Long over due.
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Long over due.
With 40k just flipping on the odometer, and a tiny water pump leak that just started, I decided it would be a great time to take the car off the road and literally tear it down, inspect everything and maybe even treat her to some new things.
May 1st, I created a punch list of the must's and wants. The car was jacked up onto stands and the wheels came off and the belly pans were dropped. I did not set a time line because these cars are expensive and I didn't want to over look anything or more importantly make any mistakes.
You never realize how amazing these cars are until you just lay under them and just admire the amount of engineering that went into every aspect of the car. If you never went under your car, I highly recommend you give it a shot.
So I started with the water pump. Once you drain the coolant, it's a pretty straight forward job with the exception of the nightmare bolt on the right side of the water pump next to the pulley. If you could remove the motor plate completely, the bolt would be a non issue.
Next came the thermostat. When you purchase a new one, you actually have 2 choices, one that opens at 180 degrees or one that opens at 161 degrees. After some research I chose the low temp version. Some people say that you cant do the job with the header on. I can tell you, you can. The top most bolt is a pain in the *** but doable. The thermostat is like 50 bucks, just change it while you're there. Cheap insurance.
Next came the spark plugs and coil packs. I replaced the plugs and coils. Creativity is the name of the game. The plugs were actually very easy. The hardest part is getting the harness connectors back on to the 2 rear most coils on the drivers bank and the rear most coil on the passenger side. It sucks, and you will bleed at some point. The 3 mentioned coils are easiest to do with the coils loose or unbolted from the block. You will have a little more wiggle room by doing it that way. And wiggle is all you have. After everything was said and done, I had 1 badly cracked coil and 2 coils which where just starting to crack. No drive issues prior to changing them, but it was a breakdown waiting to happen.
Before moving to the front of the car, the oil was changed, and all of the hoses were re-installed and a new belt installed. Overall it was a great experience and the was nothing scary about any of this.
Moving to the front, I removed the nose from the car and installed a Porsche 3rd radiator kit (great kit BTW) and cleaned all of the crap that was in the radiator ducts. I took my time here and really cleaned the condensors and radiators thoroughly. I vacuum out the ducts all of the time and you still can't believe the amount of stuff that gets in there that you can't remove without taking the nose off. While I was there I replaced the horn as well since the low tone horn stopped working last fall and since the nose was off it was a 10 min fix.
I have a factory Aero Cup kit on the car but I have always wanted a GT3 vent on the nose. I picked up the GT3 vent template from Rennline for the install. (another great product) It is a no brainer with this template. Center the template, use a few screws to mount it to the bumper, drill 10 pilot holes and use a jig saw to cut between the template lines. 10 minutes you have GT3 vent. (PM me if you want to buy the template off me. CHEAP). To finish off the nose, I installed Rennline black mesh grills to all of the bumper openings. I put the grill under the GT3 vent as well. I also painted the top of the bumper black so you don't see the silver bumper when you look down the GT3 vent.
I moved on to the brakes and tore them down one side at a time. The pads still looked great so they stayed. I did remove the rotors and sprayed the rotor hats black so you don't see a rust streaked rotor hat behind a clean set of wheels. This has always been an irritation to me and I was able to finally put an end to it. I detailed the calipers while I was there and I removed, cleaned and sprayed the backing plates silver. Before finishing up, I removed the stock undercar brake ducks from the lower control arms and installed the larger GT3 ones. 29 bucks from Suncoast for cooler front brakes is a score in my book.
With everything done front and rear, I picked up a knock off of the airlift cooling system re-filler from Amazon for 50 bucks. Robinaire makes it. Stick the tool into your reservoir, hook it up to a compressor and this tool sucks all of the air from your cooling system and creates a vacuum within your cooling system. All of your hoses collapse under vacuum. When the Gauge reads 25 wait like 30 seconds to make sure you are holding vacuum ( if the needle goes down, you have a leak in your cooling system somewhere) flip a switch and 6 gallons of 50/50 mix of Porsche Antifreeze and distilled water gets sucked into the cooling system in 5 minutes and refills your cooling system without air stuck in your radiators. It's the greatest tool and a must have.
I have the wheels out getting painted gloss black and the nose goes back on this weekend. I will post some pictures in the next week or 2.
I can't even imagine what a dealer would of charged for all of this, but I can tell you I spent $900 in parts and had 3 great weekends of fun. This has been the best weekend project I have had in a really long time. It sounds crazy, but you will have a completely different "relationship" with your car when you are done. Thanks for reading. Go get dirty.
May 1st, I created a punch list of the must's and wants. The car was jacked up onto stands and the wheels came off and the belly pans were dropped. I did not set a time line because these cars are expensive and I didn't want to over look anything or more importantly make any mistakes.
You never realize how amazing these cars are until you just lay under them and just admire the amount of engineering that went into every aspect of the car. If you never went under your car, I highly recommend you give it a shot.
So I started with the water pump. Once you drain the coolant, it's a pretty straight forward job with the exception of the nightmare bolt on the right side of the water pump next to the pulley. If you could remove the motor plate completely, the bolt would be a non issue.
Next came the thermostat. When you purchase a new one, you actually have 2 choices, one that opens at 180 degrees or one that opens at 161 degrees. After some research I chose the low temp version. Some people say that you cant do the job with the header on. I can tell you, you can. The top most bolt is a pain in the *** but doable. The thermostat is like 50 bucks, just change it while you're there. Cheap insurance.
Next came the spark plugs and coil packs. I replaced the plugs and coils. Creativity is the name of the game. The plugs were actually very easy. The hardest part is getting the harness connectors back on to the 2 rear most coils on the drivers bank and the rear most coil on the passenger side. It sucks, and you will bleed at some point. The 3 mentioned coils are easiest to do with the coils loose or unbolted from the block. You will have a little more wiggle room by doing it that way. And wiggle is all you have. After everything was said and done, I had 1 badly cracked coil and 2 coils which where just starting to crack. No drive issues prior to changing them, but it was a breakdown waiting to happen.
Before moving to the front of the car, the oil was changed, and all of the hoses were re-installed and a new belt installed. Overall it was a great experience and the was nothing scary about any of this.
Moving to the front, I removed the nose from the car and installed a Porsche 3rd radiator kit (great kit BTW) and cleaned all of the crap that was in the radiator ducts. I took my time here and really cleaned the condensors and radiators thoroughly. I vacuum out the ducts all of the time and you still can't believe the amount of stuff that gets in there that you can't remove without taking the nose off. While I was there I replaced the horn as well since the low tone horn stopped working last fall and since the nose was off it was a 10 min fix.
I have a factory Aero Cup kit on the car but I have always wanted a GT3 vent on the nose. I picked up the GT3 vent template from Rennline for the install. (another great product) It is a no brainer with this template. Center the template, use a few screws to mount it to the bumper, drill 10 pilot holes and use a jig saw to cut between the template lines. 10 minutes you have GT3 vent. (PM me if you want to buy the template off me. CHEAP). To finish off the nose, I installed Rennline black mesh grills to all of the bumper openings. I put the grill under the GT3 vent as well. I also painted the top of the bumper black so you don't see the silver bumper when you look down the GT3 vent.
I moved on to the brakes and tore them down one side at a time. The pads still looked great so they stayed. I did remove the rotors and sprayed the rotor hats black so you don't see a rust streaked rotor hat behind a clean set of wheels. This has always been an irritation to me and I was able to finally put an end to it. I detailed the calipers while I was there and I removed, cleaned and sprayed the backing plates silver. Before finishing up, I removed the stock undercar brake ducks from the lower control arms and installed the larger GT3 ones. 29 bucks from Suncoast for cooler front brakes is a score in my book.
With everything done front and rear, I picked up a knock off of the airlift cooling system re-filler from Amazon for 50 bucks. Robinaire makes it. Stick the tool into your reservoir, hook it up to a compressor and this tool sucks all of the air from your cooling system and creates a vacuum within your cooling system. All of your hoses collapse under vacuum. When the Gauge reads 25 wait like 30 seconds to make sure you are holding vacuum ( if the needle goes down, you have a leak in your cooling system somewhere) flip a switch and 6 gallons of 50/50 mix of Porsche Antifreeze and distilled water gets sucked into the cooling system in 5 minutes and refills your cooling system without air stuck in your radiators. It's the greatest tool and a must have.
I have the wheels out getting painted gloss black and the nose goes back on this weekend. I will post some pictures in the next week or 2.
I can't even imagine what a dealer would of charged for all of this, but I can tell you I spent $900 in parts and had 3 great weekends of fun. This has been the best weekend project I have had in a really long time. It sounds crazy, but you will have a completely different "relationship" with your car when you are done. Thanks for reading. Go get dirty.
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Nice project. I agree with you about the added respect for the design and engineering that has gone into the 911. I've just started small projects on my 997S. Did H&R sport springs, GT3 Plenum & Throttle Body. Brakes and Rotors are next. Gotta go get dirty.