Fascinating Thread.. cant wait to see it on the road

 

Rob,


I slept on the idea again, talked to my father (he has a gear cutting shop and his buddy has a lathe and a milling machine) and I'll give the oil fed retrofit a shot. It's too good of a concept to let it pass by.

 

Seemed like a fairly eloquent solution. I expected you might take a run at it.
My Father-In-Law has the equipment to do this sort of thing as well, and I know I'd be all over it just for the "insurance" value. Double-row with a fresh oil bath.....if that doesn't deal with the issues....

I assume you're fabbing up a "go - no go" tool too? (The one that checks the alignment of the crank in the cases before you install the new bearing)

 

It seems to be a good approach... I wonder if someone will market kits for a pressure-feed retrofit...

Apparently LN/Flat Six have a new IMS "solution" that the say will be the be-all and end-all for the IMS. They have been hush-hush about details on it, but will soon tell the world about it in an Excellence article. However, they intend only to offer the "solution" on cars done in Flat Six's shop... so it will be some time before it is available more widely.

That said, I can't imagine what would be better than a good pressure-fed set-up.

IMS issues are real, but have also been very well marketed IMO!!

 

I have a strong feeling that the LN's "Final Solution" will be a friction bearing retrofit. After all, the other end of the IMS (oil pump side) has just that and pretty much every other bearing inside and engine is one. Besides a two stroke engine, I never seen any other engine that has a friction bearing inside crankcase. But we'll see what the hype is all about soon enough.

I don't like the way LN does their business. They seem to release just enough info to create a buzz and to scare the living Jeebus out of the car owners and then, they charge and arm and a leg for a replacement part that will last longer than the original. When asked, they mostly answer half the question, just enough to create even more uncertainty. This company is not based on sharing information with the Porsche community in any way and they are very clear on this. This rubs me the wrong way as I'm the total opposite of this but at the same time, I'm not doing this make any money either.

Give it another 5 or so years and majority of the owners will be DIY-ers, like me. When this happens, others will come up with less expensive and at the same time, just as good of a solution, as this $650 ball bearing. I think, LN will slowly shift their interest towards the more current 911s because that's where the money is. I've seen a shift like this in the 928 community. Back in '98, no one fixed their 928s and now, EVERYONE does. I really hope the guy that developed the oil fed bearing will market it. He seems like a great guy and I hope he can pull it off. Anyhow, this is my take on this. Rant over.


The AC compressor is on and the plastic pipe that connects the passenger head to the Air Oil separator. Figures out where and how all the connectors go too. Took tons of pictures when the upper intake manifold came off and it was a life saver. I highly recommend this, just snap away, the more the better.

 

Imre, I think you are onto the final solution being a plain bearing and oil fed. If you want me to design and draw up the details I can do that for you. The turbo motors all run a plain bearing.

Plus I should be able to source a bearing for you that should do the trick. Let me know.

We can use your motor as a guinea pig..

 

Sounds like a plan Rod. Let's get together for a beer and hammer this idea out.

 

It is uncanny how similar your take on this is to mine.

On the one hand, I am glad there are people/companies that develop options for these cars. Although high-priced, the current LN IMS retrofit is a decent option. However, I like that you are thinking about your own approach. I agree that the guy on Pelican is great! I love it when people share like that. I’ve come to see how Flat-6 parses our anecdotes and bits and pieces of information that do a great job of building up the paranoia, but don’t really provide a clear picture – again, good marketing perhaps, but not real information.

I also think you are right vis-à-vis the DIY future for these cars. I am just finishing a full rebuild of my 3.2 Carrera’s motor which has not been a hard journey at all due to the wealth of good information out there.

 

A fellow RL'er Rod (Gagueman69) noticed that the bearing I had for the project car ('99 996 C2) looked a lot like the one he replaced on one of his '98 A4 1.8T Quattro. Last night, he brought over the old one to see if they fit and sure enough, they are the same part. Disregard the wear pattern on the faces of the two bearings as they are both old. The face of the release bearings on the A4 is a tiny bit smaller, maybe half a mm each side, but that shouldn't effect the operation. The best part is that these only cost $30 as opposed to $150 for the 996 ones.

 

How about that! So are you going the Audi part route?

 

Yes, I'll order a new one in the next few days.

 

Last night decided to make an IMS bearing puller. it was a partial failure. The threaded rod was too thin, there was less than half a mm left after the middle hole was drilled and tapped, BUT the concept is good. Will be making a puller rod, out of a much thicker, grade 8, bolt (last picture) and it should work.

 

good concept, on the bolt, I would drill/tap on the solid part and use the treaded end to extract the bearing. I would go with a metric bolts since there are more threads per inch and would make the extraction a lot easier.
The hole to be tapped needs to be completely squared so to avoid scoring the wall when the bearing is extracted. I would use a drill press to do the hole.

 

All good points however the bearing doesn't need so much force that a finer thread is needed. Since I only wanted to put as little effort as possible to remove the bearing, I just grabbed, at my father's machine shop a, scrap brass tube (lucked out, the size was just right), a 3/4 inch threaded rod, a few nuts, and a thick washer. Drilled a hole and tapped for M8 with a 1.0 pitch. Worked like a charm. Ideally the hole should be parallel, I was lazy and hand drilled it and ofclurse it was off but and it ended up slighly bending the end that it was threaded into the puller shaft. Next version will be put in a lathe and drilled right. Just like all the other tools I made so far, this one is ugly too but, it works.

The bearing tube had about half a cup of oil, the bearing however spins nice without any freeplay. Popped the front seal and the ***** look fine. Washed it out and it still spins smooth but now, the cage rattles because it bounces off the ***** and since there is not oil, there is no cushioning. This bearing has 320 000km on it and still had a lot of life left in it. Maybe the key is to have it as a daily driver.

 

As soon as you stop driving it daily, it will grenade on yah. Mine is still going but you need to add oil after each use.