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masterbm

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About masterbm

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    Male

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  • From
    Cincinnati, OH
  • Porsche Club
    PCA (Porsche Club of America)
  • Present cars
    '99 Boxster

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  1. Got it. Will tow. I'll keep everyone updated. . . B
  2. Yeah, I forgot to say that I got rid of the old coolant reservoir several years ago, after I had the standard "coolant leaks into my trunk" issue. No coolant in the trunk this time. B
  3. Uh oh. '99 Boxster with 160K was leaking a bit of coolant for a bit, then after a trip to the grocery store, steam started shooting out from coolant reservoir in trunk, and coolant starting pouring out of underside, by passenger side R wheel. It was like a teapot. . . . . .but that's not tea. I'm going to guess this is not a fix I can do myself. Anybody want to guess what it is, so I can tell the guys at the shop? What should I expect to pay? Shop is 20 mins from here, with significant highway driving. Can I dump distilled H2O to limp my car down there, or do I need a tow? Thanks as always, friends. B
  4. Thanks again to kbrandsma and por986 for their help. A donation has been made to this board in their name as well! Thanks for being good citizens! B
  5. All, DONE! FINALLY, got everything back in working order, clutch feels like a dream. Nice and soft but appropriately "sticky" as it engages early on. I love it. This project is do-able, but if you don't have a nice set of automotive tools, be prepared to go the local auto parts store quite a bit. Make sure you have plenty of metric wrenches, an appropriate triple square (aka "internal wrench," aka "double hex wrench," aka "bi hex wrench," aka "xzn wrench"), PB blaster penetrating oil, torque wrench, the special tool for replacing the seal if you can get it, maybe an extra RMS if you mess one up. You'll especially need 15mm, 16mm, 8mm, 10mm sockets, a breaker bar, a small drift to punch out the pegs on the spoiler, T55 hex wrench (if I remember right). You'll probably want both deep and short sockets for 15 and 16 mm. Get an appropriate tool (I used a reciprocating saw) to cut bolts with if your exhaust system isn't in great shape and the bolts appear rusty. Getting the exhaust system out was the hardest part for me because we had to cut the bolts out of the triangular flange where the rest of the exhaust system connects with the header. After cutting the heads of the bolts off we still had the problem of having the shafts of the bolts stuck in the flange. We used a blowtorch to heat the flange around the bolts to make the hole expand, and then pounded them out with a hammer. Obviously, if you can get the muffler out at its connections immediately to the rest of exhaust system on its left and right, where those c-clamps are, you're good too, but my muffler was so rusted to the rest of the system, we thought we'd hurt it more by trying it this way, hence taking it off further upstream where it connects to the exhaust manifold. A "transmission attachment" would have been nice to put on my floor jack to help get the transaxle in and out, but it's not strictly necessary. It would have been nice to replace the ratty looking attachments which hold the bumper and the wheel well shielding on, but we were able to use the old ones anyway. THANKS VERY MUCH TO: 1. kbrandsma who lent me his triple square and RMS tool. 2. Wayne Dempsey who published the info on Pelican Parts' site, and who offered his advice and encouragement 3. This board and everyone else who commented/helped. I'm pleased to donate again to this board, a small sliver of the money I saved doing this project. B
  6. Great albatross, Dr. SP! OK, RMS is on, looked good. New clutch and plate are on, no trouble. Tranny is tough to get back on, though. . .we've got 2 bolts threaded loosely, but can't seem to get the tranny any closer to the engine, despite lots of tugging and wrestling. Probably still 3/4 inch of a gap, and it just won't go on easy. Is this normal? It came off pretty easy. Shouldn't it go on easy if I've got it lined up right? Maybe I should take it out and re-approximate it. . . Any tips? B
  7. Update on what has become an albatross of a project: Be careful installing your new RMS: as we pushed it it, resistance around the flange caused the thin plastic to curl up and fold in on itself. Not good. Thank God my dad saw it, because we'd have been back under there in a few days wondering why my oil leak was much, much worse. Unfortunately, we had to put a hole in the new seal in order to get it out, and there was just no way to satisfactorily fix the fold in the seal without taking it out. #$@#!@!#@#!!!! The good news is that the fine people at Pelican Parts have probably got plenty of rear main seals to sell me. I'm seriously considering getting 2, in case we screw up again. The saga continues. . . B
  8. SUCCESS!!! Autozone gave me a new bit, seemed of better quality. Flywheel is off, RMS in full view! Will try to tackle that this weekend. Then, reassembly and I'm off!!! Good because wife's getting tired of driving my a$$ around. B
  9. All, SUCCESS!!! The trick was the final, hidden, forward facing bolt at the very bottom of the transaxle. I just wasn't looking right. Came off like a champ, tranny came out like a champ, pressure plate and clutch came right off. I rounded out my T50 torx trying to get the flywheel bolts off. Guess it's back to the store to get another bit. If that doesn't work, anybody got any tips for getting the 8 torx bolts off? B
  10. All, Thanks to kbrandsma who was gracious enough to send me his triple square (and RMS tool), I got off what I think are all the bolts connecting the transaxle to the engine. In doing this project, I've found a number of surprises: 1. somebody had used a plastic tie to keep one of the shifter cables in place. Interesting. . . 2. I'M MISSING SOME BOLTS THAT FASTEN THE TRANSAXLE TO THE ENGINE. Holy God. . .Specifically, there seem to be no passenger side M10 nut (the one on the bottom, corresponding to letter H on Pelican's article: http://www.pelicanparts.com/techarticles/Boxster_Tech/37-TRANS-Drop/37-TRANS-Drop.htm) and no passenger side M12 nut (the next one up from the missing M10, corresponding to letter G). Scary. Unfortunately, work has stopped at this point because I can't seem to disengage the transaxle from the engine. Is it possible that I'm missing something, like another bolt in this '99 boxster? I've got the engine supported by a jackstand, the tranny supported by a floor jack, and I've yanked and wiggled as much as I dare, and pretty much all I'm doing is wiggling the engine along with. Any tips? masterbm
  11. Friends, So far so good. . .cut bolts off the flanges connecting the exhaust system to the header, rest of everything came right out. Next stop: removing bolts connecting transmission to engine. I've got a piece of cardboard diagrammed to make sure I get the right bolts in the right place. . .gotta go get a 10 mm triple square head. As is the curse of the budding mechanic, I spend more time driving to the hardware store than fixing my car! Also, I've seen various solutions for rear main seal replacement "special tools." Anybody got ideas that are easier than constructing the "Lowe's conduit pipe" version, (which is a great idea, but I don't have a router or the other woodworking tools to do it)? masterbm
  12. You can drop the assembly from the headers back Then you can decide whether you want to split the exhaust Otherwise you can drill out the bolts, which is made easier with the whole assembly out. If u r in there strongly consider one of the IMS upgrades Mike Yeah, so any problem if I just pull out the whole system from basically where it looks like the manifold connects with the 3 bolts through that triangle-shaped part that leads to the cats? Can I just leave all 4 O2 sensors connected to the pipes, unplugging them from the electrical connection? Will that screw up emissions setting in my computer and trigger a non-functioning engine or a bunch of CEL's? Anything else super scary about this idea? Those 3 bolts are just in much, much better shape than any of the clamps or the bolts on the clamps, and I'd have the added advantage of getting the exhaust system out of the way for when I drop the tranny. B
  13. All, Thanks for the help. Sounds like the thing to do is just cut those things right out. Will do. masterbm
  14. Friends, Well, the time has come. Given how I got ewedscre by the local echanicsme recently, dad and I started our own clutch replacement project today. Thanks to Wayne Dempsy, Pelican Parts, and the manual, things were cooking along pretty good. . . . . .until. . . Removing the muffler has us at a stopping point. The clamps closest to the muffler have, no surprise I guess, rusted pretty tight to the bolts. Actually, it's the nuts rusted to the bolts, but whatever. Anybody got some good tips on how to get those bolts and clamps off? Should I just buy a Dremmel or other cutting device, cut and replace? Is there another way? I'll take whatever help I can get. Thanks as always! At least it's fun working on cars with my dad! masterbm
  15. Well, it was a bittersweet ending to the great case of the cranking-but-not-starting engine. Turns out gssereik on 986forum.com was correct: It was the crankshaft position sensor. Here's his post: >> Frankly it was a bit of a leap of faith... I described the symptoms in detail to a couple of local German car mechanics. Both of them indicated that it could be a sensor issue. Because the car ran perfectly once it did start. There were no drivability problems whatsoever. But the Crankshaft sensor in particular needs to get a reading on the position of the crankshaft or else the computer that control things will not know what position the engine is in and so it cannot make a judment as to when to produce a spark and/or fuel or what have you. But once the engine starts, it relies on other readings perhaps? I don't know... Looking at the old crankshaft sensor, there were no visual clues indicating that it was worn out or damaged. Just a bit of black soot on it. But not much really... I also posted the question online in many different Porsche and Boxster forums and there were some posts from people indicating that the Crankshaft sensor might be at fault. There are also two camshaft sensors but a mechanic mentioned that they were a less likely culpret. And there were two of them, so more expensive! ultimately when i found the $70 price at Advance Auto parts I decided that was a price i was willing to take a gamble on. I did not have a check engine light. And none of my OBD scanners found any codes. And i was not going to invest in the right scanner that finds all of the available codes for a boxster. I almost was going to bring it to the dealer or to a good mechanic and pay whatever fee to get it plugged in and tested. But for $70 and my gut feeling that the crankshaft sensor was a likely culpret, I went ahead and bought it. And it worked! More often when i have taken such a gamble I end up being wrong and just wast money. But the Porsche God's shone upon me this time! thank<< Unfortunately, the bad news is that the shop I took it to here in Cincy (Sports Car Store in Florence, KY for anyone who is local) did me wrong. They held on to the car for a few days and couldn't figure out why it was doing what it was doing. They told me they thought it needed a new ignition switch which took 4 hours to put in. Then they tried it, and the same "cranks fine but engine won't ignite" issue happened again. This is, by the way, AFTER I'd told them I thought it was the crank sensor. They said they didn't think that was it because the error sensor would have picked it up. So they put the ignition switch in (which the guy later said was "shooting in the dark,") and when I called back they said, "well we thought we knew what it was, but it wasn't that." So I told them to just go ahead and try the crank position sensor, figuring it sounded SO MUCH like gssereik's problem there was a reasonable chance that was it, and I'd take the chance on putting in more unnecessary parts and labor (keep in mind this is days later, and I'm really needing my car.) They put it in and now the car's running great. $150 part, an hour's work. All in all I paid $550 for something I could have done for $150 (and had fun doing it), thanks to paying for unnecessary parts and labor. When I complained they said they had to charge me for the hours they put in, and that I couldn't prove that it wasn't the COMBINATION of the ignition switch and crank position sensor that did the job. Actually, I resolved not to go there again in '05 when they "mis-fixed" a CEL that turned out to be a fuel pump issue. That was $400 for nothing too. Now I'm REALLY never going there again. Next project: change rear main oil seal, replace clutch. Anybody know of a good step-by-step article on this? B
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