thanks.. appreciate the words of moral support...keep me focused on getting this thing back on the road for the end of the month.
one thing that might be useful to others, is that I've tackled changing the starter motor, which of course is much easier when the drive shaft is off on the drivers side. mine has been doing the solenoid clunk for a while, so I'd rather not find out if it's going to fail on me one day. I decided to get a new Bosch unit from design911 because it was the same price as a refurb unit and a fifth of the price quoted by opc (also for a refurb unit).
the new unit is the same as fitted to 996 and later I believe. fits great and most significantly it is about 3cm shorter than the old one. for those of you who've done this job you'll know that this is a very significant size discrepancy, and it means you can much more easily get the top fastener on...I even managed to fit the washer and get my torque wrench on there. relatively speaking, it's a breeze with the extra space the shorter unit gives you. definitely a recommended swap if your needing to do it and not overly up-tight about keeping the old Bosch unit (which as far as I can see, does not have any Porsche markings on anyway).
one thing that might be useful to others, is that I've tackled changing the starter motor, which of course is much easier when the drive shaft is off on the drivers side. mine has been doing the solenoid clunk for a while, so I'd rather not find out if it's going to fail on me one day. I decided to get a new Bosch unit from design911 because it was the same price as a refurb unit and a fifth of the price quoted by opc (also for a refurb unit).
the new unit is the same as fitted to 996 and later I believe. fits great and most significantly it is about 3cm shorter than the old one. for those of you who've done this job you'll know that this is a very significant size discrepancy, and it means you can much more easily get the top fastener on...I even managed to fit the washer and get my torque wrench on there. relatively speaking, it's a breeze with the extra space the shorter unit gives you. definitely a recommended swap if your needing to do it and not overly up-tight about keeping the old Bosch unit (which as far as I can see, does not have any Porsche markings on anyway).