Rennlist - Porsche Discussion Forums - My first oil change on a 993 yesterday

Thought I would document a “how to” guide for changing the oil in a 1997 993 Targa. I am sure this is specific to my car only……surely the rest of them are easier. I even did mine on a lift.

1) First, get your parts lined up: 11 qrts of oil, 2 oil filters, 2 specific crush washers (none of which I can get locally), a specific oil filter wrench, a 15mm wrench, 19mm, 15mm, 13mm & 10mm sockets, torque wrench, 3/8 & ½ drives, phillips screwdriver, long flat head screw driver, long 3/8 extension, a bamboo steamer, two Tito Fuentes baseball cards, some safety wire, and a live rooster.

2) You have to remove the undertray, back right wheel, back right wheel well cover, unbolt the passenger rocker panel and remove the rubber hose for the side ventilation door. With a very specific oil filter wrench you can avoid removing one of the oil lines completely but the instructions say to remove that line. In hindsight, I really wish I would have removed that line as I just didn’t get to take as much of the car apart for this as I really would have liked to.

3) You have to get the car scalding hot to get the thermostats to open to drain the oil and get as much suspended gunk as possible out with the oil. Preferred hand wear is nitrile gloves, with mechanics gloves over them, with nitrile gloves over them. Oh, and safety googles and a long sleeve shirt......actually, the way that volume of hot oil came out I would seriously consider a total body condom for the next time I do it.

4) It's not possible to avoid getting hot oil everywhere. Seriously, no chance. I'm buying stock in a paper towel company this morning. My usage alone should drive the stock price up. You know where they say 911’s historically leak a little oil? It’s BS….they don’t, it’s just oil dripping from the car body parts out from the last time the oil was changed…….should be dripping from my car for months. I needed Q-tips to get the last oil off me……actually 2 showers later I still probably didn’t get it all. The Exxon Valdez ain’t got nothing on me.

5) Once I got through the horror of draining the oil and buttoning everything back up I get the fun of adding oil. How hard can that really be?

6) Adding oil isn't quite as much fun as draining it, but it still has its moments. First, ideally you have some sort of a bendy funnel.......the fill is off to the side at an angle. There’s that little tube in the fill line, but it just didn’t work that great for me with a basic funnel of course. I read you are supposed to add 6-8 qrts first, then start the car to get things circulating then add the rest. Of course, don't add the 6-8 qrts too fast or it will back up and spill even more oil on your garage floor. Also, somewhere in that 6-8 qrt initial fill it may decide 8 is too much for starters and puke some more oil on your floor.

7) Once you get enough oil on your floor from the initial fill you start your car. If working over the hot engine isn't enough to make OSHA happy, the fact that you are now leaning over the exposed moving fan and various belts to try to fill this thing the rest of the way should........baggy clothing not really a good idea here.

8) So you get the engine scalding hot and start to add the additional oil. Not too fast mind you or onto the floor it goes. The fun part here is you know exactly how much should go in, but you have to factor in how much oil is already spilled on your garage floor. Good idea to have a couple extra quarts handy.

9) While you are filling you get to check the oil on a crooked dip stick that is actually taller than my wife. Oh, and the rubber seal on the end of the dipstick tends to wipe the oil off when the dipstick is being pulled out to check the oil level so you are double checking the dip stick vs. the gauge on the dash which measures the oil level……neither is really comforting by itself.

Other than that it was pretty straight forward.

Ultimately I think one of my issues is I couldn't bring myself to sacrafice that live rooster mentioned in 1) part way through the procedure as the instructions specified. Maybe next time.

It took about 3 hours for me to do the complete change using a lift. 45 minutes of that was changing the oil and the other 2 hours and 15 minutes was cleaning up afterwards. Heck, who am I kidding, still not done cleaning up.

If think if I really hustle next time I can knock that 3 hours down to about 2.5. :)