Originally Posted by Paul Waterloo

I looked in the engine compartment last week and noticed that there was a little dried up coolant around expansion tank cap. It wasn't there when I bought the car, but I did remove it once before winter set in to check the anti-freeze protection level....verified it was a 50/50 mix. Here's a picture of the OLD cap, which was a 00 suffix, probably the original cap on the car. So I ended up buying a new cap with the 04 suffix, and yesterday I installed it. The coolant level was between low and high when I put it in, I added a few ounces of water just to make sure the level was there, the car was somewhere between stone cold and operational temperature. The coolant level was 1/2 way between low and high. I tightened the cap very tight by hand and let the car sit over night. Today I drove the car up to a car event, let it sit there for a few hours, drove the 20 miles back home and put it in the garage. I drove spirited, but not hard by any means. I am probably just thinking I smelt smells that I normally don't smell when I was the last 4 miles from home, which are on side streets vs. highway. After about 3 hours, I took the car over to Home Depot, a few miles away, drove it back home and when pulling in the garage I noticed a leak on the garage floor. It appeared to be coolant, sweet smelling, definitely not oil, and there was a few ounces. Here's a picture AFTER I wiped it up. The garage pitches towards the garage door. I placed the car where I thought it would be the last time I pulled it in for this picture. You can see it's really close to the exhaust, or maybe just in front of it, but appears to be in line with the left exhaust pipe. NOTHING has dropped out of the car since my return trip from Home Depot, I put clean carboard under the car and there is nothing on it. NOTE: I have a lot of clear coat materials on the garage floor, that's from wood working projects, the area that appears to be wet is the area...the other spots are varnishes that have cured on the floor. And here is the expansion tank cap (new one, 04 suffix), you can see there is no coolant leaking by it. The little bit on the right was not cleaned up yesterday. When I first figured this out, and the engine was still hot, the level was below "min", but still on the part of the reservoir that sticks out, so it could be read below the "min". Now that it's an hour or two later, it has dropped down below the shelf part of the reservoir. But you can still see the coolant in the main reservoir section. I have not cracked open the cap, it is still a sealed system. What do you suggest that I do? I don't think it's coming out of the exhaust, but anything is possible.....I was going to let the car cool down and then start it up and see if anything comes out of there. It does appear that there could be coolant leaking down on the left side muffler, I don't think it's salt left over from my ride home from Reno, NV last year. I cleaned the heck out of the car since then. The right muffler does not show anything leaking on it, so if it was salt, it would be on both mufflers. Thanks for you input.....I figured I would post before I do anything else.

Originally Posted by soverystout

Just did the coolant tank replacement on my 03 996 two weeks ago. The peilcan parts article is misleading. They state that you have to lower the engine (via the rear mounts) to get to the tank on the 996 C4 and the convertible because of other bulk items in the way but you probably don't have to lower the engine on the C2 coupe. There is no way that big a** tank is coming out without lower the engine.

Oh, do yourself a favor, once you lower the engine, remove the brass cap at the end of the fuel rail that is in your way. very few instructions mention this cap but it is directly in the way (for the installation) of the bottom/side opening of the tank.

Originally Posted by soverystout

The peilcan parts article is misleading. They state that you have to lower the engine (via the rear mounts) to get to the tank on the 996 C4 and the convertible because of other bulk items in the way but you probably don't have to lower the engine on the C2 coupe. There is no way that big a** tank is coming out without lower the engine.

Originally Posted by Rasputin

Hi Paul,

I'm in the process of replacing my coolant tank too. I started tonight and less than 1 hour into the job, I reached the point where I had to take the tank out. It would not come out. Mine is a 2002 3.6 Targa. So I stopped for the night and I'll lower the engine a bit tomorrow morning to proceed with the replacement.

I decided to do it myself when the local Porsche specialist quoted 200-300 Eur for the tank + 4 hours of labour. I paid 100 Eur for the tank delivered from France, and it will take me up to 3 hours to do it (first time!).

Cheers,

Fabrice