Intermediate Shaft Bolt

[ancster]

Here's an update on the problems with the IMS. There was some oil leaking from the IMS seal and it looks like when the dealer was inspecting the engine, they tried to tighten the bolt and it sheared off.
I have a new intermediate shaft being installed in the engine as there was no damage to the engine. The new shaft has 2 seals and they have improved the design of the shaft by increasing the diameter to improve it's strength. There are 2 seals on the shaft - both internal and external now.

I will post some pictures to show the differences in the shafts. Maybe a start of Porsche working to improve the design.

Cheers

[RandallNeighbour]

Jeff, do you have any pics of the rear main seal you could point to so I can see what this rascal actually looks like?

In my nightmares, the rear main seal is about six feet tall and it spews oil out on everything around it and I drown in a pool of hot engine oil as my wife says, "I told you that car was going to be the death of you!"

Now I'm gonna have intermediate shaft failure nightmares too.

[MNBoxster]

Hi,

This is nothing new, just different, incorrect, verbage. The IMS failure is mainly reserved to the '01 and later cars when Porsche redesigned the Intermediate Shaft to lessen engine vibration. When this was done, they switched to a single bearing (not the seals) over the previous two. The issue persists to this day.

What the lister is describing here is not an IMS failure, but incompetence on the part of the Dealer Mechanics who sheared off the IMS nut by overtightening it - that's something completely different. It's not an inherent failure but poor wrentching on the part of the mechanic.

The non-egas cars are essentially immune to this failure because the IMS in these cars is supported by 2 bearings which hold it on it's spin axis whereas the single bearing has been shown to allow meandering of this shaft which drives the Camshaft Chains. At high revs, this shaft become misshapened and eventually fails, breaks and shreds the Oil Seals. Ironically, usually at low revs.

In other words, Randall, nothing to lose sleep over...

Happy Motoring!... Jim'99

[RandallNeighbour]

Whew! Glad I checked in here before I shut the laptop cover for the night (it's 11 pm now).

Who'da thunk having an OLD Boxster engine would be a good thing?

[Brucelee]

Good job Jim!

Sometimes, new and improved isn't!

[Cloudsurfer]

This is very interesting indeed. So for those of us who have E-gas cars, how much should we worry about IMS failure? If my motor has already made it over 50K does that put me in any better shape (as in, I got a "good" motor since it seems a lot fail at low mileage)? Is there any evidence the 3.2 is less at risk than the 2.7 or vice versa?

Patrick

[Tool Pants]

The latest version seal aka the Cayenne style is in my hand. The green plastic ring in the middle of the seal is an installation aid and the ring is later removed.

[TorpedoZone]

On Renntech there was a thread discussing this issue as well:

http://www.renntech.org/forums/index.php?showtopic=15021

Here's a nugget from that thread..

"I don't know if the issue is completely resolved or not but the intermediate shaft has been redesigned. I cant say when exactly it was introduced or give an engine number range but the new style is very easy to recognize as the nut on the end is now something like a 24mm instead of the old 13mm. Anyhow pretty much all of the 05 and early 06s still have the old style shaft so 9x7's are still very susceptible to failure. For what its worth I have not seen a new style intermediate shaft fail, or leak for that matter. "

Does anybody have any more information on what the redesign actually is, and what dates the "new design" took over? Has anyone heard of a a failure of the new design?

Joe