Yup, it is. I pulled the tranny yesterday. I ordered the clutch kit yesterday and the IMS bearing from Raby this morning. All in all not too bad of a job except for the upper trans/engine bolts and clutch slave as noted by everyone so far. But it does help to remove the front trans support early on and tilt the trans down to get better access to the slave and those two bastard bellhousing bolts. That upper bolt was a real bear until I realized I can get it with 3' of extensions from the back of the trans.

The good news is nothing was leaking after 60k miles. Just a weeping that had a bunch of clutch dust absorbed onto it. But some clean oil did come out of the bellhousing bolt that goes right below the oil cooler on the pass side. Maybe 4 drops.

Question; how do you know if the flywheel is good or not? They are $700 and I don't want to replace it if I don't need to. But I don't want to cheap out and go through this again if I don't have to. Right now it has resistance but I can rotate it back and forth with my hands.

 

At the shop, they said if the two halves of the flywheel still move -- it's ok -- but can be replaced if the car has a lot of miles, etc. I think you can rotate the halves and the springs should snap them back into position. If the two halves are solid and only rotate as a single mass, or the springs won't snap the halves back into position -- the flywheel should be replaced.

I know others will chime in -- probably with better/more precise info.

 

Thanks for the order.. We'll help you through the IMSR process.
Post some pics of the flywheel and we'll see if they look like the wear surface is questionable.. Thats one of the elements to determining if it's ok to reuse or not.
This is the busy season (we HATE it) so it might take a day or two for the bearing to ship.. My Parts Manager will be in touch soon.

 

+1 for James on flywheel

what did you clean with, looks minty fresh!
nice and dry to start too

 

OK, here are the pics of the flywheel. The flywheel returns back to center when you rotate either direction, and it does have a fair amount of resistance to rotating from center position.

I cleaned the area with a water based detergent called oil eater. I sprayed the oil eater on and used a brass brush to scrub the dirt away. Then I rinsed it all off with a can of carb cleaner.

Even though my RMS was not leaking, would I be well advised to change the RMS anyway? I don't know if this is one of those cases of letting sleeping dogs lie or not. From what I have read, off center machining of the case at the RMS is the cause of the leaks. You can't get the seal to work correctly because the crank is not centered in the rear main seal. But I thought mine looked as good as any car I have seen. But if it's a simple and reasonably risk free R&R, then maybe I might be inclined to change it.

 

In hindsight the trans removal was actually pretty easy. What surprised me was the goofy wrench and socket sizes. Most of my wrenching has been done on Alfa's, BMW's and Mercedes. Those typicall use 10, 13, 17 and 19mm sockets/wrenches for practically everything. The Porsche used 10mm on the belly pan, 13mm on the clutch slave (2), 15mm on the trans supports (6) and 16mm on the bell housing bolts (8). Plus one weird 12 spline 12 mm socket on the bellhousing and a T55 on the flywheel bolts. Oh, you also need an 8mm Allen head on the CV joints and 6mm Allen on the clutch cover. And I had to use all the u-joints I had and some wobble extensions. I don't think I have ever used a 15 or 16mm on anything. And 90% of this job was done with those two sockets.

 

excellent time to do the 2nd gear detent upgrade
http://www.gboxweb.com/detent.html

 

Just when I thought I knew all the weaknesses of these cars....I discover that 2nd gear pops out. Looks like a reasonably easy fix though.

 

A Porsche tech tells me the flywheel check involves seeing how far one can rotate the flyweel against the dual mass thingie. I forget though how many degrees of rotation is acceptable and how many is not.

Sincerely,

Macster.

 

from TSB 911 (996) 8/02 1360 Dual Mass Flywheel Check procedure

http://www.renntech.org/forums/index...-procedurepdf/

Can the dual Mass Flywheel be twisted approx. 15mm in each direction, left/right, and does it return to approximately its initial position? If so it is good.

Can the DMF be twisted beyond dim stated above without a noticeable increase in the spring force? Or is it fixed (no rotation?) if so bad

 

RMS data point FYI
When I pulled my trans my RMS was dry I replaced it with the latest upgrade. I got to do that 2 more times until it was dry again.
The new encapsulated bolts and IMS seal were fine after the first time.

 

Thanks Frank, I was a afraid of that. It seems that the RMS seals have the most trouble in cases with alignment issues. And since mine seems to be OK, I might just let it stay put, until my next clutch job.

 

Oh Boy, The UPS man visited today. And I got two presents.

 

goodies!!

 

Wow! Shiny things. DON"T GET THEM DIRTY!!