race in early October, and on a whim stopped in Joplin and picked up a car for a customer. A 1979 911SC that has had a lot of work put into it, was picked up at a good price. A fairly fresh paint job and engine/transmission rebuild, suspension work, etc meant a lot of the big ticket stuff was already done. We stopped in Joplin on the way back home, took possession of …

Read more »