SpawnyWhippet

With some mechanical butchery to the old turbo, releasing the engine mounts and jacking the engine up as far as it can go, I hacked enough off the old turbo to wedge it out the front gap. This is very much not recommended, and the turbo is certainly at least an inch bigger than the gap it has to come out of. Now working on a way to insert the new turbo, but it looks tough or impossible. I could make it easier by removing the exhaust manifold now, but I don't think there would be a way to reinstall it when the turbo is in place, as the rear bolts would not be accessible.

Can anyone recommend a good independent near the Bay Area peninsula who could finish this at a reasonable price?

Looks like I will have to admit defeat,even when dismantled the turbo housing is too big to come out the front or the rear gap of the engine bay. I have no idea how clarksongli did this without removing the engine or exhaust manifold, which itself looks like an engine out job.

Some progress. I cut the lower oil pipe to the turbo which allowed me to lift it far enough to unbolt the remaining bit of pipe from the turbo with a box wrench.

The turbo is now entirely free, but it will not fit through the gap at the front, it is just too big. I am now going to try to remove it from below by taking out the primary catalytic converter exhaust pipe.

Turbo is wedged in at this point, between the exhaust manifold, engine block and side bulkhead.

That's a pretty straightforward job, made very easy if you remove the air filter housing. This takes maybe an hour. I am writing a turbo removal DIY at the moment that does this as part of the process.

So I have all of the turbo disconnected and all bolts out except 1 pipe which is preventing the turbo coming out - the one beneath the turbo. Any ideas how to undo this while the engine is still in the car?

So I am thinking of cutting this bottom pipe and making a union. This would make it far easier to remove the old turbo and install the new one. Question is, what kind of union is available to make a good, re-connectable joint here?

This job is in progress now. Access to some of the bolts around the turbo and manifold is proving tough.

How do you put it in service mode?

A bad AOS usually makes a lot of smoke on startup. I have changed 2 myself in my cars. One smoked badly, the other just had high oil levels and low coolant

Answering my own questions. my drivers side turbo has a cracked housing and needs to be replaced. Lowest quote so far was close to $6k, so I have bought a remanufactured turbo and will attempt this myself. I may do a DIY.

I am writing this DIY as I couldn’t find anywhere that described how to DIY a front left axle replacement on a 2005 Porsche Cayenne Turbo, and the minimum quote I got was over $1000. This DIY will be more or less the same for both sides.
The reasons I am replacing my axle is that one of the CV boots was split when I bought the car, causing the whole corner to be coated in grease, and during some steering maneuvers I could hear grinding and moaning noises from the front left side.



I am happy to modify this DIY with feedback or other advice. This work is done at your own risk, I take no responsibility for you skinning your knuckles, damaging your car or anything else by using these instructions!
Total time taken to remove and reinstall the axle was about 3 hours and 2 beers, including taking pics and notes. The axle was a new GLN Lobro one that I got my local Porsche dealer to price match at $220

Tools needed

Sockets
8mm (for undertrays)
10mm deep socket
13mm
15mm
17mm
18mm
19mm
32mm 12 point
Size 12 triple square socket (drive shaft removal)
T30 (?) to lock ball joints when loosening/tightening
T50 torx socket (to remove rotor)
Short and long handled ratchets
Large range Torque wrench

Wrenches
19mm box wrench / ring spanner

Other tools
Ball joint splitters
Flat head screwdriver
Jack stands
Jack
Lots of shop towel / rags to clean up spillages
Drain buckets

Consumables and parts
GKN Lobro complete new front axle             955-349-038-13  or 138-01187827
(Autozone and Napa were offering remanufactured ones for $59 after core charge, but maybe these are lower quality.)
Caliper bolts (these are ‘use once, torque to yield’ type) N-906-854-03-M100
Axle nut (also should be replaced)             W0133-1999019
Rotor retaining screw                     N-910-282-02-M1002


Step 1
Park on flat lever ground and apply the parking brake firmly. Remove the center cap from the front wheel and using a long breaker bar, loosen the axle nut and front wheel lug nuts. Then jack up the car and put it securely on axle stands. Remove the front wheel. (I also put the wheel under the car in case the jack stands slip or break.)



Step 2
For me to access the lower steering knuckle ball joint, I had to remove the brake caliper, rotor and dust shield (I intended to do this anyway, as there was so much grease in my left front brakes). You may not need to do this step if you use the alternate ball joint tool.
This is a straightforward job using 21mm socket, 13mm socket and a T50 torx. You may need to tap the rotor off with a mallet. I used a bungee to hang the caliper out of the way from the upper control arm. Make sure you spread open the pads a little in the caliper (without damaging them) to make it easier to reinstall later. If your brake pads are coated in grease like mine were, it’s safest to replace both left and right side pads with new pads.



Step 3
Loosen the 3 ball joint nuts on the lower control arm, upper control arm and tie rod end until they overhang the end of the ball joint thread. (This is to reduce chance of pressure from the ball joint splitters damaging the ball joint thread.) Use the ball joint splitter to break the balls joints taper grip on the hub upright. Now remove all 3 nuts - you may find that the ball joints spin when you try to remove the nuts. There is a torx fitting in the bottom of the ball joint bolt so you can prevent the spinning while you undo the nut with a box wrench. (Look up from beneath the ball joint.)

You may prefer to use this kind of tool, available cheaply from Harbor Freight.


Step 4
I needed to remove the long bolt that holds the middle of lower control arm to the mounting bracket in order to give enough wiggle room and clearance to pull the upright off the lower ball joint. You will now be able to pull the upright off the end of the axle.
Caution - As the hub upright has a number of brake hoses, electrical lines etc clipped to it, you need to either remove them or be very careful not to damage them when you hang the removed upright from the upper control arm.



Step 5
Undo the 6x size 12 triple square bolts holding the inner end of the axle to the front diff. I did not need to rotate the axle in order to remove all the bolts. You can now slide the axle out and down through the rear gap between the lower control arm and mounting bracket. This will require a bit of jiggling the lower control arm around to create a gap but is not too tricky.
 


Step 6
Clean up all of the area from grease and brake dust. Pay special attention to getting all the grease off the brake caliper, rotor and pads using lots of brake cleaner and degreaser. Check the condition of the brakes and pads. Now is a good time to replace them if needed. As a rule of thumb, if you drag your fingernail across the rotor and it catches, or there is a large lip at the edge, you should replace the rotor. You can get them resurfaced if they will be more than 32mm thick after the work.
If the pads are less than 3mm or greasy from a split CV boot, you should replace them.

Step 7
Install the new axle back through the rear gap, make sure you put it in the right way around! (They are very different at each end, the splined shaft is the outer end.)
Feed the spline into the upright, then locate the inner end to position in the differential flange. Rotate the shaft to line up the holes, then put the 6 triple square bolts back in. Torque to 80 ft lb ? (I was unable to find the factory specs)

Left side faces the hub, right side to the diff


Step 8
Reconnect the hub to the 3 ball joints and tighten the nuts. Torque to 65 ft/lb ? (I was unable to find the factory specs)
Replace the long bolt through the lower control arm and apply a little blue Loctite. Torque to 65 ft/lb ? (I was unable to find the factory specs)
Refit the dust shield to the hub, then the brake rotor. Do not get any grease on the on the freshly cleaned rotor. Torque the new rotor retaining bolt to 30 ft/lb ? (I was unable to find the factory specs). Optionally you can put anti-seize compound on the surface of the hub where it bolts to the wheel to prevent wheel from sticking to the rotor when next removed.
Bolt the caliper back onto the hub using new caliper bolts (*do not reuse old ones*). Torque the caliper bolts to 110 ft/lbs and then turn 90 more degrees.

Refit the new axle nut until it doesn’t turn freely by hand ratchet.

Refit the wheel and lower the car to the ground.
Tighten the nut securing axle shaft to wheel hub, M24 X 1.5 and torque to 340 ft/lb.
Refit the wheel center cap.
Torque the wheel lug nuts to 118 ft/lb.

Did you do a DIY for this? I am about to do the job.

Thanks very much for that helpful advice clarksongli. OK, so I am going to give this a go. My left turbo is cracked, so I ordered the cheapest used one off fleabay for $350 shipped and had it re-manufactured by Turbo Park for $390.

My parts guy at the local stealership said I also need the following:

Left reman turbo                             948-123-016-56                 $790

1x o-ring                                          999-707-544-40.                $2.64

3x seal rings                                    900-123-131-30                 $2.64 each

1x rubber o-ring                               999-707-387-40                 $1.07

1x rubber o-ring                               999-707-392-40                 $2.64

5x seal rings                                    900-123-005-30                 $1.07 each

1x exhaust gasket                            955-111-113-20                 $12.02

1x exhaust gasket                            955-111-113-10                 $14.29

8x hexagon nut                                N-908-946-02                     $0.81 each

1x exhaust gasket                            948-123-203-52                 $13.28

1x green o-ring on pressure pipe    955-110-720-00                 $4.61

Altogether I am down $800 in parts, which beats the $7k my stealer is quoting (so long as it all goes together OK).

That's very interesting. Everyone I spoke to on the phone and in forums has told me it can't be done. Do you know what other parts are needed to complete the job, eg gaskets, hoses, sensors etc? Any pics or links to DIY would be great, as there is very little info online for replacing turbos yourself.

I haven't seen the correct turbo (for my 05 car with 80k miles) anywhere less than about $500 on ebay, but that was from a 130k mile donor car, so probably not the best candidate to re-use.

The engine is too big for me to take out at home, but I would definitely tackle a turbo replacement if it can be done on jackstands without dropping it out. I'd even write up a DIY post if I got enough info beforehand to make it a feasible DIY project.

I'll try to get to get under it and look, I wouldn't be surprised either way. Dealers in my area seem to be pretty corrupt in general - even worse with Mercedes. They tried to charge me almost $10k to repair the active suspension on my SL500, when it turned out to be a $180 part that I fitted myself in 1 hour.

8 hours and 2 for turbo R&R I could spring for. But my stealership quoted $7k + tax because they have pulled code P2281

Everywhere I checked said the engine must be removed to replace the turbos. My left turbo has just been reported to have a crack, at 80k miles. I am getting prepared for some serious wallet-bashing.

Are there any tricks to doing the lower mounts? I just changed the engine mounts on my 09 Audi A5 and 03 Merc SL500, both of them were easy on one side and a total nightmare to do the other side.

+1 on writing out the dimensions, preferably in metric please?

:thumbup:

Turns out I had 2 problems - noisy water pump and noisy SAI, producing almost exactly the same kind of whining noise. I rebuilt and greased the SAI bearings and replaced the water pump and all is well now.

 

In my recently bought 2004 C4S, I am getting a high pitched whining from the engine bay (when hot), that changes frequency with engine revs. Any ideas what this could be?

If it changes with revs, I doubt it's the SAI pump. 

 

However, while we are on the subject of SAI, I have codes p0491, and p0492 that reoccur.  These are secondary air injection bank 1 and bank 2.  I'm thinking about replacing every hose + the reservoir.  Looks like you can access all of that if you remove the intake plenums?  Any other ideas?  

 

It's strange in that I only get the codes when it's above freezing.  I've been able to clear the codes, and not have them come back until the temp reaches about 34º on a few different occasions, so I don't think it's a coincidence.   

 

I replaced the water pump and the variable pitched whining disappeared. However the SAI motor bearings were also noisy at engine startup, so I stripped it down and greased them. No strange noises from the engine bay now.

 

In my recently bought 2004 C4S, I am getting a high pitched whining from the engine bay (when hot), that changes frequency with engine revs. Any ideas what this could be?

If it changes with revs, I doubt it's the SAI pump. 

 

Wow, that was a much easier fix than expected. 7 screws, 10 mins start to finish. Now my light goes off when the glove box is closed and my battery is not draining.

Incidentally, my stealership quoted $1400 to repair the clutch pedal switch (wiring had been bypassed), cabrio roof latch, rear brake pads, oil change and glove box light.

I did the whole lot in under 1 hour using $190 of genuine Porsche parts. Quite a markup they are making... Now what should I spend that $1200 saving on?

OK, engine is running at the moment, has been going still noisy and rattlyabout 10 mins, camshaft deviations are 0.30 and 0.06 degrees.

After 10 mins, all the rattling stopped and the engine started running very smoothly. Cam deviation didn't change in Durametric though.

Thanks very much for the advice JFP, I was 20 secs away from getting it towed to a specialist who likely would have charged me like a wounded bull!!