Porsche Enthusiasts Club Forum

At least do the oil seals, they are cheap as chips available from Auto.doc. Buy yourself some Curasil - after my crank shaft oil seal malarkey, I will never put an oil seal in without it again. Made the job so easy; no DIY press required (even though I made one).

I do not get any noticeable extra transmission noise form the Poly bushes - the odd squeak over speed bumps.

Torsion bar indexing is really straight forward if you are keeping the current set up - all you need is some card and a marker pen, if you take the thing off complete. Have a look at my thread. I would be hesitant to put it all back together and not do the bushes but that's just me. Great to have all that side mobile so the rear suspension angles can be set.

Hi Rob,
Thanks for the comments.

The bushes will get done & if I have to play with the torsion bar indexing, then so be it. Your thread is a bit of a reference for me, so I’ll happily re-read it
I got my car from Scotland, hence the rust and copious amounts of mud on the underside and in the rear wheelarches in particular. Unfortunately, this never got cleaned off before I went down the rabbit hole so marking anything is somewhat of a challenge

I’m not intending to split the transaxle, just give it a thorough clean, treat the rust and repaint the middle section. The gearbox fill and drain plugs are just rusty hex lumps , so I’m looking to try and get them off/ out and replace them with the aftermarket hex head versions.

It does seem daft not to replace the oil seals whilst I have the access I agree, so I’ve had a bit of a rethink on that Are you sure you used Curasil? My google search came back with a mouth ulcer product???

In today’s episode, there was a change to the listed programme - my engine stand had been modified to take the v- twin motor from my bike. However, it got welded up but never fully finished. So today was spent cleaning up the welds, rubbing down and applying some etch primer. This has all been rubbed down and is ready for top coating tomorrow.

Apols: Curil T.

https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/363551661021 ... xoQAvD_BwE

You'll see from my thread that you won't be marking the underside of a car with a marker pen!

Drain bolts (if you need them) - Metzger: https://www.autodoc.co.uk/metzger/16179 ... oMQAvD_BwE

Finished cambelt, waterpump, idlers, seals etc. Quite the mission, but now I can relax knowing it is all new up front.

Tried unsuccessfully to put the transaxle on the engine/ transmission stand The bolts used to secure the trans to the torque tube are too short to clear the face plate of the stand suitable length versions ordered but won’t be here until Wednesday……
Took the brake hardlines off both sides of the rear suspension. Attempted the same with the braided steel flexies that a previous owner replaced the original rubber with. No dice - they ain’t budging so I’m leaving them for an overnight soak with some deblocker.
Rear calipers removed and the ally disc covers as well. Got the the drivers side rear disc off as well before visitors stopped play.

Unexpectedly found myself at home today - bonus Porsche time!!
I managed to get the transaxle up on the engine stand and properly secured as the bolts I ordered had turned up in the week.
I then set about giving the transaxle a blooming good clean and also attacked the steel mid section with the wire wheel to get rid of all the surface rust.
Once this was all gone, I then treated it to some Hydrate 80 which the birthday fairies had been good enough to leave for me to replace my depleted stock. This will then be over painted with some Frosts Chassis black once properly cured.
However, all this good progress did not go un-punished as the steel fill and drain plugs remain steadfastly stuck and even judicious amounts of Mapp gas torch action and de-blocker have failed to generate away movement whatsoever. This is even more frustrating as the fill plug has developed a leak as a result of my efforts Any tips/ tricks suggestions to remove them would be much appreciated.
Tomorrow, all things being equal will see me return to continue battle with the rear suspension removal.

I bought a Dewalt impact driver and never looked back.

Need the wheels off - bzzzzz
Stubborn nut - bzzzzz
Pesky bolt - bzzzzz etc

Although some of the rear suspension nuts needed sawing off with a handy Makita gadget borrowed from a mate. Potentially lethal but i've got all my fingers
I did not purchase as it was a last resort.

After the rounded bolt on the rear crossbeam, I have been reluctant to use the impact wrench given the state of all of the fastenings on the back of this car. Ironically, after doing a bit more Googling after posting the update, I ordered a 17mm impact Allen socket Fingers crossed!

Today’s instalment is mostly positive I got the drivers side rear control arm off and the hub out without too much grief. I gave the half shafts on both sides a through clean & degrease and then carefully masked them up and shot a few coats of paint on the surface that is exposed. No - one will ever see it, but I know it’s done.
I ran out of time to get the passenger side off but I’ve loosened all the bolts so it should be relatively straightforward to get that off tomorrow. this should the give me much better access to the torsion bar housing bolts.
The impact hex head for the transaxle plugs turned up late today so if time permits, I’ll be giving that a go tomorrow as well.
As usual, no good deed goes unpunished and I put a lovely scrape on the front bumper as I was putting stuff away. It’s peppered with stone chips and was going to be repainted anyway but I’m still annoyed that I did it

I long ago gave up fighting brake lines. A reel of copper & some Automec brass unions & a flaring tool solve it.
A quick 5 seconds with the hacksaw & the old ones are off.
Why Porsche never used Kunifer I have no idea (Volvo do/did) So much for quality German engineering.

I certainly agree with your comments on the brake lines - I now make my own. The first ones I ever did were those that run between the rear caliper and the flexi on the swingarm. I even used some glue lined heat shrink to replicate the factory protection where the pipe is held in place by clips. I’ve got quite good at making replacement caliper link pipes for the Brembo’s which I believe are silly money from Porsche.

Passenger side rear control arm was straightforward to remove once I’d taken the wheel hub off- took me longer to find the holes in the circlip than it did to get it off

It was then time to turn my attention to the torsion bar housing removal. This meant taking the car off the Quickjacks and onto some axle stands so I could reach the nut just behind the rear lifting point. I could get to it to give it a good soaking with deblocker but the Quickjacks had to go to get a spanner on there.
What a b&#*h of a job I had to resort to getting my son to help but in the end, the drivers side bolt lost that battle and the bolt is out.
The same cannot be said for the passenger side and I have had to resort to cutting the nut off using an oscillating cutter . It’s working but slow progress & I’m taking a break to write this update whilst the batteries get recharged as I’ve drained three of them and am only just over halfway through
Still, it’s all progress

After dinner I'll be fixing the headlining panel behind the sunroof. Its clearly been bodged before using double sided tape to bond loose areas here and there so this time its coming out of the car and being completely stripped and recovered using the original vinyl.

After the weekend I'm due to refurb the brake calipers all round though I still haven't made a decision on the final colour. Black will make them somewhat less visible against the Fuchs wheels which does appeal though I quite fancy mixing silver and gold to produce more of a zinc plated appearance.

I'm still searching for a solution to the slightly perished rubber seal on my Saratoga Tops Glass Sunroof - has anyone here found a fix ?
I may sell it and stick with the original painted panel though....

Attempt 3 at removing the torsion bar housing.
Short version for those with limited attention span - Failed

Longer version: I completed cutting the nut off & then tried knocking the bolt back out. Bas%£$d wouldn't budge even .01 of a mm
More de -blocker applied & left to soak. Tea consumed.
Battle resumed. Applied Impact gun to bolt and gave it a good go - Nada, Zip, bugger all movement. Tried the breaker bar instead - yessss! we have movement. Re-positioned breaker bar and gave it another go... a bit more movement, this looks promising,,,SNAP!! One 12 mm bolt head now parted company with the rest of the bolt shaft
More de blocker applied. Tea consumed.
Came back and gave it a thorough pounding with a drift and a 1KG club hammer. Very effective at dislodging any debris from under the rear wheel arch but had nil effect on moving the remains of the bolt.
I broke out the blow torch, gave it a good roasting and then pounded on it some more - it just laughed at me.
Out came the drill. Now this is a high tensile bolt and is also a pig to get at whilst trying to apply sufficient pressure to get the drill bit to actually bite into the bolt shaft rather than skip across the surface. I've probably only drilled out about 10mm worth of bolt in the intervening few hours. Between each session of drill work, I've heated the thing up and smacked it with the club hammer, all with no effect whatsoever!

I've left it soaking with de-blocker overnight but I'm not holding out much hope for tomorrow. I think it will just be a slow progress of drilling the bolt out until there is nothing left.

On a more positive note, I cleaned up, masked up and shot some paint over the rear wheel hubs and then now look great. I also got the ABS sensors out of the rear control arm without breaking either the bolt or damaging the sensors.

Re- match scheduled for tomorrow.

Yep - familiar territory H. It took me two and a half weeks to drop the back end. Not that I was doing it full time, it was more of a case of try something, fail, go away and scratch my head, try something else, sort of make progress, go away and scratch the head a bit more, rinse and repeat.
However, putting it all back together was a days work.

Have you supported the torsion bar housing whilst trying to remove that bolt as there is weight on it on top of the corrosion between the metal sleeve in the bush and the bolt? Be really careful not to damage the chassis mount too. It will come.

They are so tight with limited access. But now you have cut the head off the bolt, fingers crossed the de-blocker will penetrate enough to move the damn thing.