Lennym1984

31 minutes ago, craigjam said:

Sooo... road trip to the South of France or not?

Decent breakdown cover and go for it. Life is too short to worry about a problem which may not even be one

I'd spend the money on suspension and brakes. In my experience they are a) the only mod where you will really feel a difference (turbos and engine swaps aside) and b) the mods that will actually make your car faster (as in, faster point to point). 

After that, I'd focus on weight reduction. 

5 minutes ago, Photogirl said:

As you say I'm sure they will sell it easily, the market is indeed grabby at the moment (and prices are high) with not much difference on the private market, interestingly.

But private sellers aren't trying to cover a 3-4k margin (I have no idea about used car margins - just guessing). That is kind of my point, a £15K car sold by a dealer is a car that somebody was willing to let go for £11-12k. I'd only let my cars go cheaply if a) I knew there was something wrong with it and it would soon need money spending b) I was desperate for the money or c) I was lazy and happy to take a hit in the name of convenience (which I have done in the past).

Speak to @A-Plan Insurance

If I was a small independent dealer, I don't think I'd bother selling old Porsches. I just cannot imagine that the profit margins are sufficient to make the hassle of PPIs and any remedial work worthwhile. I doubt people would do the same for a 15 year old BMW or a 10 year old Audi and so I think I'd just rather shift a few more of those. Most 15 year old cars will have some flaws and trying to rectify them all probably doesn't make much economic sense (if you are trying to turn a profit).

I kind of agree with the dealer here. If the clutch is within tolerance (ie. isn't actually knackered) then why should they replace it? I think I'd rather just fix what actually needed fixing (ie. could be seen as a fault rather than expected wear and tear) and then if need be sell it to somebody else. The market is pretty hot at the moment and so I doubt they will have too much trouble moving it on.

@Photogirl I do not mean this in a disrespectful way to you and I think it makes sense to do the "due diligence" on a used purchase - Just trying to show it from the dealers perspective. For me (unless it was something expensive) I'd rather buy a 15 year old car privately. An independent dealer warranty on a 15 year old car will be next to worthless and unlike a private seller, they need to make a profit (ie. sell it for a decent margin more than they bought it). This means you a basically paying at or above market price for a car which somebody else was prepared to let go "cheaply"

1 hour ago, Buzzlt said:

 but the best I can get is an overall figure of about 10mm toe in. Wherever I set the camber. I’m going to buy some new bolts but they do move OK.

10mm??? 

Unless you have bought the wrong tuning forks (987 is different from 986), I'd guess that the problem lies elsewhere. Whilst the tuning forks would affect toe if they were the wrong size, they are non adjustable and so shouldn't. 

12 hours ago, zcacogp said:

Thanks for the answers chaps. 

I've called Bilstein and asked about rebuilding the standard PASM shocks and they say that this is not possible and new ones are the only option. These seem to be between £400 and £550 per corner from Autodoc so we'd be looking at adding around £2k to the job cost on parts alone, hence I'm not in a rush to go and buy them unless I'm convinced that they are dead. (An aside but this is a car that only cost me a little over £9k to buy, so as a proportion of value this is bonkers). I'll take the old ones out and have a good look at them. If they are clearly very loose then I'll shop around for replacements but hopefully that won't be the case. 

If the worst comes to the worst then I'll take it apart again in a couple of years and swap them then. An alignment is only just over £100 which is the wasted cost, which isn't huge in the scheme of things. 

Thanks for your input - it's all helpful. 

If it makes you feel better, the 100k shocks on my Cayman were fine (and tested on a dyno by the person I sold them to) when they were removed (I swapped them for a Cayman R setup to make it more capable on track). Bilstein used to claim that their shocks would still be 97% efficient after 100k miles and so this idea of shocks being scrap as soon as they hit 100k miles (a number which is somewhat meaningless to a German manufacturer dealing in kilometers - 160934.4 km doesn't have much of a ring to it) is probably just a myth being perpetuated by companies selling shock absorbers. Are 100k shocks going to be as efficient as 10k shocks? Probably not, but I did a load of track days on my old suspension and it felt good enough to drive far beyond what anybody will ever do on a public road. As you say, new bushes are a more likely reason for cars feeling good after a susension refresh.

That said...

If you are going to the hassle of rebuilding the rear suspension (I haven't read the thread fully), I'd swap out the rears. It's a ballache disassembling the rear suspension and whilst a 100k shock may still function, whether it will last another 1k or 100k is a bit of an unknown. On the front, you can swap the shocks in less than an hour per side and so I wouldn't be too worried about having to do this again.

10 hours ago, sjqprod said:

Hey guys 

I have a 2005 987 3.2 boxster S. Recently had the front coolant pipes, crossover pipes replaced now I seem to have a very slow drip under the engine onto the tray. Started when the weather warmed up. 

Is it ok to use this type of product -

https://www.design911.co.uk/fu/prod127195/WURTH-RADIATOR-SEAL-HP-150ml/?source=doofinder
 

thanks, Sean 

Have you checked the water pump? They have a weep hole and will start to weep before they die.

Why not stick a set of spacers on your current rims? An 11 inch rear wheel is going to be troublesome and it'll ruin the handling

Why not just stick with OEM 18s for the Cayman/Boxster? The 997s will have the wrong offset and will be too wide.

The best company I have found recently are Eurospares. They deal in Porsche, Lambo, Ferrari and Maserati parts and are always very competitive on price. Unlike Design911, I'd say that they are usually the same or cheaper than an OPC.

They don't come up that often or indeed advertise much but I've ordered quite a lot from them (coolant pipes, clips, random odds and sods) and have always found them to be absolutely brilliant.

https://www.eurospares.co.uk/

11 minutes ago, Nobbie said:

This is a common issue on the 986 where there is a foam rubber sheet glued to the inside of the panel under the vent which traps moisture and eventually rusts and bubbles straight through under the vent. Maybe the issue didn’t come to light early enough to fix it on the 987.

There's no foam behind it. It just looks like the rubber pieces holding grot against the paint

Just now, BBB said:

Mine was the same. I removed the vent to paint it black, remove the impactor plate and fit a 3D printed intake cover.

Mine had rusted at the lower curve of the bodywork itself, not the vent tabs. It looked as if the vent had been rubbing on the paint. A big flake of paint came off and all the metal underneath was rusty. By the time I’d removed all the rust the area was too big to do a spot paint and I ended up having the whole rear quarter painted, plus new stone chip sticker.

I’m glad I caught it when I did, as looking from the outside it all looked good.

Ah.... the Boxster and Cayman have a different quarter panel shape (the Cayman one is a bit more flared). I wonder if this moves the problem down further on the Boxster?

I've seen a few 987s on Facebook recently with visible rust bubbling around the passenger side vent and so whilst replacing my side vents with black ones, I thought I'd investigate a bit.

Sure enough, when looking inside the very edge of the panel, I could see the beginnings of some flaking paint on one of the lugs. In essence the little rubber bits which hold the vent seal to the bodywork trap moisture against the edge and overtime cause the paint to fail and the corrosion to take hold. You will not see this unless you remove the vent and then look around the edge with a mirror but overtime it'll creep until you end up with the bubbling rust that these people were showing. At this point, it'll be too late as the metal will have perforated.

If you catch it early like I have it's a super simple repair (rub off the rust and cover with a decent paint - I used epoxy mastic). Make sure you remove all of the rust and rub back both sides of the panel until you are happy that you have caught it all. The edge in question is not visible with the vents in place and so you don't need to worry too much about making it perfect

Mine had only just started and was a light surface rust. I could probably have left it for another ten years without any major issues but obviously it pays to treat rust early and if you catch it before it has perforated (and ideally before it has worked its way round to the visible portion) its no big deal.

The irony here is that the cost for a specialist inspection will probably buy you 50% of the parts you need. It's going to be one or a combination of drop links (£35 a pair), tunings forks (£50 each maybe) and coffin arms (£70 each). Given that they'll all be past their best, I would be tempted to save the money on an inspection and just do a decent refresh. It's a false economy otherwise as you'll end up paying more to do it bit by bit (I tried this approach with my Cayman and probably ended up spending £400+ on multiple alignements).

For occasional track days on road tyres, I'd just crack on. Decent oil, decent fluid, and go at it

Just now, edc said:

Modern cars and modern braking systems seem to hammer the pads a lot. I use the DS2500 on my road Boxster. If I was going to update again I'd probably look at the DS1.11 or DS Uno pad in the same range.

On a Euro trip I did a couple of years back Mégane RS and Civic Type R cars were going through uprated pads in 2-3 days. It was the reads that it chewed up first due to the way the brake system pulse the brakes and uses the rear brakes for balance. You don't have this problem I s TVRs or he earlier generation of Boxsters. 

Having had both a 986 and a 987 with what should be identical braking systems, the 987 definitely overheats the brakes far more than the 986 did. The 986 brakes were fantastic and would last all day without any significant degradation (even on standard textar road pads), the 987 brakes on the other hand have been quite prone to fading (I have now switched to ultra high temp fluid, additional ducting etc). I'm almost certain that the stability control is using the rears to keep things in check long before the light starts flashing on the dash

I can't see your diagram but the clip is the bit which attaches to the sub-frame and the washer moves against. They get worn/distorted over time (they're just aluminium). The washer itself is pretty thick so I think it would take a long time to wear. Perhaps it was damaged when the old one froze?

I reckon they are actually talking about the bracket/clip bit. I ended up replacing all of mine on my Cayman when I rebuilt the suspension. I probably have a spare washer if that really is the issue but I'd check with them.

PM me if you want the washer and I'll go rummage through the parts bin in the shed.

I use Millers nanotech (the red one) 5w/50 in my Cayman and have never observed any untoward effects from track days but equally in my 986 I just used to use shell 5w/40 and it was fine.

I'd be more concerned about the brakes to be honest. Make sure you have a decent high temperature fluid in there.

23 minutes ago, beaks said:

seems to me like these 'might' be dampers that are meant to go with lowered springs...

The b8s are painted yellow so I think that may just be faulty

Do they return to that height if you compress them (just with your body weight)? Usually if you depress the piston, it will return to it's original, resting position.

To be honest, the piston stroke on those dampers (assuming that that is fully out) just look way too short for any car. The springs must be quite compressed even at rest. I'd definitely be on the phone to Design911.

Is it possible that the damper itself is duff and that piston isn't fully extended? That looks a LOT shorter. For context, my B8s didn't look that much shorter than the stock dampers. I could tell then were when it came to fitting the springs but visually, it wasn't that obvious.

I think that there is definitely something amiss there.

That doesn't really sound right. I have Cayman r springs and bilstein b8 dampers (shorter) on my Cayman and I could get the nuts on with just hand pressure. 

I assume that it is the piston that is shorter (not the body)?