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IMS Bearing Failure

krispe

Well-known member
Joined
5 Feb 2014
Messages
246
So I have a 54reg 3.8S with 51,000 miles which I bought 2 years ago. I love the car which is my daily driver and has done 3 trackdays and the Northcoast 500 route in Scotland. I have a 911uk thread here http://www.911uk.com/viewtopic.php?t=114307&highlight= . Soon after I bought it at 32k miles, light scoring was found in cylinders 5 and 6..... so I knew at some point a rebuild would be on the cards, but I was hoping this would be a few more years away. 2 years later on and 20000 miles driving since I bought it and the scoring has hardly changed and my oil consumption is low, so thought I had plenty of time before a rebuild would be needed :roll: (I have an LTT fitted, third radiator and change the oil every 5000 miles.)

My car being a 2005 model has the smaller IMS bearing fitted to it. We all know that these can fail and I was planning to change it when a new clutch was due, as the failure rate is still pretty low. Unfortunately my bearing decided not to wait for a clutch change and yesterday this happened :frustrated:



IMS Bearing has eaten itself, IM Shaft is knackered and swarf in engine, (also missing a few ball bearings). Engine rebuild required :sad:

I had always accepted that I would need to get a rebuild in the future, (with Hartech liners etc) but as bore scoring is a slow death I thought I had plenty of time to plan/save etc. Catastrophic IMS bearing failure however is instant engine death and brought the rebuild much sooner that I would have liked and definitely not come at the best time....

If you still have a smaller IMS bearing fitted to your car and have done less than 80,000 miles I strongly suggest you get it replaced ASAP rather than just waiting till clutch change time.
 
Sorry to hear that mate and mine has the smaller ims bearing too but it's not something that can be changed without the engine out and stripped.

If you could pull the bearing off then the timing chain drops.

Is Harlech doing the work?
 
Alfaian said:
Sorry to hear that mate and mine has the smaller ims bearing too but it's not something that can be changed without the engine out and stripped.

If you could pull the bearing off then the timing chain drops.

Is Harlech doing the work?

Smaller IMS bearing (2005 model year) can be replaced in situ. Only 2006 models onwards have the larger bearing which cannot be changed without stripping the engine. However the larger bearing hardly ever fails.

Hartech will fit the new liners to the block regardless, but still deciding whether to let my usual Indy do the rest of the build or get Hartech to do it all??
 
Interesting. I'll have a chat to my specialist when it's in for service in April.

The box is obviously off now at your local. So can he drop engine out and send it to hartech? Depends whats best for the wallet but I'd seek advice off baz or grant.
 
Alfaian said:
Interesting. I'll have a chat to my specialist when it's in for service in April.

The box is obviously off now at your local. So can he drop engine out and send it to hartech? Depends whats best for the wallet but I'd seek advice off baz or grant.

When I had my clutch on my 996 done, Sid at Porsche Torque charged 1 hour labour to swap out the old bearing. Think the bearing was around £50.

No brainer.
 
I feel your pain op.

When Hartech did my engine rebuild, I had a lot of discussion with Grant on whether to upgrade my IMS to the larger bearing as I had a LN engineering upgraded bearing fitted six months before I had discovered the scoring on the cylinders. I decided I never wanted the pain of going through another re-build so I decided to go with the larger bearing. Hartech will warranty that bearing for 2 years or 24,000 miles. I also gave Hartech the full job, I did not want to take the chance of some other indy building the engine and Hartech only doing the machining work.
 
its outrageous that a recall wasn't put out on this problem, I cant believe the brand has remained undamaged through it all.
 
As there were several different IMS bearings fitted from `98 on are they all suspect in the collapsing dept right from day 1?

*
*
Del.
 
Palladium said:
its outrageous that a recall wasn't put out on this problem, I cant believe the brand has remained undamaged through it all.

I agree, but as all the cars are so old now, they have managed to get away with it - nothing anyone can do.
 
Poker2009 said:
Palladium said:
its outrageous that a recall wasn't put out on this problem, I cant believe the brand has remained undamaged through it all.

I agree, but as all the cars are so old now, they have managed to get away with it - nothing anyone can do.

Mine is a Feb 2005 (and with 51k miles!) and I have also got the smaller bearing, last checked at 40k miles when I did a clutch change, had the outer seal removed at that time, and just hoping for the best! Reading this has made me feel uneasy..
 
What a nightmare for you. :(
 
Palladium said:
its outrageous that a recall wasn't put out on this problem, I cant believe the brand has remained undamaged through it all.

The failure figures would be too low to warrant a recall. That plus the fact that replacing ALL the bearings would bankrupt Porsche, it's far easier and cheaper for them to dish new engines out to those that failed under warranty.
 
I thought recalls can be for many years after production, maybe that's for safety features, but then again, your engine going bang on the autobahn is a safety issue, they got away with it big time, and created a nice little industry for others.
 
Any warning signs?

Are there any warning signs of imminent IMS bearing failure that you can look out for?
 
No. If it's wearing you can check for fragments in your oil filter, but if it goes pop and fails you're goosed.
 

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