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Pretty cool comparison of the OEM and M030. Wonder what the 997 forged LCAs are going to look like in regards to older two piece units.
The LCAs pictured earlier actually have 991 part numbers. I think you make sense when you say they're forged, that would explain why they can be so much smaller in cross-section compared to the original 2002 996 parts. Cast vs. forged might also explain the difference in the lateral arms, but in that case the forged ones would be the old ones.
I only saw drawings of the two-piece GT3-style LCAs, I have no idea what they look like in the flesh and even less idea whether or not the design changed over the years.
Can anyone provide further insight on these CA differences? Wondering if the simpler design is just as strong as the older ones (if not stronger) and if they are infact a better material
AlSi1MgZr
Aluminum, silicon, magnesium, zirconium?
6182 (AlSi1MgZr, A96182) Aluminum
"6182 aluminum is a 6000-series aluminum alloy: there is significant alloying with both magnesium and silicon, and the alloy is formulated for primary forming into wrought products. 6182 is the Aluminum Association (AA) designation for this material. In European standards, it will be given as EN AW-6182. AlSi1MgZr is the EN chemical designation. And A96182 is the UNS number.
It received its standard designation in 2005, making it a fairly young material."
I'm a bit frustrated just now. The Porsche parts house I'm working with came up with a new number for the too-short bolts and sent me 4 of them. They're exactly as long as the old ones. So I dug into the 997 parts catalog, since the suspension arms in question carry 997 part numbers, and lo and behold I found bolts that are 20mm longer. Perfect! They're getting some for me and I'll have them by the end of the week. I won't be here however; I'm taking the Z4MC to the NC/TN boondocks to do some romping with the Schuh Syndikat. They're Z3C folks but they let me tag along as long as I promise to behave myself, and also not embarrass them too badly; the Z4 handles much better, especially when one considers that the Z3 has an E30 rear suspension! There's no denying they win in the looks department though. I just love following them through the twisties. Such a sexay bootay.
Frustration #2 is a frozen rear axle. It won't agree to exit the hub. I have beaten/begged/beaten/pleaded/beaten/heated/beaten/pressed/beaten, and still it resists. (Not huge heat or pressure to be honest; I still have options there.) At least I managed to extricate the mess from the car and strip it of extraneous stuff. Next week I'll explore options. This is one of them.
Here's the offending axle. EVERY OTHER BOLT AND NUT I have had to extract in order to do this job has not only come out relatively easily, it has also looked pretty clean considering the 20 years and 100K miles it's seen. This darn axle is my only sticky thing and of course it is one complicated MF to work on. If there's a silver lining it is that I might just go a step further and replace the damned axles and repack the bearings while it's this far apart. The labor is already paid for after all.
Meanwhile I redid the rear shocks and springs. Here's a comparison of US stock targa/cab versus RoW M030.
I had an axle stuck in a rear hub just like that. It's still stuck. That dinky puller won't do squat. I have a Lisle axle puller that weighs 10 pounds and uses a slugging wrench to tighten it.
(Aside. A slugging wrench is a wrench that is designed to be hit with a sledgehammer.)
I beat on that thing with a 4 pound hammer.
I heated that sucker until the grease in the bearing caught fire.
I used a 20 ton press.
Impossible to get the axle out. I ended up buying a used wheel carrier and axle.
Good luck separating it!
I had an axle stuck in a rear hub just like that. It's still stuck. That dinky puller won't do squat. I have a Lisle axle puller that weighs 10 pounds and uses a slugging wrench to tighten it.
(Aside. A slugging wrench is a wrench that is designed to be hit with a sledgehammer.)
I beat on that thing with a 4 pound hammer.
I heated that sucker until the grease in the bearing caught fire.
I used a 20 ton press.
Impossible to get the axle out. I ended up buying a used wheel carrier and axle.
Good luck separating it!
Frustration #2 is a frozen rear axle. It won't agree to exit the hub. I have beaten/begged/beaten/pleaded/beaten/heated/beaten/pressed/beaten, and still it resists. (Not huge heat or pressure to be honest; I still have options there.) At least I managed to extricate the mess from the car and strip it of extraneous stuff. Next week I'll explore options. This is one of them.
Here's the offending axle. EVERY OTHER BOLT AND NUT I have had to extract in order to do this job has not only come out relatively easily, it has also looked pretty clean considering the 20 years and 100K miles it's seen. This darn axle is my only sticky thing and of course it is one complicated MF to work on. If there's a silver lining it is that I might just go a step further and replace the damned axles and repack the bearings while it's this far apart. The labor is already paid for after all.
Oh man, that looks mean. I tried to look back to see why you are tackling it but couldn't find the reference. Am I going to have to do this at some point? What would possess me to do such a thing.?
If a picture is worth 1000 words, in this case about 995 of them were expletives. But it's out! Time + penetrating oil + heat + impact. Now I can move ahead with finishing the rear suspension.
- I'm still waiting for a few last-minute parts to arrive, such as the rear sway bar bushings. What a PITA those were! The parts catalogs show bunches of different numbers. I thought I had selected the correct ones, and maybe I actually had, because the targas supposedly have a slightly larger rear sway bar than the coupes. Only not my car! It has the same sway bar as a coupe. So those are on their way.
- I am very close to proclaiming myself to be a 996 parking brake master technician. I had to disconnect the handbrake cable to pull the hub, and I basically completely disassembled the parking brake to do it. I reassembled one side, which was a bit of bear to be honest; my drum brake skillz are very, very deeply buried in the past I guess. When I was done I compared it to the 'before' pictures and, lo and behold, I had put the actuating lever assembly (the thingie that attaches to the cable) in upside down. Arrggghhhh. This was discovered after I had been at it for most of the day, so I decided to pack it in and pick it up the next day. Overnight I was laying in bed with my mind running back over what I was facing, and it dawned on me that maybe I could just pry the brake shoes apart a little bit and slip the actuating lever out, without ripping the whole works apart again. Et voila! Doing it that way makes the job of detaching the handbrake cable sssooooooo much easier.
- Generally speaking I'm very impressed with the car's mechanicals. The suspension parts are almost all aluminum castings or forgings. The rear wheel bearings are beefy enough for a delivery van. Stuff like that. Very nice. (Except perhaps the shift linkage...)
- Generally speaking I'm much less impressed with the car's body parts. They're okay, I'm not complaining, but let's just say that Porsche allows for a lot of 'wiggle room' so that everything can fit together, and it's a good thing too. For example the larger plastic shield in the rear fenderwell fits nicely on the driver's side, but the passenger side not so much. I tried using the 'wiggle room' Porsche makes available, and got it to look a little better. Again it's not a big deal but it is striking when compared with the precision and attention to detail found in the suspension.
- Next up: learning how to do an alignment that gets things close enough to make the car driveable.
Oh man, that looks mean. I tried to look back to see why you are tackling it but couldn't find the reference. Am I going to have to do this at some point? What would possess me to do such a thing.?
Just seeing this, apologies for tardy reply. I'm replacing all of the rubber bushings and ball joints and whatnot in the suspension. The rear LCA outer attachment point is under the axle and pretty hard to get apart without removing the axle. The next time I do this (hahaha!) I'll leave the axle in place in the hub though.
04-19-2022, 07:55 AM
