jeebus31

Howdy.

I'm putting on new brake rotors and pads all around this weekend, new brake hoses too. Is there anything unexpectedly tricky about the brakes on the 997.1TT? I never had a chance to do the brakes on my old 997.1 but have done other German makes/models. Seems straightforward (I hope). I know I need to check whether or not I have 10 mm and 11 mm flare nut wrenches for the hoses...

Similarly, I will be doing the inner and outer tie rods - actually first time doing it myself on a rack/pinion car. I got an inner tie rod puller that should fit. The tie rods are shot in the front so I'm hoping for some improvement in the steering and driving quality. Planning on an alignment hopefully on Sunday.

By the way, my indy said my rear "track rods" are shot. I'm not entirely sure which part this is. The rear suspension has a number of arms including the control arm and a control arm link (997 331 045 04) which have ball joints. I guess I will see what I need to replace when I take a deep dive under the car this weekend. I plan on replacing all of the suspension arms, and I sourced some used techart springs and shocks from a fellow RLer but it will likely be piecemeal as I find spare time here and there.

Itching to get started on this project - my indy already got it going with new driver's side seatbelt receptacle to fix an airbag light which was needed to pass inspection, new aftermarket DRL/turn signals, and he also replaced and repacked torn CV boots all around.

Catorce

Everything is straight forward. Get a Motive Power Bleeder to bleed the brakes when you're done.

lliejk

Pretty straightforward.

1. Brakes/Rotors - watch for stuck nuts on the lines. I use a Motive Bleeder, they are great to have. If you are flushing the fluid, make sure you have enough to do the job
2. Inner/Outer Tie Rods - once you get the boot out of the way, measure from the inside edge of the inner tie rod to the center of the outer tie rod and duplicate that measurement on the new gear to keep the toe as close as possible. Make sure you have the right style clamps and pliers to attach the clamps on the boots

Ed

jeebus31

Well it was all going fine...

I went slowly today, cleaning all the calipers to make them nice and shiny. Did the rear brakes then moved to the front. Made my way to the tie rods before bolting up the new front rotors and the old tie rod boots had power steering fluid in them on both sides. I guess the steering rack seals are leaking.

My uneducated guess is that I have to replace the rack?

Edit: I answered my own question - yes. Haha.

By the way, the PS fluid reservoir was not empty. It was just a little bit low when I checked on Thursday. I added a bit to get it to the appropriate level, so it clearly hasn't been leaking like crazy. I would say about 30 - 40 mL came out of the boots.

Another question - are all 997 racks the same? Or is the turbo rack special?

tinkerbill

Hi, sorry that you have these issues to deal with but it sounds like you enjoy working on the car which is certainly a good thing. Can you give us some info on the car such as year, mileage and maybe some history of its usage up to this point? Thanks
Bill

saabin

Haven't had to deal with that one yet.. R&R of a steering rack doesn't sound like fun..

jeebus31

Bill - 115k miles, tip, bought it cheap as a project. It has had the coolant lines done and the camshafts pinned, so the drivetrain is in good shape.

The rubber stuff needs to be replaced. Since I have to do the rack, I decided to just leave the car up and do it all - all suspension arms and rubber, shocks, springs, mounts. Rear axles need to be switched out too. Looking forward to a fun couple of weeks.

The rack R&R doesn't look impossible. From what I gather, there are two bolts to the subframe, one bolt on the PS lines, and one bolt on the steering linkage. A coolant hose needs to be moved... and a lot of wiggling.

I just need to figure out which PN goes with the rack to the turbo.

EDIT: 997 347 011 05 from the Porsche Genuine Parts Catalog. But I think they are all interchangeable 997 347 011 XX

jeebus31

Not a bad job. I got the rack out in 2 hours. On the 997 you have to drop the subframe, there is not as much room as a 996 to get the spline out of the column. There will be some coolant loss because a small coolant hose is in the way - probably 1 or 2 cups.

I picked up a low mileage used rack for 225 shipped, should get here sometime this week. Remanufactured racks are about double plus a core charge. New racks are.... expensive. Not worth it for this high mileage beast.

jeebus31

Started taking apart the front suspension - marked the original position of the control arm bolts and the shock mount bolts, then removed the wishbone, control arm, and the sway bar link. I loosened but did not remove the shock since it's the only thing holding up the driveshaft right now.

The control arms were totally shot and the rubber bushing in the wishbone was like peanut butter.

Lots of room in there with everything removed. I ordered a liter of PTX and AWD controller oil and will flush the front diff since I can get to it easily. Shocks will get here tomorrow, the rest of the parts later in the week.

Productive day.

Rob32Ford

Just an FYI on the used rack - my low mileage 2008 TT (18k) miles had a leaking rack and was replaced by the dealer prior to my purchase. Like the coolant fitting issues - time is not on our side for anything that holds fluids on these cars! Perhaps a reman rack would be best but too late at this point.

jeebus31

No biggie, willing to take that risk. I might try to fix the seals on the one I removed.

Brainz

Thanks for posting the pics. Good luck with your repair.

lliejk

Hopefully seals on that rack are nothing like the rack in my Audi C4 S6. The rebuild kit had a million seals. One guy who did it didn't think it was worth avoiding the core/rebuild option. It wasn't horrible, just tedious.

Ed

Skwerl

These kinds of threads make me think every 997 Turbo has at least $3k in leaks lurking somewhere if you just look hard enough.

jeebus31

Thanks Brainz!

My guess is that I will just chuck the old one or leave it somewhere in my attic never to be seen again. The used one has 30k miles on it. Rollin the dice, but it's not a tremendous sum of money if it goes bad. My goal is to keep get this turbo back into excellent shape and stay under 40k taxes/registration included.

Agreed. The trick is to not look so hard! When I find something wrong, I have to fix it ASAP. Gives me anxiety knowing that there is something wrong.

Today was another productive day. I changed out the brake hoses for new OEMs. I did not go with stainless - there's no benefit. I was concerned about the brake line nuts on a 115k mile car - a bit of PB blaster and flare nut wrenches turned the nuts just fine. If you try this without flare nut wrenches, you will fail. They are an absolute must because standard wrenches will round the nuts. I got cheapos from Harbor Freight - 11 mm on the caliper side and 10 mm on the body side are required. You really only need them to loosen and after that a plain jane wrench will do. The rear lines were harder because of space issues. And if anyone else is DIYing this, remember that brake fluid eats paint so cover the calipers with a plastic bag to protect it. I'm waiting until I put everything back together to bleed the lines.

I also loosened the bolts on the diff and the AWD controller. I have some PTX and AWD oil on order from Suncoast.... I was hoping they would ship it today, but alas... so I will wait until that stuff gets here to flush both sides. The last photo shows the location of the fill bolt for the AWD controller..... what a pain in the *** location.