Porsche Enthusiasts Club Forum

So for my curiosity, how many miles and just how bad do the bearings sound and feel?

205k miles

There is a video on the first page, sounds louder on the video than in reality though.

The bearings were dry but they still felt smooth (no grinding, binding or rumbling).

The grease had leaked out of them (presumably cause of the heat from the exhaust?) and was coating the outside of the bearing...

I think they would have been OK for a few more thousand miles.

Oh so I have a while yet only at 165k at the moment and it sounds quiet at the moment, mind you hard to tell with all the other noises

Yes I wouldn't have bothered only it was out anyway, don't think I would do it myself again. It isn't particular hard but takes time and lots of elbow grease!

Plus you have the kit for the job to sell on if you feel inclined

Some more progress on this!

After a brief hiatus

Assembled the bearing carriers with the new bearings and the rivets which I spent far to much time filing down to fit inside the recess in the carriers! I got a local machine shop to press the delrin sleeves into the bearings whilst they were doing some other 944 related jobs for me.



Then I fixed the mistake that the powder coating company made and removed all (most) traces of the black powder coat from the rear "bell housing" with some industrial strength paint stripper (that will come in handy later when I strip the clear coat from my brake calipers). Cleaned it up and applied some etch primer (probably too much). Finally finishing with an expensive few coats of Eastwood Aluma Blast aluminium look paint. Pity my local vapour blasting guy couldn't fit it in his cabinet...





And remember folks safety first - a lot of these paints and chemicals are very toxic!



Next up is inserting the bearing carriers back into the tube and finally the shaft

Well about time I provided the end of the story on this

I think it was back in July 2023 I attempted to replace the bearing carriers into the torque tube myself and the shaft.

I quickly realised that with the tools I had this wasn't going to be an easy task and so I enlisted the help of a local Porsche 944 specialist - Augment Automotive.

With the help of Tom's dad (David) from Augment Automotive, the torque tube rebuild is finished! We had fun and games trying to get the shaft back into the tube. They have a custom-built press specifically designed for stripping and assembling torque tubes. Augment Automotive is local to me and they are proper enthusiasts!

David found that the Delrin sleeves needed a little bit of machining as they were too tight on the shaft, once it had all been tweaked, he was able to assemble the torque tube properly on their custom-built press.