another dead boxster @#$%!

[Jake Raby]

We'll extract the bearing in the coming week now that Pat has agreed to march forward with that process.

You guys will be disappointed with the lack of bearing damage thats visual, more than likely when the bearing is extracted. This is because the tiny bits of seal that we caught in the oil sump are the very earliest stages of seal failure, which is best case scenario for catching an IMS when going south. The damage to the bearing is nil at the present time, BUT the damage will progress fairly quickly once the seal is fully compromised and the permanant lubrication is washed away by the engine oil.

This is best case scenario for Pat, because if the bearing goes further and starts to fail it is more difficult to extract and damage to the IMS tube is possible. This is why being proactive is REQUIRED.

Pat is at great risk for an IMS issue because:
1- The car is an 02 model with a 2.7 and a single row bearing
2- Its a tip
3- Because its a tip coupled to the fact that the car has been driven very easy by Pat because he didn't want to experience an issue..

When driving this car it shifts into 5th gear when in "drive" mode at less than 45 MPH at an RPM of less than 1800.. That spells disaster for the IMS bearing which sees MORE load at the bearing than at higher RPM.

Its a good thing that Pat had the AOS failure and thought the engine was scattered, else it would not have had the sump plate pulled and the seal material would not have been noted. This would have led to bearing failure out of the blue.

This is the procedure that we'll be carrying out for Pat on Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday of the coming week in detail. I still have to add pics of the process to the site, but I am so busy helping guys like Pat that I just can't get that done!
http://www.flat6innovations.com/services/intermediate-shaft-retrofit

[Jake Raby]

We are in work this morning doing the final compression and leak down tests to ensure that the issues with Pat's Boxster have worked themselves out. I'll post results in a few minutes as soon as we complete the evaluations.

I have the IMSR procedure scheduled on my schedule for tomorrow and Wednesday, we'll be posting the entire procedure here from start to finish.

[Jake Raby]

Here are the compression numbers from this morning's tests..

The numbers are good, we did the test warm since I drove the car in this morning. The good news is that #1 has dropped back to the normal numbers.

Here they are-
1-195 PSI/ 4% leak
2-190 PSI/ 4% leak
3-190 PSI/ 5% leak
4-190 PSI/ 6% leak
5-195 PSI/ 6% leak
6-190 PSI/ 6% leak

These are good numbers from a warm engine with 86K miles. We are marching on with the IMSR procedure now.

[Jake Raby]

Pat's IMS has been retrofitted and the seal was definitely compromised!! I'll show you guys how we knew this tomorrow when I post pics.

We'll have the car back together and on the dyno tomorrow!

[Jake Raby]

Forgive my delay in posting some pics..

Here is Pat's IMSR procedure in pictorial form..

In this series of pics the transaxle is removed, then the flex plate is removed to gain access to the IMS bearing flange.

[Jake Raby]

In these pics we get to the point of IMS puller fitting and finally bearing extraction.
Note that we are not using the standard DIY bearing puller, we choose to use the "pro puller".

[Jake Raby]

In this series of pics the bearing is extracted, tube cleaned and prepped for the new bearing to be fitted.

Note the blue colored oil pouring from the IMS tube after the bearing extraced.. This dye was introduced ino the oil prior to my test drive after the AOS was replaced.. We used this to prove that the IMS bearing seal was compromised and was allowing oil past it.. The engine oil only had the dye introuced 83 miles before the IMS bearing was extracted.
The seal on this bearing was so bad that the IMS tube became completely filled with blue dyed oil!! This oil released when the IMS bearing was extracted. The oil got past the IMS bearing because the seal was compromised, just as I suspected after I saw the debris in the sump.

This bearing was well on the way to failure, its seal was compoletely compromised and the bearing had gotten stiff.

This is how far we giot yesterday.. Today we finished the insertion and got it all back together and ready for the dyno. We'll dyno it tomorrow and begin the final stages.