Intermediate Shaft Warning

[Littletidnock]

Does the 996 intermediate shaft failure give you any warning, in other words are there any signs to look out for before it fails totally, knocks, rattles, bangs, leaks etc.

[Littletidnock]

Baz

Are you suggesting that it is a good idea to change the bearing before it fails and is there an upgraded bearing that is stronger for want of a better word, furthermore, this can be done with the engine in but box out?

If so I will arrange to get this done forthwith as prevention is better than cure and I can enjoy the car more.

[Littletidnock]

hartech said:

You can do this with the gearbox out using some tools we have made to support the shaft, and we charge £200 to do this +vat (if added to a clutch job or RMS at fixed cost - see menu), £500 + Vat (manual gearbox as a job on its own), £800 + Vat (tiptronic as a job on its own).

Failures are however still rare and so as long as there are no other relevant noises or signs of a failure or iminent failure - we do not classify this as something that needs doing unless you happen to be already paying for other work that gets you near the job and therefore at a reduced cost - although we do discount the cost to our Lifetime Maintenance Plan customers by 50% by way of a compromise - if they want it done seperately.

There have been several re-designs of this part, different bearings, housings and spindles and we will soon run out of bearings ourselves for the eariest type and will need to redesign some other parts to utilise a different bearing (spares of the original are not available).

There is not room to change the bearing for a better one but of course we can improve the cooling and oil delivery by removing the seal and strengthen the spindle by simply making it bigger and changing the seal location to keep the shaft larger in diameter (something that could easily have been done originally).

I think I would have originally fitted a plain bearing and drilled a minute hole in the bottom of the other end of the shaft so the oil pump (which is run off it) delivered a constant stream of oil along the shaft to lubricate the bearing (and we may well try a plain bearing one day - we may indeed have to come up with something else eventually).

We intend to build a dyno facility and then build a track car to test out our modifications under greater loads - next year - to prove or disprove their suitability - and are therefore into this job of fixing these engines for the long term.

Baz

Thank you