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Marky's 996 ownership thread.

996lee said:
Some good progress going on buddy :thumb:
Love the seats 8)
Would love some myself if I didn't need the back seats once in a blue moon


EGTE said:
They do folding buckets, too.


Or just put a single bucket in, I may do this myself so I can use the rear seats for the kids.

:thumb:
 
Hi Gixxer - Yes get your thread updated. It's always good to compare notes and ideas with everyone.
I can totally understand you wanting to get the car as close to original spec as possible. When I was younger I had no qualms about changing things, but now I'm getting older I'm becoming more of a purist.
<He says, about to slap an Aerokit on an original C2>

No winter use for mine either. No point. You get the odd nice day but it's still cold and I have enough to do without making time to go and drive round on freezing roads with varying amounts of grip. :wink:

Y2K - Cheers mate, yes they were a lucky spot. Steve was great to deal with and packaged them up brilliantly on a pallet for my courier. It's always a gamble having larger nice parts transported.

If for any reason I don't go ahead with my plans I'll ping you a message if I'm selling them. Unless I see on your thread you've got some by then. :thumb:

Hi Lee, thanks.
I haven't seen any updates on your thread for a while. I'm guessing you're just enjoying the car.

Yes the seats are great and they change the feel of the car by a huge amount. (I know from my GT3, as the ones above aren't fitted to my car yet).
They grip you so you simply don't move and you feel wired into the car.
It also adds to the sense of occasion too... because racecar. :grin:
Depends why you need the rear seats. If it's for kids then no they aren't suitable. If it's for luggage you can squeeze bags in ok. I could in my GT3 and that had the cage to deal with too. That's why I've decided I won't fit a tequipment cage to this car. They're just a pain in the butt for access, offer no structural benefit and I won't be tracking it so don't need somewhere to fix harnesses to.

As EG says they also do split folding buckets if you were to buy new.
And as HSC says you could always fit one although that would play with my OCD. I'll probably fit my standard passenger seat for my wife for longer road trips mind. We'll see.


A couple of general comments about my seats. As I've said I'll have the cushions re-trimmed grey to try and tie them in with my all grey interior.
I'm 50/50 whether it'll work as the black tops will still be a big contrast.
When I fit the seats though I'll remove the rears, fit black floor mats, do the centre console delete and paint rear centre console, then I'll also add a black steering wheel, probably the GT3 cup item.

I'm hoping it won't look to much of a mish mash.
I also want to have my belts redone and was going to go with red to match my calipers (when they're done).
Again though, I'm just not sure with the grey interior. Anyone out there got a grey interior and changed their seat belt colour? What did you go for?

I had a message off my Indy yesterday and he's struggling to get the car done for Saturday due to a couple of breakdowns and other jobs running over.
That's fine as I don't need it back and he always does me a great price so I just let him do it in between other jobs.

So it will be a week on Saturday when I get it back. In the meantime we'll crack on with Craig's, then I'll have a look at my split rims. I've got a few jobs on house before winter sets in too so busy-busy..
 
Typically long and pic heavy post. Sorry!

Seasons greetings gents.
I'm all food and drink'd out so thought I'd do a quick end of year update. (Not that quick actually, now I've read it back).

As usual feel free to skim through. :thumb:

As mentioned previously my car went to my Indy, Jamie Nelson, Nelson Porsche Stockton, at the end of October. 
Well guess what? It's still there!

No fault of Jamie's at all. 
As usual it's a case of "all the best laid plans.." etc. 
I'll explain later in the post, but you know when you just need a little bit of luck for everything to come together, it never seems to work out does it. :grin:
Especially where old cars are concerned. 

So anyway, I'll back up to 8 weeks ago or whatever it was and I headed off to Jamie's which is 70 miles away, with Craig following me with a boot load of parts. 

I'd been gradually gathering parts over the last year or so whenever I spotted a decent deal. My Indy would supply the service items and anything else that I left to him.

Parts I supplied -

Millers 10/50 oil and genuine filter -




A set of Surefire coil packs and genuine bolts, courtesy of Coulstar on here, thanks buddy.  -




New coilpack heat shields and stainless bolts -




Sachs Clutch kit -




Genuine water pump and gasket plus a low temp thermostat -




New air/oil separator and latest revision header tank cap, which we collected from OPC Newcastle on the way down -




And finally a rebuilt gearbox with powder-coated brackets. This is where the problems began. :grin:






This is the list of work I left Jamie :-

Major service inc cabin filter, fuel filter, spark plugs etc. 
Check oil filter for any debris.
(This is always done anyway)

Fit -

6x coil packs and new bolts. 

2x coil pack heat-shields and stainless bolts. 

Remove gearbox, clutch, etc.
Inspect IMS bearing and when known to be ok, flip outer seal off. 

Oil leak from IMS/RMS area -
Replace IMS cover.
Replace RMS seal.

Renew brake pipes over gearbox (due to corrosion). 

Fit new Air/Oil separator.

Fit new clutch and then refit flywheel with new bolts. 

Fit rebuilt gearbox and brackets. 
Cable tie gearshift cables around bracket as a backup.

Repair or replace accelerator cable due to corroded junction box under car. 

Fit new water-pump, low temp thermostat and header tank cap. 
Flush out old coolant and replace with new. 

Fit new aircon pipe under car due to leak under drivers side floor then re-gas air-con. 

Brake fluid change.

"”"”"”"”"”"”"”"”"”"”"”"”"”"”"”"”"”



I basically wanted everything done that could be, that didn't involve going into the engine. 

So how did it go?

Well seized bolts were the order of the day, as usual.Some snapped -

This -




From here -




My coilpack bolts were seized solid and they just rounded off when trying to undo them, so the exhausts had to be removed to gain proper access -




Also my AOS bolts were seized solid so Jamie had to chip away at the AOS until it all broke away. Then he could tackle the bolts. 

You can imagine the time the above added on alone. 


All the little hose clips around the water-pump area crumbled if you so much as looked at them. 
New ones ordered from Porsche and fitted. 




Once the box and flywheel were removed this is what we had -




Cleaned off a bit -




What's gone on here?? 




Some joker has siliconed around the seal in the past. Sheesh. :roll:  


This pic shows the difference between the old and new style IMS covers. The old type on the left, has a single round seal. 
The new type on the right, has a multi ribbed seal.




You can also see a strange looking area on the tapered section of my old IMS cover. This is actually from where the casting hasn't cleaned up when it was machined during production.


All refitted with 2 different grades of Wurth sealant as back up. 




Turns out the brake pipe next to the one we knew about, needed replacing too. Very crusty.






Other stuff :-

Jamie managed to strip the throttle junction box down, de-rust the swollen cable end, reassemble and seal up, which is lucky as I could not find a used one anywhere when checking all the usual breakers.
(See last years service on page 2 about this)


All of the other work on the list was completed and the following parts supplied by Jamie -

Spark plugs 
Fuel filter
Cabin filter
Under-car air con pipe
Brake pipes
IMS cover
RMS seal
Gearbox oil
Brake fluid


So what has been the problem then??

The short version is I need my gearbox rebuilt and the car is still away. The more in-depth version is below.


Basically when I test drove the car, when I went to buy it, it had the slightest bit of whine at higher speeds. In hindsight I maybe should have walked, but after seeing a few dogs and this car ticking all my boxes I thought 'How bad can it be?". Doh!

Coming from the GT3 I wasn't familiar with this common fault now affecting so many of the 996s out there. GT3 MK1s suffer from damaged syncro's as they are brass in the MK1, but other than that I wasn't aware of a problem with 996 boxes.

So I stupidly hoped it would just be diff bearings or something. A few weeks after getting the car home me and Craig checked the gearbox oil out of interest. It took 1.3 litres to fill it. The box only holds 2.7 litres. There's the problem then. Unreal.
There are no gearbox oil leaks at all so who knows how that's happened.

Anyway, the car drove perfectly. The gear change is perfect, no other word for it, even from cold. It just had this slight whine at higher speeds.
I read up a bit and spoke to Jamie and he said 'Yeah that is the next big thing with these 996s, after engines". Great.

I've read of some people covering 30k miles with the box whining, only deciding to rebuild due the noise becoming ridiculous, rather than due to failure, but I can't live with niggles and especially not ones that would deter me from heading off somewhere far in the car. Since I aim to do another Euro trip in a year or two I decided to look at my options.

As luck would have it a GT3 owning Pistonheader had a C2 box that he's had rebuilt 7 or 8 years ago, due to losing 2nd and 4th gear on a track day. He had a trip planned soon after so fitted a second hand box. He later sold the car with that box still fitted, hence he had this rebuilt one sat in his garage.

I paid £850 for it which was a total bargain. Only problem was it wasn't an LSD box like my factory one.
What me and Jamie decided though was just to fit the 2nd hand box and run it for a year. Then once it proved to be fine, I'd have my old LSD rebuilt and fitted into this box over winter one year.

Anyway, to cut a long story short Jamie got all of the above work done and stopped back late one night to get the box in. That's when I got the text '2nd gear pop-out". *****!
I'd heard about this fault as a previous car I looked at had had a rebuild due to it.

I did think Jamie was winding me up at first as he once told me I needed an engine rebuild before admitting a few minutes later that I didn't. :grin:
That was payback for the time I borrowed his van to nip out in and I rang him and told him I'd rolled it. I was actually ringing to see if he wanted any lunch bringing back. :D
You get the idea....

He wasn't joking though, and the box was useless.
So I now had a faulty box in the car or a working whining one on the floor.
The faulty one came out and went back to Simon, who I'd bought it from, even though it was a year since I'd bought it. Credit where it's due, Simon had said if it didn't work he'd refund me and he stood by his word. This I massively appreciate.

So now I had my whining one. it was tempting to stick it back in and worry about it next winter, but I thought, no it's pointless when the box is on the floor ready to rebuild.

So the box is now with the guy Jamie uses for gearbox work. He's been in the game 30 years and is very good but sensibly priced. Trouble is the other guy that worked with him has just emigrated so there's a massive queue and there's a certain Mr Ragpicker one place ahead of me in the queue, having his big power Turbo gearbox rebuilt and upgraded.

So that's where we are up to. Very frustrating for me as I have 2 weeks off and had loads to do. I want the car looking how I want by May, which sounds like plenty of time, but there's paintwork to do, aerokit to fit, GT3 wheels and tyres to fit, callipers to refurb and change to red, then interior, although that can wait.
Plus my wife is in Malta, so apart from seeing to the dogs I have full uninterupted man-time.

It's very frustrating for Jamie too as the car is blocking a space in his workshop.
He was going to stick his box in ('98 C2 LSD) to let me take the car away but he's decided just to keep hassling the gearbox guy instead.

I don't foresee many parts being needed at all, as like I say the box functioned perfectly with no crunching or even any notchiness when cold. That's what makes it so annoying, it just whined a bit.
It will have a full strip and examination and any parts ordered but I'm not expecting much more than the 2 main bearings which are £300 each, so theres £600 plus labour straight away. It hopefully won't be the £3k some places charge though.


So I now have another week off with no car to work on. I had planned on referring my callipers as I've said. I have the paint here, all new seals and titanium nipples.
Hey-ho.

I will over the next couple of days have a look at refurbing my GT3 wheels. I've brought them up from Craigs where his conservatory has become our 996 Parts cave, and have cracked all the bolts off. Not one snapped thankfully.

I have sanded through the powder coat on one rim and it's perfect. I need the other 3 to be the same and I can get them mint myself. Any kerb damage hiding under the powder coat though and they'll need some professional work.

That brings us back to needing a bit of luck for things to fall into place though eh.. :wink:


Anyway, apologies for long post but its technically a diary of my ownership so I need to log it all.
 
Great read, just caught up on the thread - thank you! I'm a new 996 owner myself, black with grey leather. I'll be doing red seat belts over the coming weeks. I think it will look fine. My first choice would be yellow (existing red calipers are in good condition) yellow might suit the grey leather better?

Look forward to seeing the progress.
 
Thanks for going to this effort Marky to highlight some of the issues and concerns you are finding :thumb: Sorry to hear of all the trouble you are having, especially as you have the free time to be cracking on, that's so bloody annoying.

You made a good call taking it to a dealer for much of this work though with all the sheared bolts/corroded fasteners.
I'm stealing the excellent idea for holding the engine up with the gearbox removed. I went to elaborate lengths making a contoured wooden block but that simply solution is perfect.
Ref the gearbox whine; it will require a complete gearbox strip-down to get to the differential pinion bearing. Whilst in there you may as well replace the other gearbox bearing and the 2x diff tapered roller bearings (these are only €79euro each).
Wishing you the best of luck getting it all ready for May and have a great new year :thumbs:
 
ELA said:
Thanks for going to this effort Marky to highlight some of the issues and concerns you are finding :thumb:

+1111111

I guess I must have been pretty lucky that mine has not presented me any unexpected large bills. (touch wood...)
 
Great write-up as ever.

I guess we've all got this coming one day, so the idea of building up a parts repertoire is the best one (that and finding good Indy's) I glean from all this great info.
 
Thanks for the comments guys. Much appreciated as ever. It's a log for me and the car but more importantly it's great to get the feedback and insight whilst sharing any issues.

Toddy2 - Welcome to 911uk matey. THE best forum for our cars as far as I'm concerned. (Although I have a minor gripe with the mods at the moment but let's forget that).

Yes I agree, red is the only other colour I will go to if I change from standard. It will look good from outside as my callipers will be red, I'm just not so sure how it will look if there are no other red items or stitching inside. I'll see.

Anyway, enjoy that car and don't be frightened by what you see in my thread, especially my latest post as 90% of it is optional, it just depends on your approach. :thumb:

ELA - Hi Rich, I always appreciate your input. Great input re the extra bearings etc.
I'll forward that to my mechanic. Basically the gearbox guy strips and inspects then gets my indy to order the list of parts he needs.

..And yes to leaving certain jobs to a man with a lift. As I'm sure I'll have said, I'm happy working around a car but not under one, especially on my back on the floor.

It's bad enough when things go smoothly but like you say the amount of seized bolts etc on these adds to the trouble.

I'm glad you've spotted an idea you can use. I've stolen so many from yours, it's nice to give something back. :grin:

If you see this Rich, am I right in thinking you flipped the seals off your main box bearing a la IMSB style?
I mentioned it to my indy but after discussing we figured if they last 100k when looked after, then I probably wont ever hit that mileage again so we might just leave it, but I was going to ask you, as it does make sense really.

Happy new year to yourself, and I hope next year is plain sailing! :thumb:

Raggy - Good day sir :D

Yes I think Jamie's guy has a bit on at the moment. I'm leaving it to Jamie to hurry him up. I don't mind waiting if he does a good job at a good price, but I won't be amused if he strings me along then mucks it up or what have you.
I've never used him but apparently he's good.
I guess yours is ok just sitting there as your engine is away and your box.

PS I forgot to reply after the leather belt gag, that yes Jamie was having a good laugh. Nothing nasty in it at all though, just one of those funny tales. I've done plenty similar in my time. It was laughing with you, rather than at you. Well ok, maybe a bit at you. :grin:

All the best. I'm sure I'll see you at Jamie's again sometime. :thumb:


Y2K - Yes matey enjoy the cheap, painless times when you have them. While your planning trackdays I'm looking at gearbox bills. :grin:

To be fair as I said to Toddy 90% of this years work was optional.

I didn't need coil packs, car was running fine.
I didn't need a water pump. All was good and temps were fine.
I didn't need to pull the box, apart from the faint whine and the fact I couldn't relax with the old IMSB going un-inspected. Oh and the RMS leak I suppose.

My old clutch and flywheel have only covered 20k, but re-using the clutch does have risks, albeit very small ones.

So really I could have run the car like a lot of other people would, especially given the limited summer miles I'll be covering, but I always just do it right, do it once (hopefully).

PS I don't include anyone on here in the above statement, I just mean there are still a lot of 996's in non-enthusiast hands, and they can get run on a shoestring. To be honest, while my car is a lovely straight car in both condition and history, I'd include it in the above. It's had what it has needed, but nothing else, whilst with previous owners.

Anyway, happy new year and I look forward to your usual great pics and updates on your thread. :thumb:


EGTE - Thanks very much and yes you can never stockpile too many parts. :wink:
To be fair it's my mate Craig who runs a wine importers who does all our parts spotting and buying. As he's at his computer all day he's constantly scouring the usual places and anything that may come in handy he buys and stores.
Then if I need it, he'll give me it and I'll square him up. I'm very grateful for that. He gets some unbelievable deals.

He's also got the haulage contacts too, as half the time the carriage can cost as much as the parts on larger items. We just paid £36 +vat to have that faulty gearbox taken from Newcastle to Wales.

Things all blur into one on here sometimes but is your car wearing Rich's old Fuchs and the Exe-tc gear? If so get a thread up! Not enough pics and info on that cracking car. :thumb:


Dammit - Hi D. I knew you wouldn't take much encouragement to get started on a huge gearbox project. :D

If yours is driving fine, not notchy, whiney or jumping out of gears then it's fine. At the end of the day it's there to select gears and transfer drive, so that's all we need ask of it.

Out of 5 or 6 996s I know relatively well, 3 (1 is mine) of them currently have whining boxes. Not wailing but a slight whine above 60 ish. So it will become an issue to "some" cars, but worry about it if it happens.

You can only press the main bearing in 3 times apparently and one of those is at the factory, so my indy has the view that in years to come it could be a lack of gearbox casings that takes cars off the roads.

I'm not so sure about the 3 times thing though. If a bore becomes marginally too large for its bearing you can generally peen it (technically cause minor damage to the bore face, making it tighter due to the high spots) so that the bearing has to be pressed in to fit.
Not sure how that wouldn't work on the 'box casing but people wiser than me may well know.

Anyway, all the best and thank god you got that bloody steering wheel working. :grin:
You'll be having a beer in the car with it tonight celebrating what you've been through together. :D

I'll still be getting one. They look and feel so good. I've been talking to Steve (the big 25) from your centre console thread and I'm going to mimic his interior as he got it just right. He's given me loads of info and ideas. Another great thread, cheers.


Righto, I'm off into the garage now to wear my fingers down to stumps, sanding my GT3 rims.
I hate to post without a picture though so heres when I got the centres unbolted a few weeks ago.

I gripped the rim in my Official BBS workstation....
Otherwise known as a Craig. :D




Alfie and Charlie watched on, thinking 'Why doesn't this guy get a proper hobby".





Thanks lads and here's to a prosperous but more importantly, healthy year in 2018.

I'm outta here. :bye:
 
I absolutely love this thread, your posts are so detailed and make great reading. Best of luck with the 996 in 2018, looking forward to the updates.
 
Hey Marky,

Really enjoyed reading the updates, it's inspired me to get around to starting a ownership thread for my own! HNY
 

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