Ed Hughes

^Having him have that welded by someone is like telling him to go play Russian roulette. You won't know how competent they are, until the car is retired or the part breaks. IMO.

Essexmetal

Ed, To your point that's why the disclaimers in my post. It is interesting to see peoples feelings on weld repaired parts. Done correctly and yes that is the key there is no difference to original. When you divide up the load on that portion of the rear suspension as it is shared across all that attachments it is pretty light. Certain factor added for street use, pot holes and curb impacts increasing loads exponentially.

I have had several people ask "will that be strong enough" on some of the racing suspension built over the years. Looking at a 1/4" bolt for the steering tie rod is usually the point of contention. When trying to explain it is plenty strong enough unless you hit something hard. If that does not work I walk them over to the forklift and show them the 1/4" pin in the chain that allows it to lift over 5000 lbs. Point of this, materials are stronger than understood by the general public.
Rick

IXLR8

And that is the case with everything in the trades from working on vehicles to repairs in homes, which is why I DIY everything, not for the bucks, but for the "done correctly" part.

We have a welding school at defense and you should see the master welder who teaches on the TIG. The welds aren't simply looked at for appearance, but verified by cutting a cross section, X-raying and even pull-apart tests. When that guy welds, you

I already have gas, so I am used to and prefer feeding the filler rod, so I'm getting a Miller Dynasty 200 TIG next year.

911ist

Ok I am convinced. Shopping on eBay for oem part but how much work to swap this for a proper arm?

CalvinC4S

Is this your side? Great price if it's nice.

http://www.ebay.com/itm/97-Porsche-9...85c859&vxp=mtr

911ist

that is a great price...too bad it's the wrong side! There are a couple on ebay i am looking at, however, it's hard to tell if it's damage free.

trophy

It's not a difficult job, but it is time consuming.

There are a bunch of parts that need to be disconnected or removed to allow you to take the side member out completely, these include:

Drive Shaft (at transmission)
Parking brake cable
Inner mounts of Toe, KT, Camber and Lower A-arm
Swaybar needs to be removed

Once all of the links and arm's are disconnected you will need to support the hub assembly with all the arms attached as they will be hanging on the rear shock.

The side member is attached to the body and to 2 crossmembers, one at the rear that holds the swaybar and a front one that the transmission tray connects to. You will need to undo, and remove the these crossmembers (6 bolts). It is possible to leave one side attached but easier if you remove them completely.

Once the crossmembers are removed the sidemember is only held inplace by 2 large bolts into the body.

Sounds complicated but is relatively straight forward.

Good Luck