Front height adjusting screw
 

On the left, the allen head adjusting screw has cracked and no longer holds a wrench. Can this be replaced with a hex-head bolt?

I have no idea. You would think that it could. Not sure about the stress put on that bolt. Mine was bent. I went down to local porsche house and he gave me 2. Picked them out of a bucket that about 30 of them. You might want to try that.

Greg,

On my 82, it's not an allen head, but rather an 11mm hex head bolt. Unfortunately, in my case its not your ordinary hardware shop type of bolt. Its tip is tapered a bit and the threads are a bit bigger (dont know the actual size) than the 11mm head size would would lead you to believe. Mabye the 73's are a bit different and you can pick up a matching metric allen head bolt from the hardware store.

Try Cherrydale Hardware in Arlington. They are located on Lee Highway (on the left) 2 blocks past the Lee Hwy. - Quincy/Military intersection heading towards DC. Best HW store in town IMHO....lots of metric and they even have those pesky spring washers you can't find anywhere.

-Charlie

Thanks Charlie! I'll check'em out.

The screw is part # 911 341 115 00 for cars 72-89.

The adjusting screw has a tapered end to sit against the crossmember properly. The end bears on a small raised surface within the crossmember opening. A standard hex screw without the tapered end might not sit properly/evenly on this raised surface? Just something to consider.

I checked my different references (factory repair manual fiche for 84-89, PET, Bentley, and Porsche tech spec. book) and none list a property class/strength for this screw. This is a guess, but that adj. screw is probably a 12.9 class fastener? Many medium to large black phospate coated fasteners are 10.9 or 12.9. Example: CV joint screws

Also, this screw has a strange thread surface. It seems like the threads are lined with a plastic to act as a locking thread. Kinda like a nylock nut maybe? This screw costs about $30 from Porsche!!!!

So, my point is, this screw is not a run-of-the-mill fastener. It's kinda odd. For the time being, a hex screw may work. Remember that this screw sees a number of loading cycles so it needs to be of the proper strength and shape.

Since the screws are spendy, the best thing to do might be to call one of the Porsche salvagers and see if you can score a donor screw or two.. Should be much cheaper!!!