[Eric G]

Well, as I begin my project rebuild on my 98' 986. I sent my parts list around to a number of companies looking for bids on supplying all the parts I needed and in the end Pelican came through with shinning numbers. Sure there are a couple of pieces I found elsewhere that I could not pass up the pricing but in the end, I was able to get 98% of all my parts at the best price from Wayne. Additionally, I have the full version of the UK Boxster manual, Bentley manual and Wayne’s 101 Projects book along with about 3 gigs of data from Mike, Pedro, threads from here and across the web. No such thing as having too much information and if I had to ask a question, I wanted to at least be able to discover the answer on my own. With that said, I am sure there will be a few questions somewhere down the line.

OK, so in deciding where to start I chose the wheel bearings. The wheels came off and I pulled the tires off and got the rims over to the powder coater. The rotors and pads were changed last December so that put me next at the wheel bearings.

Realizing that a number of folks have posted up wheel bearing threads and there are some novel approaches by others to speed the process of replacement, I spent quite a bit of time on the phone and emails with many people and uncovered an aeronautical company specializing in lubrication of aircraft engines and whose owner is a Boxster owner

He has taken his engineering abilities and passion for the Porsche and produced several tools specifically designed for the 986 and some of its issues. Casper Labs casperlabs.com has a new design that allows the replacement of a wheel bearing in ~1 hour/wheel wherein you do not have to remove the suspension the eccentric, nor do you need a hydraulic press for removal nor insertion of the bearings. The tool is fully functional for all four wheels.

I would love to show you how the tool works, but I have been asked not to as he is still building his business market. I will say this is somewhat of a bummer but I will honor my word and not show anything more than what he shows in his marketing pictures. In his defense I bought the first tool off the production line. Hey, I can respect a request…but I can show what it looks like with a bearing out. In the end it did take about 1 hr wheel and in the end I am stoked with how easy the whole process went.

Total cost for this project: Tools, wheel bearings and 5 hours time just under $500.00

Ease of project (using Wayne's format) two wrenches

I was even able to let my wife do one wheel as she is really into this project and at 5'4" and 105lbs she was able to do one complete wheel!

Here are some shots below:

he IMS will be down the road hopefully next week. Next up will be pulling the suspension our and starting on some of the other items. As I take them on I will post up pictures…with that said if there are any pictures someone would like or need of components, let me know and I will take them as I get to those areas.