Living with a Porsche 944

After the preceding tragedy of the snapping a ring gear bolt I was left with no choice other than pulling the engine and everything in the engine bay out again - or in a fit putting The Hoff on eBay. S ense prevailed and I extracted the engine and gubbins to get access to the snapped bolt. It took two and a half hours to get the engine out on the hoist. Thankfully there was just enough of the pan head screw left sticking out from the flywheel to grab it in the jaws of a vice grip... ... And the offending bolt was out! Installation tip! Before I reinstalled the engine I made some marks on the flywheel indicating exactly where the 9 threaded holes were. These marks on the flywheel are visible through the starter motor hole. Which makes inserting the bolts so much less effort! I also tried as best I could to line up the holes on the flywheel and clutch pressure plate by eye so that when the motor is back in it should need only minor turning of th...

At this stage the last thing I needed was a snapped bolt. The ring gear is bolted to the flywheel with 9 pan head screws. Supplied by Porsche I wasn't expecting any problems bar the challenge of aligning the three sets of offset holes on the flywheel and ring gear on the clutch pressure plate. Inserting the bolts through the starter motor hole in the back of the bell housing is awkward enough but very difficult to align the three sets of three holes (more on this later!). I had my son turn the crank shaft via a long breaker bar while I inserted a pencil into the ring gear hole to find the corresponding threaded hole in the flywheel. Once I thought I'd figured out the sequence I inserted the first 6mm Allen head screw and began tightening it up. When it was tight I then gave it a crank with the torque wrench and twang! Snapped bolt. To say I was upset is an understatement. I could immediately envisage pulling the engine to get access to the remaining part of the bolt ...