Porsche 996 IMS Bearing Update Part I:

Brought this 996 in this week to start an intermediate shaft bearing upgrade as preventative maintenance. I wrote an article for the KCRPCA newsletter this past month, so here is the actual procedure in a little more depth.

Up in the air ready to rock. Awolnation provided the beats, and I started tearing out the parts.

A lot of stuff needs to be removed including the lower suspension carriers, transaxle, and clutch assembly.

The side skirts have taken a little damage it appears.

Looks like something was run over and bent the subframe bar and side skirt. Doesn’t really affect anything, but is noted.

Lower subframe out of the way and starting to remove the transaxle.

Engine support bar in place and dropping out the transaxle. The motor must be supported since the front mounts to the body are part of the transaxle. I had a hell of a time removing one of the bellhousing/transaxle bolts as a previous shop who did the clutch crossthreaded the bolt and just kept screwing it into the block. Luckily it came out without the bolt breaking and I was able to clean up the threads in the engine case.

And staring at the clutch assembly.

Yuck. Looks like we had some leakage from likely both the RMS and IMS flange.

After a bunch of scrubbing I can start to see the engine again.

Then while the transaxle is out, there is no easier time to do the oil air separator (OAS). Under all that muck is the OAS. Even with the tranny out it is a pain in the rear, but possible. Lots of tough clamps to get loose.

More scrubbing.

And the new OAS in place. Someone had replaced the lower bellows before, but the OAS was a 70k mile original unit.

Then it was back to the IMS bearing. With the flange removed, we can see the bearing in the IMS shaft.

Using the special tool to remove the bearing

And an empty shaft.

The bearing still felt fairly decent with no abnormal play, but I figured pop the seal off and see what was inside.

And exactly what I expected to find. No grease left in the bearing, only oil that had seeped past the seal.

And the new ceramic bearing and IMS flange ready to go back in.

New bearing set in place. Since the clutch is down to the rivets on one side almost, we will be putting a new clutch in as well. We didn’t think we would have to since it was supposedly replaced by a previous owner, but that’s how she rolls sometimes.

996IMS BearingIMS UpgradeLN EngineeringPorscheRennsportKC