Yes it can be done without dropping the engine.
I saw it with my own eyes, since I was handing him wrenches.

Presumably then he removed the VC without first pulling the front diff and torque tube?

Yes, lot's in labor. The VC is inside the transmission, hence a bunch of time opening up the trans. I was originally thinking the front diff. was the problem, not so.
I will say that this guy charges $150 an hour! I'm thinking that's a lot. My last shop was $130 which I disliked. Anyone else want to report there mechanics hourly rate?
Thanks.

$120 over here in Reno good shop ! Rennsport (775) 331-4366 factory trained (Matt) many years ago so very familiar with our 993TT's also Steve he's $110 per hour , he has done a lot of work for me.

I'm not sure that's true... I think the viscous coupler is a separate unit that's attached to the nose of the transmission. The transmission doesn't have to be opened. Pretty sure about this.

The VC is inside the front section of the transmission. You need to open the transmission front cover to replace the VC. Two of the bolts that hold the cover in place are hard to get when the transmission is attached to the car. The cover can't be removed if you don't first remove the front diff and push the torque tube forward.

Ahhhh, I believe we were also fixing a leaking front diff at the time.....

Either way $3500 in labor seems crazy high to me. Scott's wrench is mine as well and the guy sure knows his stuff. I think you are in NorCal so we are probably too far for you to use him. His name is Mike Schatz and owns MKS Performance down here in Camarillo. Top notch wrench.

Thanks for correcting my error and not making too much fun of my mistake! I'm glad to know the actual facts.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GWXk...ature=youtu.beWorking on my car… Thought I would check if the AWD system still works…Kind of cool seeing it in action.

Kevin should know better than that! Even if the car could be run like that the ABS would be going crazy on some cars that have traction control. I feel like it was done out of laziness. They were likely testing a 2wd car before and did not want to go through the trouble to put the belt back. There is no good reason to run a car without the roller connected.

I like the guys at Thunderhill but you gotta remember they work on anything and everything. One of my friends had a shop there and had a few horror stories. They are a bit rough around the edges. It's in the sticks after all.

so I'm going on the dyno next week. Looks like I should disconnect the front drive shaft. Wont this car still need to go on 4 rollers so the traction control ABS stuff doesn't go crazy? Im glad I read this before going on the awd dyno

^ shouldn't be a problem, ABS is for braking and our cars don't really have traction control -they have ABD 'automatic braking differential' or something like that - looks at wheel speed side to side, kind of like lsd using brakes afaik. A lot of us have disconnected the front drive permanently...