Eyal 951

So I'm replacing the turbo, striped the allen bolt, the higher one, the long one I removed. Thats the only bolt holding the turbo down, I need the car working because I'm going to my first DE event this weekend, sat and sun, and I don't want to miss it cause the car isn't working. Ideas? I dont have any torchs and such soo....
~Eyal

David Floyd

I had to drill the head off of mine, no fun but you can do it.

PorscheDoc

Drill it out or try getting a vise grip on it....not a bolt that you want to strip out.

Eyal 951

This is what I am thinking as well. I'll remove the alternator, gets osme vice grips on it and see what I can do, if not, I'll drill it out. I drill the center until the head falls off right. (never done it before) 8mm bit? Think I can get this all done for sat by tomorrow? I have to cross my fingers on not having other problems. These cars really enjoy screwing you at the worst times, but you gotta love em anyway.
~Eyal

westcoastprshe

I had to dremel mine out, both of them.

OriginalSterm

please take your time and do it right. we'd all hate to see something go wrong on the track because you rushed to make it in time.

is anyone helping you? first time i do any job on my car i always try to have another set of hand and eyes in case something unexpected comes up.

good luck!

PorscheDoc

By the way, but it looks like you are doing it from another post, getting those bolts are much easier from the top after removing the alternator. I will never try and get them from below again.

Eyal 951

I am trying to do it right, I haven't broken a bolt or stud etc... its just this allen bolt that has been my first mistake. I usually am pretty effiecient at not f*cking up, but i did this time. as for something wrong at the track... I hope not. I have new rod bearings in there, so thats a comfort. My brother is helping me off and on, more often off though. If anyone local has the time to come by today or tomorrow, can you?
~Eyal

PorscheDoc

Just make sure you put it back together slowly, you more than likely will forget to tighten down a vacuum line or something, i don't think i have ever removed and replaced the turbo, without forgetting something. Usually takes an additional hour to find out what it was i forgot.

cwigg66

Hey man... speaking from experience, I have to tell you I feel your pain. Here is what I did. I got a drill bit that is about the size of the major diameter of the bolt that is stuck in the turbo, and drilled it out from the top. I actually had broke off a nice SK allen socket in the head of mine so drilling from the bottom was not such an option anymore. I drilled the threaded portion of the stuck bolt out of the turbo from the top, sacrificing some of the threads in the cast iron turbo housing as well. This is not as bad as it seems. The cast iron turbo flange has alot of meat on it for bolting it to the oil drain mount, so I did not come anywhere near the drain hole. Now my turbo bolts in from the top by sliding it onto a stud and putting a lock washer and nut (all stainless) on top. Now I never have to fight it again. Porsche should have done this in the first place. It is hard to make yourself drill into your nice turbo, but in the end, it works out alot better. Good luck and I hope this helps
Chris

z3bra

Try tapping an EZ out in the stripped out part of the allen head use a hammer and a drift or socket extension if necessary to reach, it will bite fine as long as the size is fairly close and it wasn't installed by superman the first time around. Most EZ outs have a square end on them like a thread tap does. Try to find a cheap 8 point or 12 point socket that fits the EZ out and then just wrench it out using the ez out. The EZ out will be an inch size so if you don't have a good assortment of inch size 12 or 8 point sockets a trip to Sears or Home Depot may be in order to match it up.

Hit the threads with PB blaster or the like as much as possible of course from the top even though you probably already have.

Chances are because of the heat cycling the bolt is going to be nice and soft because it lost it's heat treatment (which is why it stripped out on you in the first place) More than likely it isn't going to snap and even if it does you can still pull the turbo once the head of the bolt is off and then take what's left of it out afterwards. It's a relatively inexpensive solution to removing the bolts if they're stripped but not siezed.

Put em back with copper Anti-Seize, you'll be glad.

Since you're in southern California, if you're not too far from McMaster-Carr they have the long and short Allen head bolts in 12.9 grade alloy steel. It's about 10 bucks for a box of 5 of the long ones in 8x1.25x130mm vs. 125mm length on the original. There's room for the thread to protrude and then some so don't worry about it. I think it's about 8 bucks for a box of 50 of the short (35mm long) ones. They won't split it up at McMaster-Carr since they're an industrial supply place and you can probably find the short ones at a decent hardware store for about 50 cents each. The long ones are a little too long for most places to stock normally so count yourself lucky if Ace Hardware has any in the store. 10 bucks for 5 bolts is steep but the dealer wants 22 bucks for just the long one and they'll probably have to order it. It's also a grade 8.8 and will probably strip again next time. If you can make the time to go to McMaster-Carr it is worth it. (or if you're not near them and have to order you're not gonna make it to your DE this weekend).

Their website is www.mcmaster.com so you can see if they're close enough to visit in person. Might have to order first not sure how they do counter sales since I'm not local.

McMaster also sells an EZ out specifically for Allen head bolts that has a Hex cross section that gets narrower toward the tip. Might be worth a try if you're there and they have one in stock. If not just use the normal ones. I did and it worked great.

cwigg66 has the best idea though of using studs. The only reason I didn't is that I figured finding an undersized nut to fit on the bottom of the engine mount would be tough since it's recessed. Didn't measure it but eyeballing it it didn't look like a 13mm nut for 8mm studs would fit and still let you get a wrench on it. You could just cheat and put a bunch of washers in there to fill the recess though I guess. Just don't use the cheap threaded rod for the studs that stuff is pretty low grade material and I wouldn't trust it for that application. Real studs in the right length on the long one might be tough to source, I tried and didn't have much luck. Alternately get a 135 or 140mm bolt and just drill out the threads on teh turbo's flange with a 5/16 bit and have the bolt installed in a "floating" install where it only puts tension force on the flange instead of screwing into it.

2+2

Slightly OT: Eyal, I don't know when you did your bearings but don't they need a break in period? A DE would be pretty stressful on them, no?

Eyal 951

I have just under 3000 miles on them. I broke them in on DINO oil for about 1500 miles, then went back to mobil one.... I'm pretty sure they are fine. The old ones that came out still had PLENTY of life on them too, I did it as a precaution because coolent had found its way into my oil via the oil cooler seals.
~Eyal

westcoastprshe

"I did it as a precaution because coolent had found its way into my oil via the oil cooler seals. "

How is that possible? The oil cooler in the 951 is oil/air, there's no coolant involved.

z3bra

It is possible, the oil passage to the external cooler still runs through the middle of the water filled cavity on the block where the N/A's mini heat exchanger resides and it's sealed by an o-ring. I just replaced mine while I had the water drained too and it was really brittle and probably would have gone on me any time so I'm glad I did it.

The housing seal itself was seeping oil and coolant too so that was something else I wanted to fix in the process and it is.