Rear of engine, IMS (intermediate shaft) and RMS (rear main seal) shown. Upon disassembly, engine had updated rear main seal. Engine has early style IMS with smaller diameter nut. Dry RMS but oil collected around IMS and case bell-housing possibly sign of impending IMS failure. This engine was thought to have an RMS leak when pulled.


This engine was disassembled and did have a failing IMS bearing (dual row). If this issue had arisen today (this pic was taken 8 months ago) this early symptom of failure could have saved the owner of the engine 13,000 bucks as we can now replace the dual row bearing WITHOUT complete engine disassembly.

 

thats an interesting pic you have there.... tells a 1000 words. Do you see this often upon cracking open the bell housing? and what model year was it?

 

Case bolts leak, ims seals leak, ims bolts leak, thats fine. How does a failing bearing cause the leak. (obviously at time of failure the nut is sheared off and all the oil comes out)

 

Are there any telltale signs of an impending IMS bearing failure from a used oil analysis? Sudden spike in what? Iron? Lead? Chromium? Copper?

 

Not really because the bearing is a sealed unit.. Until it fails it won't really release any wear metal into the engine's oil.

 

There is often a tell-tale "death rattle" - ask me how I know.

 

for those of you changing clutches... should be part of regular maintenance to replace the single row bearing when your doing the clutch...

do all the re-man motors have a double row bearing...? if we can't replace the double row bearing with a new and improved one a la Jake Raby's design... can we replace the double row bearing with the same porsche unit as part of regular maintenance ever 2-4 years? the benefit here is not splitting your engine apart and incurring tons of costs in labour and re-install...

 

No, the reman engines could have any bearing depending upon when they were remanufactured.

You must not have seen our newest development- The ability to retrofit the dual row bearing.
Here is a link to the article on my site. http://www.flat6innovations.com/savi...e-ims-retrofit

The dual row Porsche bearing can't be bought. Even if it could be you wouldn't want to reinstall one! I omit Porsche parts where possible and apply overkill engineering, thats why our retrofit bearing is a hybrid ceramic bearing with silicon nitride rollers. This bearing can now be swapped as often as you'd like with the tools and components that we just began the patent process on.

Yep, read the article I posted above and you'll see that we now can retrofit the dual and single row bearings. I am doing an extreme RPM test today on one of our test cars recently upgraded to the DRIMS retrofit bearing. Eight hours at 7K RPM should suffice and hopefully I won't have to stop very often to allow it to cool down :-)

 

Jake... that's great info... thx for the link and let us know how that 8 hour 7,000 rpm test goes!

 

If that is a picture of the car AFTER the repair, the the case bolts don't look they were replaced with the updated parts. The one closest to the trans should be the later "Torx" parts

 

Why not test it how it will be used in the real world? Steady rpm does not do much to determine if a bearing sound. That would be like testing a wheel bearing to see how long it would last without the shock or the road beating the hell out of it. Couple it with continuous load and torque changes and you would have yourself a more conclusive test.

 

Trust me, it will be. I drive this car 86 miles a day and if I am not driving it, my Wife is and she drives 70 miles/ day. The car/ engine have hundreds of dyno pulls on them, it's logged about 1700 miles just on my rollers.

I am trying to accelerate wear and issues and trying to force a failure if one can be forced to help speed up the testing. I am taking a break now and giving the dyno a rest. We'll be pulling this bearing to re-measure it and check for wear next month, then we'll reinstall it and go from there with another round.

As far as the bolts, which picture are you referring to?? The one I have posted in this thread, or the ones from my IMS retrofit article?

 

The bolts I was refering to is in a Porsche TSB during 2004.

Porsche supply new Torx head micro encapsulated for both the case (4 off) and IMS housing (3 off) for use when either replacing the clutch, IMS or any work in that area.

It also makes it easier on a PPI to see if the trans has ever been out in the last 3 years.

 

Thats what I thought...
I didn't use the bolts for a reason but I have a whole bin full of them.

 

Jake, if I wanted the upgraded IMS bearings, flange, and bolts, do you think my local Porsche shop (owner is a POC instructor) could comprehend the procedure or will they be "closed minded" about Porsche procedures when dealing with the IMS?

The reason I ask is because the upgrade seems like the way to go but if I had to ship my car to your shop in GA from CA, it would almost make the entire "upgrade" costly.

I realize that the answer to my question is dependent on different shops, owners or mechanics but have you had the chance to "tutor" other shops, owners or mechanics on your process?