mph070770

Hi @JB 997 would you mind sharing a photo of the harness. Having had a closer look, I can see that the wires visible at the connectors / switches aren't all the same colours as the harness that leaves the engine compartment. There isn't even a heavy gauge red power wire for the spoiler motor in the harness?? I assume there's some slicing of the wires under the plastic sleeving and that your comments regarding the switches therefore makes sense (thanks!). Perhaps the water ingress and spoiler problems are unrelated (athough I've also read that there's a backend controller under the passenger seat that handles lights and spoiler activity). I'll stay "glass half full", repair the gear (with your kind support!) and keep my fingers crossed.

JB 997

Maybe you are right. Looking at the catalogue again, there are a few control units - one is for the rear end (997 618 260 08) - but it does not show where in the car they are located.

mph070770

So I've just performed another test. I cleaned up my racks so that they were running ok, and then reinstalled the motor etc but without connecting the spoiler wires (so no heavy load on the mechanism). I pressed the dash spoiler control and could hear the mech move to the open position. On pressing the button a second time (to close the spoiler) I heard the motor run followed by a horrible ratching sound of the gears being chewed up. It sounds like either a faulty switch, or a dodgy controller (assuming my theory of there being one under the passenger seat is true). I'm assuming the motor isn't getting a signal to stop when the racks get to the closed position.

Any ideas what I can test for?

JB 997

Most likely it’s making that noise because the nylon teeth are already damaged.
I would remove the damaged nylon piece, and swap it for the undamaged one, so the gears only drive the cable in this one direction.
Test up and down operation without spoiler hinge attached.
If all okay, connect the cable to the hinge and test up and down again.
If it drives the hinge up and down without issue, I think you’re probably alright to fit a replacement gear mechanism.

mph070770

He's a video nasty of what's happening:
clicking.mov

and perhaps when it's working, or is it stopping too early?
stops-early.mov

Clearly the problem is intemittent. Should the mech stop before it's reached the end of the rack?

In all of the tests, I never managed to get the motor to turn anti-clockwise which would close the spoiler.

JB 997

Perhaps one of the limit switches is faulty

Gunner199

Did you ever solve your problem as I am having similar problems and will probably take mine apart again and retest my switches and also look for any kind of numbers as I think I have a spoiler sensors issue? Put everything back together and the spoiler will open and then just stays up and makes the noise. Turn off ignition and then back on but unable to drop the spoiler manually. Very confusing. Has anyone found a sourse for the sensors?

juicedhd

I just recently purchased a 997.2 and the spoiler button would not operate. After using my foxwell, I determined that the spoiler was programmed in the fixed position. When I manually raised the spoiler from the foxwell, I heard a lot of noise and the spoiler motor would not stop automatically. I had to stop it from the foxwell.

Using this thread as a reference, I took apart my spoiler mechanism and found two issues:
1. The limit switch that senses when the spoiler is fully raised was not working (foxwell did not see it activated when the spoiler was raised and when I pressed the button on the switch, there was no click or resistance compared to the other limit switch)
2. The teeth in the two plastic linear drive gears were worn severely in the raised portion of the travel.

I believe that the limit switch failed, causing the motor to grind the plastic gear teeth in the drive. The prior owner knew about this and decided to just keep the spoiler down and reprogrammed it to be in fixed position (my PPI did not catch this either ).

So I started looking to see if I could find someone selling the spoiler mechanism or the complete rear deck lid. Since a replacement mechanism from Porsche is about $1,200, I figured I would take my chances. Luckily I was able to find a Rennlist member that was selling his rear deck lid and he was willing to sell me just the spoiler mechanism.

The mechanism came in the mail today. My gamble paid off as the limit switches and all of the gears were in excellent shape. I transplanted the harness including the limit switches, and the linear gears to my mechanism and I happy to say that it is working great. After successfully testing raising and lowering the spoiler, I reprogrammed from fixed to retractable. Everything works great.

Shout out and much thanks to Rennlist member Superman22x for selling me the spoiler mechanism. Lastly, I also agree that it is significantly easier if you raise the spoiler before taking the mechanism apart. I’ve also included the section of the 997.2 manual that describes how to “rework” the spoiler drive.

Thanks for all the contributions to the thread! You all helped me save over $1000 dollars!

KMDAVIS

Image of my assembly technique
Hi All collected my 2004 997 in Dec 2020 had a look on the how to section as when raising the spoiler while stationary there was the typical squeak. The how to section states 1/2 hour and easy, 2 days later all back together! And no squeak but may be I should have just lubricated the two telescopic hinges where there are holes possibly for lubrication. My keanness to cure the squeak plus a great write up on how to got the better of me. I became so stressed trying to reassemble every thing. It is not a half hour job, I could now do it in say 3 hours. I lost the spring off the Bowden cable, 2 hours search in the garage, gave up looking but found it in engine bay pure luck. The best way I found to reassemble the cables into the black box double rack and pinion is to think how does the manufacturer assemble it. Have cables out of hinges, lie cable in box use thin cable ties to keep them in position, use long nose pliers to compress springs into position, snap top plastic cover home then cut tie wraps. You can now safely engage cables into telescopic hinges. Make sure you carefully route the wiring harness as per original routing. Other wise light and fan connections cannot be made. One other tip do not do what I did which is to have spoiler in the up position when stripping out the assembly, I will try to add a picture of my assembly technique. Just leave it alone after lubricating.

Crans-Montana

Hello forum,

Wanted to thank all those who tackled the job previously for their DIY. I am a weekender mechanic and it took me a solid 6 hours taking my time to not scratch or break anything. It is a fairly involved project. Dont forget some blue locktite, you know where it goes as the old residue is visible. Overall I would rate this as a 7 out of 10 in difficulty. Its finicky and you have to ensure the metal tubes are well seated. I used clamps instead of zip ties to keep the cable in place. If I had another person to help, then I agree with above poster, this is a 3-4 hour job. Not for the faint of heart though, but it goes back together fairly intuitively. the long metal gears can easily be put in the wrong place but you will immediately know it when you put the cover back on, it won't fit. If anyone is in the VA/DC area and needs help let me know!

nolift996

bump. does anyone have a cross references to the microswitches from McMaster Carr or anywhere else? I don't want to buy a new wiring harness for a grand just to get the microswitch that I need. The one I need has (2) brown wires and (1) green wire.

Thanks

Butzi 997

Holy crap am I glad I found my way to this original post after only finding the (now I realize) worthless repost of it in the Rennlist DIY section. The DIY section leaves out half of Insomnic's photos and, crucially half of the narrative of how to actually do this project. It's clearly not an easy 30 min project, unless everything is already clean of course. The DIY should remove everything but the search title and just link to this post.

Big thanks to everyone who posted their experiences.

eggsandwich

I did this over about 6 hours and it felt great to know everything was clean and lubircated...

...but it didn't solve the squeaking groaning noise on raising and lowering the spoiler.

What solved it was simply spraying WD40 on the plastic hinge parts in photos 21 and 22.