2003 996 C2

I'm finally starting to work on fixing a coolant leak that I have near the front passenger side of the engine. I had kind of figured it was coming from the two hoses that are probably original so I ordered what I thought were the correct replacements and of course they are not correct.

But anyway, I was looking and I see an accumulation of coolant at the bottom of this "lid" (part #15 in the parts diagram) which could be being sprayed from one of the leaky hoses or could be leaking from a faulty gasket. My question is this: is there coolant or oil behind this lid? There is ZERO moisture above the lid--all of the moisture is at the bottom of it and below. The moisture is definitely coolant with NO oil residue.

 

Im currently replacing all rubber coolant lines along with a bunch of other things. It was mentioned to me that the gasket under the lid is prone to leaking. Just pop the lid and replace the gasket it is coolant.

 

I JUST replaced this very lid/cover a few weeks ago. There is coolant behind it, and mine was leaking in the exact same way. No fluid/residue up top, just buildup at the bottom.

The bolts are 10mm and the new plate comes with the gasket. When you undo the bolts, be ready to catch some coolant. Not a lot comes out, but have a bucket under there.

 

Dont forget to bleed the system for air when you do this job as you will let in air unless you drain and refill the system from scratch

 

Yep. I bought 3 replacement hoses a while back and am just getting to it now. I bought the vacuum fill tool at the same time.

 

It looks like Porsche may have updated the cover to use a rubber seal now instead of a paper gasket. I'm thinking I should get the full updated part.


996-101-016-00

996-101-336-50

 

That's the route I took, including new bolts, but those were probably overkill.

 

I almost always order new bolts if they aren't too expensive - better to have them and not need them than to need them and not have them

 

The cover I removed has a rubber seal but, as you can see from this picture, it is pretty much hardened up.

Thanks for the input from those of you that helped me figure out that this covered a coolant passage.

 

Well thank u as u helped convince me to change mine while im swapping all the rubber hoses out on mine.

 

Everything is back together and seems to be working fine. No leaks so far from what I can tell. I actually think the case cover was the only part that was leaking. Regardless, I'm glad I replaced the 3 hoses. The weren't really that expensive, and one of the three was pretty dried up. I was happy that I matched up all 3 hoses correctly w/o looking for part numbers on the hoses. Turns out 2 of them did have visible part numbers but the third did not.

My Schwaben "cooling system evacuation tool" worked great to refill the coolant. Even though the system wasn't completely drained of coolant (probably had about 4 gallons out of it), it was able to fill the system back up.