986S Cracked front spring - MOT findings

[Rav]

I need some help please. I took Viola for her annual MOT this morning. I felt sorry for her in the salty, grit, but she made me smile as always in the slippery country roads near me.

The MOT tester found a front cracked spring and I have to sort this before i use her in anger again.

Can anyone suggest where to buy this from and what OE would have been? Is it worth a suspension refresh whilst i am there? I was told that with a spring, i should also change top mounts. I am also considering changing the shocks whilst I am there as a winter project to keep my brain alive over Xmas and avoid the 10th showing of carry on kyber and the two ronnies.

Any help is much appreciated.

 

[iborguk]

22 minutes ago, Rav said:

I need some help please. I took Viola for her annual MOT this morning. I felt sorry for her in the salty, grit, but she made me smile as always in the slippery country roads near me.

The MOT tester found a front cracked spring and I have to sort this before i use her in anger again.

Can anyone suggest where to buy this from and what OE would have been? Is it worth a suspension refresh whilst i am there? I was told that with a spring, i should also change top mounts. I am also considering changing the shocks whilst I am there as a winter project to keep my brain alive over Xmas and avoid the 10th showing of carry on kyber and the two ronnies.

Any help is much appreciated.

 

If it were me I'd be changing springs in pairs.

I think the rest of it will be how far do you want to go re a suspension refresh.

If it's never been done be potentially prepared for a game of Jenga or the two Ronnies Four Candles sketch 

 

 

 

Edited December 13, 2022 by iborguk

[½cwt]

@Rav I'm with @iborguk on this.  I started with a cracked front spring which I changed both (you really do need to do them in pairs) for Porsche OE springs (about £200 at the time), top mounts and bump stops (if these have neve been done they will be perished).  You can just do them on the car if you loosen off the inboard bolt on the coffin arm and disconnect the tuning fork.  This avoids having to tackle potentially seized drop links.  You'll need spring compressors.  Do the top mounts, look for Sachs (OE supplier) about £60 to 70 a pair, new from a Porsche OPC are about £150 each!

Other than this you then start racking up the parts and cost.  Shock (I recommend Koni Special Active as an OE replacement but newer technology update, the direct OE replacement is Bilstein B4) about £750, coffin arms, front tuning forks and rear toe links are sensibly priced from Spyder Performance, look for TRW rear tuning forks and also TRW drop links (about £30 each on AutoDoc), in my direct experience I had to replace a cheap one in under 2 years/10k miles.

Finally to doing the work: the drop link bolts all round and the eccentric bolts on the rear can all be seized, you will need heat and a good high torque impact wrench, or a lot of patience with a breaker bar to get the drop link bolts out, the eccentric bolts if seized will have to be cut (thin cutting disc or a recip saw with a good blade, Bosch Sabre, as they are hardened steel), no point pretending otherwise, you will just waste time as the rubber in the bushes absorbs all the impact effect of in impact gun.

It is fairly epic to do it all and costs around £1500 in parts and requires patience.  The only substantial original suspension parts on mine now are the top mount bearings (cleaned and regreased) and the rear springs.

My experience of doing the the fronts and rear is in these two threads, (rear starts on page 166 of What have you done thread):

 

[iborguk]

I need to correct myself,  it's more the potential for Trigger's Broom than Four Candles but if the car is a keeper then that's no wrong answer. 👍

 

 

Edited December 13, 2022 by iborguk

[Rav]

Thanks both. This looks like a mega project especially for a newbie like me./.

[gripper]

Deffo replace in pairs. Either use OE or aftermarket from SUPLEX. I think these are the only correct taper wire springs available. Any aftermarket spring with parrallel wire will be wrong. But, I'm not sure if the SUPLEX spring is correct for an "S".

[½cwt]

@T911UKdo you have suitable springs currently?

[T911UK]

We still have a few sets of these available;

https://type911shop.co.uk/epages/de867ca1-377e-432e-84fd-bdccf2206766.sf/en_GB/?ObjectPath=/Shops/de867ca1-377e-432e-84fd-bdccf2206766/Products/8873

[Rav]

@T911UK - I will pm you..... Well I tried - but you cant receive messages.

Interested in the springs - although my car is not a M030 car. I also need shocks, top mounts and bump stops.

R

Edited December 16, 2022 by Rav

[½cwt]

42 minutes ago, Rav said:

@T911UK - I will pm you..... Well I tried - but you cant receive messages.

Interested in the springs - although my car is not a M030 car. I also need shocks, top mounts and bump stops.

R

The Koni shocks work with M030 as well as standard.  If you are doing all the suspension, a good opportunity to go with the M030 set up, it is only 10mm lower, but remember to tell whoever tracks it that it is Sports not standard suspension, the geometry settings are slightly different.

[½cwt]

45 minutes ago, Rav said:

@T911UK - I will pm you..... Well I tried - but you cant receive messages.

Interested in the springs - although my car is not a M030 car. I also need shocks, top mounts and bump stops.

R

@T911UK tag didn't register on first message.

[T911UK]

11 hours ago, Rav said:

@T911UK - I will pm you..... Well I tried - but you cant receive messages.

Interested in the springs - although my car is not a M030 car. I also need shocks, top mounts and bump stops.

R

Best to email me via the website

[Rav]

Can these springs be used with the existing shocks?

I have been told by my mechanic to change the top mounts and bump stops too. 

To get a M030 setup, i guess i need to change the shocks. Bilstein do a full set up for about £1500.

 

 

[½cwt]

53 minutes ago, Rav said:

Can these springs be used with the existing shocks?

I have been told by my mechanic to change the top mounts and bump stops too. 

To get a M030 setup, i guess i need to change the shocks. Bilstein do a full set up for about £1500.

 

 

£1500 sounds way OTT.  A set of 4 Bilstein B4 are around £900-950 (According to OEM numbers on Autodoc they will cover standard and M030 although Porsche part  numbers are different for the two set ups).  What is in the 'full set up'?  If springs too, they should be about £450-500 for 4 which gets cloe tot eh £1500 or get a set of H&R from @T911UK.  You could go for the KONI Special Active for about £725-750 and they also work with either standard or M030 springs and several of us on here are happy with them as an OE spec alternative.

[edc]

On a 986 being the age and mileage most are I'd go the whole hog and do the dampers too. The thing is once in doing springs and dampers you will also do top mounts and drop links. Then albeit a slightly different job it would be a shame not to replace any remaining old arms/bushes. 

[½cwt]

4 minutes ago, edc said:

On a 986 being the age and mileage most are I'd go the whole hog and do the dampers too. The thing is once in doing springs and dampers you will also do top mounts and drop links. Then albeit a slightly different job it would be a shame not to replace any remaining old arms/bushes. 

Budget about £1500 for all the bits if you use the Koni shocks and Spyder Performance for the arms and TRW for the drop links and rear tuning forks.  I did 2 years ago, it really is worth it!

[edc]

I did mine when TRW tuning forks were something like £35 and a coffin arm around £75 from memory ... And did the FSDs when they were already fairly popular and common for 993 but never talked about for Boxster. 

[½cwt]

@Rav PM me if you want more info on what the options in terms of brands are and where to get from from.

Edited December 21, 2022 by ½cwt

[Guy Wilkinson]

My 3.2 failed MOT on a broken OSF spring yday. the NSF had broken last year.

Porsche stockport offered 2 front springs for £175 including classic 15% discount.

£90 for a single from local factor. Gonna just fit the aftermarket and regrease top mount. Speedbumps round here are too vicious to run M030.

[½cwt]

8 hours ago, Guy Wilkinson said:

My 3.2 failed MOT on a broken OSF spring yday. the NSF had broken last year.

Porsche stockport offered 2 front springs for £175 including classic 15% discount.

£90 for a single from local factor. Gonna just fit the aftermarket and regrease top mount. Speedbumps round here are too vicious to run M030.

Are you not replacing them in matched pairs?  So £175 for apair is less than £90 for one.  Also just regreasing a top mount won't help much if the rubber is degraded and fresh ones (£65 for a pair of Sachs, same as Porsche OE and you are doing all the work to change these when changing a spring anyway) do make a huge difference to the steering quality, but then again with mis-matched springs on the front maybe not so much.  Certainly the bearing under it can be stripped and regreased.

[fizz]

On 12/21/2022 at 7:45 AM, ½cwt said:

@Rav PM me if you want more info on what the options in terms of brands are and where to get from from.

I've dropped you a pm on this subject mate. Hope you don't mind 👍