[black_box]

My Boxster is turning into a black pearl!

I noticed a little friction in the bearing from Pelican, so I cross-referenced it with NAPA and got another identical bearing from them, tapped it into the engine (this time without freezing the bolt onto the stud, and thus not getting it stuck) and used the provided bolts to cinch the cover up. Everything went together perfectly, and according to plan.

After tightening down the cover, I removed the bolts and inserted the final, sealant coated bolts with the tamper proof heads into the factory IMSB cover and tightened them by hand until snug. I set my torque wrench to 8 ft-lbs and took turns tightening each bolt a turn or two and then.... DISASTER! One of the bolt heads snapped off, leaving the shaft embedded in the engine case.

The bolt had to have been defective -- I can't see any other way it could fail with that little torque being applied. Tomorrow I will try using a reverse drill bit to extract it, but am not hopeful. I am rueing the day that I thought it was a good idea to try to do the IMS -- this has been nothing but trouble. I am also really unhappy with the Pelican kit and instructions I've been using -- every single part of it has failed in some way and it looks like I will wind up not having used any of it, having reverted back to the factory stud and getting a new bearing from NAPA, even the damn bolt they included has broken. No idea how long it will take to sort this out, giving up on planned weekend trip with the girlfriend.