Cross-member cleanup

As part of the current front end suspension rebuild, it was time to remove the front cross-member and give it a serious clean and degrease. As you can see it was nasty!

Due in part to the previous power steering leak that was fixed when I first bought my 944, the drivers side (this is RHD european car) was covered in a thick coating of grime. The cross-member is easy enough to remove by undoing the four 19mm bolts located on the underside. (Obviously the engine is out and all the attached suspension parts are removed).

For this job I thought I'd try some GUNK foam degreaser that comes in a spray can - which turned out to be more of a spray on liquid degreaser and less of a foam...

...thankfully it did quite a good job of shifting the muck. After using the whole spray on can and reverted to the red backup can of GUNK - which doesn't do as good a job as the 'foam' stuff.

It took a lot of elbow grease to remove virtually all of the grime off using a small 'toothbrush style' wire brush and copious amounts of degreaser and water - but the results are satisfactory:

The reinstallation is aided with the use of a hydraulic jack to hold it in position while the four bolts are tightened up. The left side of the cross-member has oblong holes, so attaching the right side first avoids any locating issues.

All the other front suspension parts have been dropped off at a sand blaster!

Comments

Engine out the top - Easy Peasy

After reading numerous posts, the Porsche workshop manual and Clarks Garage step-by-step engine removal guide - I felt confident enough to tackle the job. But I wanted to remove the engine from the top. As I discovered, it was pretty straight forward even for a novice! Result. I wanted to avoid removing the cross member and disturb the front suspension to do something I was convinced could be done easier from the top. Posts such as this one convinced me to give it a go at least. And I'm glad I did. In summary I was able to remove the engine from the top without needing to remove the bonnet/hood; torque tube; transaxle; bellhousing; clutch; clutch slave cylinder; cross member; front suspension; and radiator. Contrary to many so called internet experts opinions and many confusing threads this was painless and without dread. All that was necessary to remove was the starter; power steering pump and alternator (I figured to make the bottom of the engine narrower); intak...

Bellhousing & Clutch fork removal

Removing the bellhousing from the Porsche 944 engine is not as complicated as it may seem - such as in this situation with my replacement engine. When I removed the original engine I detached it from the bellhousing in the car and removed the clutch pressure plate bolts through the starter motor hole - see my other post for details . In this case I decided to remove the clutch fork pivot shaft bolt. Begin by removing the four 17mm bellhousing bolts - you'll find that the bellhousing doesn't detach completely from the engine. It'll feel like its hooking on something. That something is the clutch fork pivot shaft inside the bellhousing. The bellhousing will be loose enough to rotate - turn it 180 degrees and peek through the access port which is now on top - this is what you'll see: If the engine is still in car you'll be looking at this from underneath. The pivot shaft needs to be extracted from the clutch fork. It's held in place by a small bolt on the...

New Steering shaft bearing Nightmare removal

In my quest to tighten up the handling on the 944, I bought a new Needle Bearing from Porsche in an attempt to eliminate the fore-aft play in the steering at the top universal joint. The part number for the replacement is 477.419.059 and costs £88.86 posted from an OPC. Nothing like the effort required to actually remove the old one... I began the process by reading section 48 of Porsche Workshop manual. It appeared a simple enough process but two things bothered me: firstly, it required a chisel to remove a shear bolt (which in my limited experience never "shear"; and secondly a drill to remove two screws from the ignition lock. I was bothered because a quick look under the dashboard made it quite obvious that whoever had written the manual hadn't performed this task - well not without a dashboard in place that's for sure. I was bothered before I'd even started. Furthermore, the manual doesn't detail the replacement of this bearing at all - just the rem...

Living with a Porsche 944

Search This Blog