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997 turbo engine removal DIY - engine refresh and new turbos

Clanky said:
Good work!

As others have said, a step by step & what to disconnect from where would be handy for everyone interested!
I like the idea of the JB weld too & if I was doing it, I think that's the route I'd take. I've seen some actually welded, but not sure how reliable that is on cast alloy.
Another thing worth checking would be the condition of the starter cable knowing the issues people have had with sluggish starting.

Worth doing the clutch & plugs maybe depending on mileage?

Looking forward to the rest of this!
:thumb:

Yes, will do a guide with some pictures. I am sure welding is a good option, but I dont like the idea of the heat stress on the manifold and then potential pinhole leaks etc, so jbweld would fit my needs better.

Good point on the starter cable, will have a close look at that, cheers.

It's a tiptronic so I dont need to do the clutch but I will see how much I end up doing and then decide whether to remove the box and check the rear main seal. It seems to be be dry as a bone under there though so I may not bother.. but could regret that choice... so will see :grin:

Tiptronic had fluid changed 5k ago so that will be left for when its back in the car.

Going to do plugs and coils seeing as they are easy with the engine out. Think my parts list will be quite large at this rate :mrgreen:
 
Fabulous work DarkHorse!

Another vote for pinning here. There's nothing more embarrassing than having an 'Inspector Gadget' Steam cloud and coolant slick behind your car as you power past a line of traffic on boost in 3rd.... I speak from experience :frustrated:

In my case, with the engine out I released all the bonded coolant pipes, re-glued them with epoxy and then pinned them so I new it would be a minimum of 20 years before the possibility of a leak from one of the joins. As you say just pinning them without rebonding them is a bit of a sticking plaster. If you've got the engine out it makes sense to do it properly.

:thumb:
 
Would even consider attempting that on axle stands! Hats off excellent work! :thumb:
 
Hi DH, What are the turbo check valves?

My turbo lump is currently out, it had a small leak from an O ring on one of the oil coolers. I also replaced water pump, both vent lines, intake line and both coolers. I've then had all 7 pipes welded, I also added a new water expansion tank after talking with 9e as it's another job that's easier to do out than in :) I had to do a clutch too, so count yourself lucky ;) I also replaced plugs with NGK plugs and gapped them too, this way if I decide to map in the future I'm ready. I'm hoping my turbos hold out for a few years, and look in OK condition. DW currently has my car, give Kev a call if you need any tips.
 
ragpicker said:
Fabulous work DarkHorse!

Another vote for pinning here. There's nothing more embarrassing than having an 'Inspector Gadget' Steam cloud and coolant slick behind your car as you power past a line of traffic on boost in 3rd.... I speak from experience :frustrated:

In my case, with the engine out I released all the bonded coolant pipes, re-glued them with epoxy and then pinned them so I new it would be a minimum of 20 years before the possibility of a leak from one of the joins. As you say just pinning them without rebonding them is a bit of a sticking plaster. If you've got the engine out it makes sense to do it properly.

:thumb:

thanks ragpicker - ok I will redo the coolant pipes :eek: I can just picture the scenario your describing happening to me now if I dont do them!!!

Rojdog said:
Would even consider attempting that on axle stands! Hats off excellent work! :thumb:

Cheers Rojdog, :thumb: I've done worse and that's how I always benchmark any possible job !

keendean said:
Hi DH, What are the turbo check valves?

My turbo lump is currently out, it had a small leak from an O ring on one of the oil coolers. I also replaced water pump, both vent lines, intake line and both coolers. I've then had all 7 pipes welded, I also added a new water expansion tank after talking with 9e as it's another job that's easier to do out than in :) I had to do a clutch too, so count yourself lucky ;) I also replaced plugs with NGK plugs and gapped them too, this way if I decide to map in the future I'm ready. I'm hoping my turbos hold out for a few years, and look in OK condition. DW currently has my car, give Kev a call if you need any tips.

I will grab a couple of pictures of them tonight, they stop oil draining back into the turbos on shutdown I believe (there is one on each bank), with failure meaning that one bank emits oil smoke briefly on startup from cold from oil that has settled in the turbocharger. Im sure DW will advise on whether its worth it to replace them or not. For me though I will clean and inspect mine and see first

Does anyone know if Pierberg is the OEM Porsche 997 turbo water pump make by any chance? There is a lot of fluff and waffle about what brand the genuine pumps are.
Autodoc are selling them at around £100+ cheaper than a stickered oem part, but allegedly they are the same thing?
 
DH, just wanted to echo the sentiments already expressed by others. I have spent many years rolling around the garage floor working on my cars, less so these days, and any time I had access to a lift I did not feel comfortable working while standing up or bending my neck looking up at the underside.... I guess it can be just what you get used too.. and I ever worked on my cars solo too.

Following your progress with great interest, appreciating the all the effort to post it here too.. :thumb:
 
Luddite said:
DH, just wanted to echo the sentiments already expressed by others. I have spent many years rolling around the garage floor working on my cars, less so these days, and any time I had access to a lift I did not feel comfortable working while standing up or bending my neck looking up at the underside.... I guess it can be just what you get used too.. and I ever worked on my cars solo too.

Following your progress with great interest, appreciating the all the effort to post it here too.. :thumb:

good stuff luddite! thanks :)

I have worked from a lift in the past when one was available and to be honest I would prefer it but I dont have one lol so have to make do until I move house and get a huge man barn hopefully :grin:
 
Good work! Ive just stripped a new mini down and pretty much rebuilt it - new suspension, brakes, all the full major service stuff, plus supercharger service, new ignition, new coolant system etc. Took the gearbox off and did the clutch as well as about a million other bits on it, but for some reason I never work on my 997 turbo - so fair play to you.

With regards to ramps, i use quickjack ramp. Best thing i ever bought for my garage. You just slide them under the car, press a button and the cars up in the air by 3 foot and safer than axle stands.

When my car was at 9e they mentioned there are 2 types of water pump for the 997 turbo. One has metal blades and the other has plastic. They usually check when the engine is out and replace any metal bladed pumps with plastic, as if they fail they are less likely to cause any damage.
 
thanks rabbitstew.

quickjack wouldnt work for engine removal I don't think looking at the lift it provides, but it looks excellent for most other jobs!
Good to know about the waterpumps as well, cheers



Not had much time this work to work on the engine this week at night but I have started stripping some of the parts off, and entered the rats nest of 'shall I replace that too' territory.

Here are a few pictures




The water pump wasnt leaking visually, but the gasket seems to have been in poor shape around the bottom outlet, the pump itself is very smooth indeed and the non metal impellar type. I was going to replace it if it was in any way suspect but I will just be replacing the gasket at this time, as a new one will be no different going on past new water pumps I have fitted to cars. So it will just be cleaning the mating surfaces and a new gasket.





I have had a nightmare trying to get some of the fittings out of the turbos so the lines are getting cut tomorrow when its daylight. I also had a battle with the turbo exaust gas sensors that screw in at the back of the turbo, I managed to get one to free up with a lot of heat and repeat tries, but decided I would just fit new ones. I then got the price from the OPC today for them and it was about £750
:eek: so I will be removing mine now :grin:

A largely hidden pipe with the engine in, is showing a lot of corrosion on the joint between the rubber hose and the metal, seeing as how its a main oil return from oil cooler to engine casing on bank 1 I am replacing it. I don't see it as a failure risk at this time, but I don't like it.



I am also replacing the other main oil return that runs from the top side of bank one, along the water manifold on the front of the engine and up through the intake to the oil tank because that is corroded at the same joint and looks grotty.

The price about £550 ish plus vat for the pair

Next job is to finish removing the rear water manifold (had a job getting the rubber coolant pipes off the pipe stubs on it) and then sort the leaking sealing washer on bank 1 side.

The oil drain lines are stuck into the bottom of the manifold so I am going to take it off to try and remove them.

I will also be removing, erm, most of the top of the engine so I can get access to the alleged 'weak point' coolant elbows. Sharkwerks do a set of 3 for about £800 ish imported, but the OEM ones are about £15 each I believe and the current ones are not leaking so I will use new OEM ones.

Then at some point, the worst bit of the job, making up a massive parts list using the Porsche parts breakdown pdf! So very tedious.

I will update the thread after the weekend.
cheers
 
Can you get it into the living room somehow and do your work in there?? :grin:

You're going to be in that garage for a good few hours....

Still watching with interest, great updates thanks DH
 
NickHappy said:
Can you get it into the living room somehow and do your work in there?? :grin:

You're going to be in that garage for a good few hours....

Still watching with interest, great updates thanks DH

The garage is my living room :D

Yes, a fair bit to do, but may as well make a proper job of it; and attend to everything while I am at it.
After several more hours working at them I have managed to get the exhaust gas temp sensors out without damaging them, very pleased about that becase I didnt want to replace fully working ones at £800 if I didn't have to.



Also doing the secondary cooler o-rings while I am at it. and the main one thats under the throttle body area



Next jobs, remove front coolant manifold, inlet manifolds, and prepare the manifold for regluing the coolant pipe stubs. Also stripping down to where I can replace the turbo lines.
 
Wow, good effort on the engine removal without fancy lifts etc, and thanks for writing it up.

I have a question for you as I'm also planning to replace the flex disc on my C4S prop shaft.

My plan is to disconnect the propshaft, lower it a bit, and then swap the disc without removing the propshaft completely.

Based on what you can see, does that sound feasible?
 
hermes said:
Wow, good effort on the engine removal without fancy lifts etc, and thanks for writing it up.

I have a question for you as I'm also planning to replace the flex disc on my C4S prop shaft.

My plan is to disconnect the propshaft, lower it a bit, and then swap the disc without removing the propshaft completely.

Based on what you can see, does that sound feasible?

Totally feasible yes. Porsche dont sell the guibo seperate but Its made by febi bilstein and they are available on ebay for about £50 ish. Your plan will work, was a bit of a tussle to seperate the prop from the output shaft, i used a lever bar on a safe area and it frees up easily
 
Thanks, suppose I should get on with it then!
 
Got time to do a bit on the car the last few evenings. To summarise, the turbo pipework has been a real PAIN and is seized in the old turbos and wont come out. I have tried heat, persuasion, more heat, brute force etc and they dont seem to want to come out. The main issue I have found is that the pipes simply dont have the strength to get good leverage behind the fittings so it is very hard to exert enough force on them. So to that end I have cut a couple to get to the pipes behind them, and could free none of them on bank 2 side so I am cutting my losses and just replacing them all with new..

The parts list has grown a bit more.

I am also replacing both turbo drain tanks as I got a good deal on a pair so it made sense as the old ones have seen better days and then it will all be new.

Oil lines, the long one at the bottom front of the engine, I tried to undo one union where it attaches on bank one side to the cam housing area, but although the nut unwound it is seized to the actual oil pipe :floor: so I am going to cut both ends of the pipe with a dremel and cutter near the nut, and of course renew that pipe as it was manky anyway.

Oil line arrowed in red in the image below


On to the next battle, the front water manifold. So firstly I removed the coolant manifold on the top of the engine, which gave access to the water pipes to the front main manifold. Then the fun started. Although there was no sign of any leaks from the coolant outlets or pipes (because they were on so damn tight..!) I wanted to be careful removing the pipes so as not to gash or damage the outlets from the manifold.

Engine carrier and exhaust bracket removed, hmmm.... cant see any more fittings, more checks, levered the manifold gently to see if there was any movement.... a little.


So after a good few hours battling I ended up removing the elbows from the casings (that should 'just' be attached to the manifold with the oring coupler (with protector sleeve) and then with some serious persuasion with a rubber hammer, I managed to eek one elbow off and then extract the water manifold with the other one still seemingly welded on!!

The pictures below tell the story, not necessarily in the correct order Im afraid.


Suffice to say, I got access to the guide bolt I am sorting and found the cause of the displaced rubber cover to one of the coolant elbows... The rubber protector sleeve seems to have been damaged on installation (could only see it when the manifold was coming out as it was hidden) is the only thing I can assume, unless a small leak and the ensuing buildup of gunk made it bulge and let further badness in.

Anyway, Im glad I caught that as on a factory new car they may be easy to get off, in fact you can probably change the elbows to the block with the engine in place (maybe...) but not a 1% chance could it be done on this one!

So, will be cleaning everything up next stage, prepping the coolant manifold and resealing the (perfectly rock solid) coolant outlets!! and adding parts to the parts buying list.

Next job is a pleasant one, removing inlet manifold and all the other non rusty parts at the top of the engine. I have nearly cracked the worst of the old bits (got to cut the bolt off one turbo support still then cut the pipes and remove the turbos.) and after a mega clean up it will be parts list time.

I may well end up removing the gearbox to replace the large oil pipe that comes down from the secondary oil cooler to the block, hopefully it will come out without me needing to do that. But I will wait until the new parts have arrived to do that as it is one less oil inlet to protect.
Cheers







 

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