996 C4S Front bumper alignment

996 C4S Front bumper alignment

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toastyhamster

Original Poster:

1,669 posts

97 months

Wednesday 4th December 2019
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Starting to pick up a few small jobs and a C4S I bought last week. One of the most obvious is a broken inner front driver side wheel arch liner. Thought this would be a quick replacement. Stupid of me.


This is the bumper as it naturally sits, you can see the bumper sits proud of the arch liner, and it looks like somebody tried to use the liner to pull the bumper in and that's what's caused the damage. At this point the mounting bolts underneath are out. Looking at the other side (no mounting bolts present underneath - doh!) when I undo some of the arch liner bolts everything sits where it was, but the drivers side needs a good push to get it to line up and there's nothing substantial to hold it in place. I don't want to replace the liner and have it break again. As far as I can tell there's room for the bumper to move, it's not resting snug on the inner liner.

Any ideas?

toastyhamster

Original Poster:

1,669 posts

97 months

Wednesday 4th December 2019
quotequote all
Ok thanks. Wheel arch parts arrive on Friday so on Sat I'll try taking the whole thing off and remounting it, probably result in another trip to the parts department given the mankiness of the drivers side fasteners.

toastyhamster

Original Poster:

1,669 posts

97 months

Wednesday 4th December 2019
quotequote all
Slippydiff said:
toastyhamster said:
Starting to pick up a few small jobs and a C4S I bought last week. One of the most obvious is a broken inner front driver side wheel arch liner. Thought this would be a quick replacement. Stupid of me.


This is the bumper as it naturally sits, you can see the bumper sits proud of the arch liner, and it looks like somebody tried to use the liner to pull the bumper in and that's what's caused the damage. At this point the mounting bolts underneath are out. Looking at the other side (no mounting bolts present underneath - doh!) when I undo some of the arch liner bolts everything sits where it was, but the drivers side needs a good push to get it to line up and there's nothing substantial to hold it in place. I don't want to replace the liner and have it break again. As far as I can tell there's room for the bumper to move, it's not resting snug on the inner liner.

Any ideas?
Yep, something’s been fitted incorrectly or one of the brackets that doubles up as the radiator mounting brackets the is or was bent.
So it’s basically a question of stripping the arch liner out and seeing why it shifts when you start tightening the fasteners up.
By it you mean the bumper? I've straight edged it and compared to the passenger side and it's definitely the bumper that's bulging rather than the inner arch being in the wrong place. I can sort of get it in the right position by pulling the bottom of the bumper (where the two bolt holes are underneath) down in a twisting motion, so maybe that supports that bracket being bent. Time out now til the weekend when hopefully the replacement inner will have arrived and an assortment of fasteners from Porsche and Ebay.

This was supposed to be the quick job ahead of a rear strip down to evaluate the exhausts and do the engine mounts. Meh!

toastyhamster

Original Poster:

1,669 posts

97 months

Monday 9th December 2019
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So, got the car in the garage, got the heater on for a couple of hours and set to work.

This is supposed to be a double garage!


Thanks to the bodger who did the front end paint for the overspray on the calipers, got some cutting compound to get the worst off:


Had to get the angle grinder out to attack three of the inner fasteners which were rusted in:


Radiator bracket seems straight or at least nothing obviously bent, as it's just a few mm required I think I'll elongate the hole in the bumper so I can pull it in on this bracket:


Lack of dremel parts to finesse off the rusted fasteners means a break now til tomorrow, plus I need some rust killer and hammerite.

New part ready for fitting, glad I went to the OPC as some of the online prices were miles higher, this whole part was less than the cost of just the front panel online.

toastyhamster

Original Poster:

1,669 posts

97 months

Tuesday 10th December 2019
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Not sure anybody is reading, but what the hey.

Worst of the overspray off the caliper, any more progress can wait until a warm sunny day.


Waiting for the paint on the rad bracket to dry I used a headlight polish (didn't bother using the wet and dry, just the polish):
Before:

After:


After a ridiculous amount of hassle with seized screws, lining stuff up and knocking over a full tub of copper grease:


Next job engine mounts, but not for a while.

toastyhamster

Original Poster:

1,669 posts

97 months

Thursday 12th December 2019
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Drop links arriving tomorrow as it looks like it's on the originals and there's a knock over bumps on the drivers side, seems the easiest thing to change first. It's cold and wet, anything else can wait.

Car has now done more miles in the last 3 weeks than it's done in the last two years. #canwetaketheporschedad

toastyhamster

Original Poster:

1,669 posts

97 months

Sunday 15th December 2019
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Drop links, 30 minutes a side says youtube. Youtube can do one.

90 minutes to do the drivers side, seized nuts and seized drop link. Gave up on the passenger side when my drive converter sheared. Trip to Halfords this week and try again next weekend. Judging from the lack of play in the removed link I doubt very much it's the cause of the knock but they were only £26 each.

It's put me off doing more suspension work without a ramp.


toastyhamster

Original Poster:

1,669 posts

97 months

Monday 16th December 2019
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Slippydiff said:
toastyhamster said:
Drop links, 30 minutes a side says youtube. Youtube can do one.

90 minutes to do the drivers side, seized nuts and seized drop link. Gave up on the passenger side when my drive converter sheared. Trip to Halfords this week and try again next weekend. Judging from the lack of play in the removed link I doubt very much it's the cause of the knock but they were only £26 each.

It's put me off doing more suspension work without a ramp.

That’s more indicative of poor quality tools than any intrinsic problem with the car ...

If you haven’t already got one, get yourself one of these :

https://www.amazon.co.uk/Makita-GA4034-240-Angle-G...

There’s a world of fun to be had with them, and hours to be saved too (especially when it comes to 996 exhaust removal jobs...)

Don’t forget to buy a decent set of goggles and ear defenders whilst you’re at it.
Already got Dremel and a grinder, back in the day I used to do the body side of car repair, so still got some very rusty abilities. Grinder was very much plan b, wouldn't really have helped with the seized in drop link, that was more like the design not allowing room for a decent hammer swing or a punch, course, the bottom link with plenty of access popped right out.
If the car is a keeper the exhaust will be on the list.

toastyhamster

Original Poster:

1,669 posts

97 months

Monday 30th December 2019
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Front drop link no.2 completed today, it looks like the drivers side knock is gone so I decided to pull my finger out and get the other side done as well. Got my lump hammer from my allotment and decided this would be easy after lessons learnt from the first one.

Didn't go to plan. Got the nuts off much easier having done the other side but the top of the link was so seized in even the lump hammer couldn't shift it, it just knocked the bottom spring holder round the shock shaft. After a lot of swearing my slow brain worked out that actually having some load on the spring mount might stop it moving, so I jacked up the car on the suspension and with the full weight of one corner on it the lump hammer finally worked.



Removed overspray from brake caliper, and also the wheel arch liner. Front liner is damaged but not as bad as the other side, one more job to add to the list.



On the plus side car took me and the kids to their Grandads and my family over a couple of days, around 300 miles all in with no issues.

toastyhamster

Original Poster:

1,669 posts

97 months

Saturday 25th January 2020
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Since last post had all four wheels refurbed and two front Michelins, other than that it's sat in the garage.

Engine mounts this morning, a lot easier than inner wheel arches or drop links, piece of cake actually. Glad I did them too, passenger side leaking oil quite badly so didn't have long left.