What I learned this weekend
 

OK, I got all my parts last week and spent this weekend doing what is esentially "major service" - all fluids, plugs/cap/rotor/wires, valves, filters, etc. I'm a 911 newbie but have worked on cars since I was 16 (mostly out of necessity :)). Needless to say, the 911 is a different beast. Here are some lessons I learned this weekend for other 911 neophytes:

1. If you have ever adjusted valves in another car, doing them in a 911 is not that momumental of a task. Yes, its a pain at first, but you get the hang of it midway through the process. I found running the feeler gauge through a micrometer set at 0.004 gave me a good sense of the *feel*.

2. Holy crap, that's a lot of oil.

3. Hand pumping 90W gear oil into a 915 with a $6 hand pump sucks.

4. For all the standard service items I did, my $30 copy of "101 Projects" was used 95% of the time, making my $130 Bently manual a nice paperweight.

5. Never, never, never take your car to NTB and let the 18 yr old there mount your tires. Aluminum lug nuts + impact wrench = broken lug. This forum saves the day with info on how to remove broken lug (3/4" hole saw).

6. You can never have to many flex/universal/bendy sockets/ratchets/wrenches.

7. Life in the 911 engine bay is 1000x better without A/C. Good ridance. (Yes, it was prof. evacuated).

8. A laptop and netwrok connection in the garage can in really, really handy for referencing this BB (thanks all!)

9. 6 ton jackstands in the back are great for getting the car to a nice, stable height for working underneath.

10. Inspection mirrors and magnetic pick up tools are essential.

11. The clips on the back of the DME air box are a PITA to attach. If you don't get it right and attemp to close the clip, you will break the plastic tab on the box.

12. You can fix a broken tab on a DME air box with a piece of thin steel stock shaped into a J hook and bolted to the box.

13. Having your 6 year old son help you is a great way to spend some time together, bond, and teach him all sorts of new words that he probably shouldn't know.

Excellent thoughts...

Welcome to the party!

Excellent thoughts...

Welcome to the party!

I'm just starting to do my own work, so about those lug nuts -

I've got a '01 Boxster S with factory turbo twists, a '93 968 with factory cup style, and an '83 911 with factory Fuchs. Which, if any, can I safely use an impact wrench on? Are soft sockets with the investment?

That's a nice stable of cars. I wouldn't use the impact on any of them. The factory Fuchs especially will probably have alloy nuts, but I'm not sure about the 968 or Boxster.

My rule of thumb for impact wrenches and Porsches is that I don't even turn on my air compressor until I've tried and failed to loosen a fastener by hand a couple times. Then as the air comp. is charging, I ponder the damage the impact could do, and try it by hand again. Then, after all that fails, I use the impact :)

EDIT: This is all loosening only. Tighten with a torque wrench, by hand.

I have not heard good things about soft sockets' long term longevity, but have no personal experience with them.

My son recently got Sony PS2 and "Grand Turismo". He scans through all the available cars looking for the "Poursha". :)

Man great job on the service. Once I get moved into the new house I'd love to try and tackle that project.

Chris M, Nice post...welcome!

Re: What I learned this weekend
 

That's a great idea!
Or, upon pondering what a pain it is to get to, you can remove the now useless clip and tell yourself. "Hey, every little bit of weight reduction helps!" :D

-Chris

I did this same thing on Saturday. I learned 2 things:
1) put the gear oil in your kitchen sink for about 1/2 hour with the hottest water possible coming out of your spout.
2) take off BOTH real wheels to get the car back to level when you're filling her (only way I could figure out how to do that)
Amen brother...but dont pay that much for the book, goto buy.com and pay $75 with free shipping...
been there, done that :)

I just did some maint. recently too, it's fun but infuriating at times. Still it's always good to get back into the car and into the garage! Good luck with your car!

Jazzbass is correct about a network connection to the garage. I have a wireless connection in my house and I can get a signal in the garage.

My Mechanical that works on my wife Audi is an independent Audi mechanic (work out the garage of his parents house) also has a network setup in the garage. He is usually bidding on parts for some of his customers if they care about more about price instead of buying new. Also he can access some of the parts dealers and junk yards that are on line.

jakermc: First of all, wow - nice cars. Sounds like my wish list. Second, after what I went through this weekend, I will never, ever think of using an impact wrench on my lugs. After the affair was over, I went back to PP and bought a new lug nut, new wheel stud (yep, messed up the old one) and a soft socket. Loosening the studs with the impact wrench tends to ding up the edges of the nuts, too.

UTKarmann_Ghia Great tip on the gear oil and the book. I own you a beer.

Thanks all for the responses. Stay tuned for more lessons from next week's adventures: Brake caliper rebuild, wheel stud replacement, and shifter upgrades (factory short shift and new bushings).

Between the maintenence, all the snow we got here in DC (2 days after I bought the car), making the car legal, etc, I have officially spent more time working on the car than I have driving it. Not that that is a bad thing :).

Hey Chad,

The cheat is to the limit! Where did you find that avatar?

-Moses

i too have been working on cars for many years.......did you notice how everything seems to be engineered to be serviced at LeMans? these cars are so "easy" to work on compared to the many others i've owned.
there are some things where you'll say "what the hell were the engeneers thinking" but overall they're a joy to work on :)
welcome to the club:D

Keep the Bentley handy for the torque specs. 101 doesn't have these for most fasteners.

Magnetic pickup tools rock. Anybody who doesn't have one is banging his head against a wall for no good reason.

Yes, that is a lot of oil alright. Kinda scary when doing it the first time, no (that's what she said.............)?

You've come to the right place. That's for sure. The amount of info., knowledge and good people on this board is really astounding.

One thing I was very surprised at how much room there was to work with once the A/C compressor and the tube from the heater blower were removed. And, using a jack pad and hydraulic floor jack I was easily able to get the car high enough to work underneath on a creeper. This was where the 6 ton jack stands came in handy - my 3 ton version were on the last notch at this height and I was a little uncomfortable with that. BTW - it seems the difference between cheap jackstands and better ones is about $5. Given the choice, I recommend spending the extra money - jackstands, seat belts and fire extingushers are not items to save a few $$$ on.

I got one of the new magnetic pick up tools from Sears - one of the ones with a shield around the magnet so the sides don't stick to everything as your fishing around for a droped bolt. Best $4 I ever spent at Sears.

I don't know about the rest of you, but I've been disappointed with the Bently manual. It seems really thin on info in a lot of places, and in several areas simple stated that a particular operation is "beyond the scope of this manual". I guess I'm used to Honda service manuals (all my other cars are Hondas), which are easily some of the best out there. I'd love the factory manuals, but am a little put off by the price ($1000 - ouch). Realistically, I tend to get my info in this order:

1. 101 Projects, if applicable
2. PP technical articles
3. PP BBS
4. Bently Manual

For any project, I'll read through all 4 resourses, but sadly the most expensive option here is my last choice.

Hey Chad, I agree with Moses - the cheat is definitely to the limit. Trogdor is my favorite, though.

Impact wrench: If you get the Ingersoll-Rand 2131 (or rebadged Sears equivalent), it's got a torque limiter on the 'tighten' mode. Set at 2 out of 4, it can safely spin down the lugs for a snug-up by hand once the car's off the jackstands.

I use it for spinning off the lugs on my 993 (still aluminum lugs) contantly, never damaged a lug. Yes, the corners are bashed, but you can't see them when the wheel's in place!

Moses,

It was on one of the homestarrunner fan pages. I just created a transparency layer behind it (so it would look decent on whatever background).

I kill way to much time lately playing the Trogdor the Burninator game :)

Jazzbass -

I just put a Wevo shift kit into mine so a couple of thoughts as you get ready for your project.

The Bentley manual was very helpful in removing the center console. It points out where all the hidden screws are and the order to remove everything. Only one point was missed - there is a fader control in the console that needs to be unplugged from a harness. I couldn't figure out how to do it so I simply cut the wires. I put a new head unit in the next week that overrides this anyway, so no harm done.

The bushing in the shift rod was a real PIA to get to. There is a set screw, 4mm I think, that is at a tough angle with very little room to work. When I finally got an allen wrench small enough, it was on so tight I stripped the head a little. Ended up leaving the bushing in place, at least for the time being, as I was frustrated and ready to finish the job. In hindsight, I would have soaked the set screw in WD-40 for a few hours before attacking it. I would factor that into your planning.

This is the first car I've ever worked on (other than a B&M short shift I put in the Boxster) so I typically run into at least one problem with every job I tackle. Thankfully, this board gets me through each time.

The mods so far, with about 4 weeks of ownership:

Camber strut brace
Recaro SRD (pair of beautiful brown leather seats now for sale :) )
6 pt. harnesses (only 4 pts installed so far, want to replace the rail screws before continuing)
Wevo shift kit

Parts on order:

Chin spoiler
RS America tail (repro)
Turbo tie rods
RS Carpet Kit (soon to be ordered)

I'm having as much fun working on it as I am driving it! Of course this will change with its first day on the track....