Porsche 911 997.1 Daily Driver
Discussion
Great work getting the hands dirty. I sold these used for several years, these Generation 1's were our bread and butter so I know their foibles well. (and there's certainly a few!) always stand by a well sorted one being one of the best proper drivers cars you can get for the money. I hope it continues to keep you well.
Love the mission you have undertaken here. May as well enjoy these cars whilst you can! I held onto a 911 until very recently where I finally gave up due to having a young family. That's where the life of 4 door M cars come in handy 
Great to see the DIY work and I totally agree that doing things yourself generally results in a better quality job - so long as you have a manual to guide you with certain nuances.
Great to see the DIY work and I totally agree that doing things yourself generally results in a better quality job - so long as you have a manual to guide you with certain nuances.
TheOctaneAddict said:
Nice work! I'm going to buy a 911 next year for my 30th, the choice between a regular car and a 996 for the weekends or a 997 as a do it all daily is one I can't decide between!
When I was looking I weighed up a 996 C4s. I saw a 996 in person and no matter which way you look at I, the interiors are terrible compared to the 997s. Id personally go for a 997 and daily it (I'm biased as this was the choice I made) . If you have a 'regular car' and a 911 on the drive I know which one your gonna wanna take to work everyday. Alfred Pina said:
Love the mission you have undertaken here. May as well enjoy these cars whilst you can! I held onto a 911 until very recently where I finally gave up due to having a young family. That's where the life of 4 door M cars come in handy
Great to see the DIY work and I totally agree that doing things yourself generally results in a better quality job - so long as you have a manual to guide you with certain nuances.
I keep looking at E90 M3's, I think if my circumstances ever change and I need a 'practical' car then an E90 is defo at the top of my list. Practical car + a V8, what else could you wantGreat to see the DIY work and I totally agree that doing things yourself generally results in a better quality job - so long as you have a manual to guide you with certain nuances.
I bought my MGTF with full service history and when I got underneath it the oil filter was dated 2 years before the last 'Service' (dated with writing on it from a garage with the date and mileage stated when fitted - a practice I have taken up myself - this was done at a fairly reputable garage aswell.
I found an invoice for a gearbox oil change for my 911 last night which dated back to only mid 2021. At least that means the gearbox hasn't been overfilled for a significant amount of time. Annoying as the overfilling would of been what caused the seal to go due to excessive pressure, at least I will know its been done right after iv done it
TheOctaneAddict said:
Nice work! I'm going to buy a 911 next year for my 30th, the choice between a regular car and a 996 for the weekends or a 997 as a do it all daily is one I can't decide between!
I did exactly this a year ago, 997 C4S manual is a perfect daily! OP glad to see someone else who is happy getting the spanners out on the drive to fix their daily 911
adean22 said:
Alfred Pina said:
Love the mission you have undertaken here. May as well enjoy these cars whilst you can! I held onto a 911 until very recently where I finally gave up due to having a young family. That's where the life of 4 door M cars come in handy
Great to see the DIY work and I totally agree that doing things yourself generally results in a better quality job - so long as you have a manual to guide you with certain nuances.
I keep looking at E90 M3's, I think if my circumstances ever change and I need a 'practical' car then an E90 is defo at the top of my list. Practical car + a V8, what else could you wantGreat to see the DIY work and I totally agree that doing things yourself generally results in a better quality job - so long as you have a manual to guide you with certain nuances.
I bought my MGTF with full service history and when I got underneath it the oil filter was dated 2 years before the last 'Service' (dated with writing on it from a garage with the date and mileage stated when fitted - a practice I have taken up myself - this was done at a fairly reputable garage aswell.
I found an invoice for a gearbox oil change for my 911 last night which dated back to only mid 2021. At least that means the gearbox hasn't been overfilled for a significant amount of time. Annoying as the overfilling would of been what caused the seal to go due to excessive pressure, at least I will know its been done right after iv done it
Well done on finding and rectifying the cause and hopefully not too much harm done.
Well done on keeping the rest of the car in such good shape. Not far from 100k now and should keep going for many more.
Parts came into OPC yesterday so over the past 2 days after work iv been piecing the car back together.
£55 for a seal and a tiny spring clip was painful but they come in a Porsche wrapper so that explains the price.
The new seal went in fine and I managed to bolt everything back up and go over with a torque wrench to torque everything up to the correct value.
Iv refilled the gearbox with new oil and the correct quantity this time - bout 2.9 litres or when the bottom fill plug is overflowing. There is a fill plug higher up as well so I'm guessing that's the mistake the previous garage made when overfilling.
I took the car for a long run today and the oil temp seems to sit about 10 degrees lower now as well as the oil pressure staying a bit higher, I don't now how accurate the resolution of the gauges are but the LTT has made a slight difference at least.
There's also no more oil leaking from the gearbox/diff so ill class this repair as a success.
Iv started using the car for work purposes as well so you may well see a 911 with a flashing beacon and a highway maintenance livery whizzing up and down the county, ill get a picture at some point. It does get a lot of funny looks which I love.
£55 for a seal and a tiny spring clip was painful but they come in a Porsche wrapper so that explains the price.
The new seal went in fine and I managed to bolt everything back up and go over with a torque wrench to torque everything up to the correct value.
Iv refilled the gearbox with new oil and the correct quantity this time - bout 2.9 litres or when the bottom fill plug is overflowing. There is a fill plug higher up as well so I'm guessing that's the mistake the previous garage made when overfilling.
I took the car for a long run today and the oil temp seems to sit about 10 degrees lower now as well as the oil pressure staying a bit higher, I don't now how accurate the resolution of the gauges are but the LTT has made a slight difference at least.
There's also no more oil leaking from the gearbox/diff so ill class this repair as a success.
Iv started using the car for work purposes as well so you may well see a 911 with a flashing beacon and a highway maintenance livery whizzing up and down the county, ill get a picture at some point. It does get a lot of funny looks which I love.
Picked up some GT3 brake air ducts to have a go at fitting when I next get some chance. For road use they will make absolutely no difference, however they were £5.18 from my local Porsche dealer and they will look nicer than the 15 year old ones that are on it.
They are only slightly larger than the standard items, the gt3 cup items are bigger again but they retail for a few hundred quid. Iv got access to a 3d printer so its got me thinking about possibly printing some 'cup' versions.
These fit in with the OEM+ upgrades I want to do to the car. I also want to upgrade the brakes to the bigger turbo sized brakes - the brakes are good but I'm used to my MG with big 4 pot AP racing calipers on the front, and upgraded rear big brakes on a car that weighs less than the 911 . So every time I go from the MG to the 911 I am wishing that the 911 brakes were just that bit better.
Edited by adean22 on Thursday 12th May 09:02
So I cracked on with fitting the GT3 brake ducts last night.
Was a nice simple job, I only needed to jack up the car and remove the front wheels - in hindsight you could probably do it without taking wheels off - however it was a good excuse for me to clean up the brake calipers.
Here's a picture of the standard ducts on the car:
Here's the standard and the GT3 ducts side by side:
As you can see, there isn't much difference, the bottom part just catches more air.
And here's a picture of the GT3 ducts installed:
The install took about half an hour for both sides and was a nice little modification.
I did a quick clean of my calipers before putting the wheels back on
I also inspected the brakes - the discs will need changing with the next pad change and the pads only look to have a few mm left so I'll need to do them in the next few thousand miles.
Cars now back together and ready for the next thing to go wrong....and the next thing does go wrong on my way to work the day after installing these (today)
Was a nice simple job, I only needed to jack up the car and remove the front wheels - in hindsight you could probably do it without taking wheels off - however it was a good excuse for me to clean up the brake calipers.
Here's a picture of the standard ducts on the car:
Here's the standard and the GT3 ducts side by side:
As you can see, there isn't much difference, the bottom part just catches more air.
And here's a picture of the GT3 ducts installed:
The install took about half an hour for both sides and was a nice little modification.
I did a quick clean of my calipers before putting the wheels back on
I also inspected the brakes - the discs will need changing with the next pad change and the pads only look to have a few mm left so I'll need to do them in the next few thousand miles.
Cars now back together and ready for the next thing to go wrong....and the next thing does go wrong on my way to work the day after installing these (today)
Edited by adean22 on Friday 13th May 11:47
My handbrake has been making the occasional squealing noise from the rear nearside wheel for the last week or so, my plan was to dismantle the rear brakes this weekend to see where the noise was coming from. I know these cars have drum brakes for the handbrake that sit within the brake disc. Its not uncommon for the shoes to become delaminated and cause squealing noises so I'm expecting that is the cause of the noise?
However, on my way to work today I applied my handbrake and then when I set off there was a horrible constant squealing and rattling noise from the rear left wheel, and my handbrake lever now feels very odd and floaty. I turned around to go home and swap cars so the 911 is currently on my drive broke.
I'm expecting it to be the brake shoes coming apart or the springs failing - maybe even both.
Iv ordered a new set of brake shoes today and a set of shoe springs for a VW LT46 as apparently some of the shoe springs are the same as the 997 ones. They were 8 quid for a set instead off the £180 for Porsche ones so its worth a try. Even if only a few of them fit, at least it will minimize the amount of £20 springs I need from Porsche.
Plan is to strip the rear brakes over the next week and change all springs and shoes - depending on condition of rear discs/pads i may even fettle them whilst iv got the wheels off.
However, on my way to work today I applied my handbrake and then when I set off there was a horrible constant squealing and rattling noise from the rear left wheel, and my handbrake lever now feels very odd and floaty. I turned around to go home and swap cars so the 911 is currently on my drive broke.
I'm expecting it to be the brake shoes coming apart or the springs failing - maybe even both.
Iv ordered a new set of brake shoes today and a set of shoe springs for a VW LT46 as apparently some of the shoe springs are the same as the 997 ones. They were 8 quid for a set instead off the £180 for Porsche ones so its worth a try. Even if only a few of them fit, at least it will minimize the amount of £20 springs I need from Porsche.
Plan is to strip the rear brakes over the next week and change all springs and shoes - depending on condition of rear discs/pads i may even fettle them whilst iv got the wheels off.
I set about stripping down the rear brakes today to find the issue.
Once the caliper and disc were removed it was evident straight away what the issue is. The brake shoes had delaminated and the springs had come out - the noise I had been hearing was springs and friction material spinning round at the bottom of the disc/drum (this car uses the inside of the disc as a drum for the handbrake).
The other side was in far better condition but that will be getting replaced aswell.
Once both sides brakes were apart I cleaned up the hub with a wire brush whilst I was there.
Some of the springs, aswell as the adjusters, can be reused so iv got them soaking in some penetrating fluid to clean them up.
Iv ordered some new springs and brake shoes so they can be fitted once they arrive.
I was shocked at the price of £20 per small retaining spring, even £5 would be overpriced for these, nvm £20.
Next update will be when the brakes have gone back together .
I also added a small sticker to the car which you may recognize:
Once the caliper and disc were removed it was evident straight away what the issue is. The brake shoes had delaminated and the springs had come out - the noise I had been hearing was springs and friction material spinning round at the bottom of the disc/drum (this car uses the inside of the disc as a drum for the handbrake).
The other side was in far better condition but that will be getting replaced aswell.
Once both sides brakes were apart I cleaned up the hub with a wire brush whilst I was there.
Some of the springs, aswell as the adjusters, can be reused so iv got them soaking in some penetrating fluid to clean them up.
Iv ordered some new springs and brake shoes so they can be fitted once they arrive.
I was shocked at the price of £20 per small retaining spring, even £5 would be overpriced for these, nvm £20.
Next update will be when the brakes have gone back together .
I also added a small sticker to the car which you may recognize:
New brake shoes and springs arrived so I could crack on with refitting the handbrake shoes. 
The springs are over 20 each over VAT which is painful, they must cost pennies to make!!
Reassembling the shoes was a pain, you've got to put the ling tension spring in first and then fit the shoes, this resulted in many cuts on my hands and many hours of struggling.
However they got installed in the end.
![](https://thumbsnap.com/sc/J2uzqJ2U.jpg[/img]|https://thumbsnap.com/J2uzqJ2U[/url] <a href="https://thumbsnap.com/777tVy1L" Target="_blank" rel="nofollow">[img]https://thumbsnap.com/sc/777tVy1L.jpg)
[url
|https://thumbsnap.com/U9JEPSHh[/url]
The car was now back on the ground for the first time in nearly 2 weeks and the handbrake was working fine. However on the test drive the car gave me this error:
The error went away of the spoiler was raised which was odd, I went round to the rear pf the car to look and the middle brake light (not the spoiler one - these cars have 2 middle brake lights, one for when the spoiler is down and one for when the spoiler is up.
The middle brake light for when the spoiler is down was half full of water so that explains the error, it did work but was dim.
I went about removing the brake light to see if i could fix it in anyway:
There was 3 bolts from the engine compartment to undo nd then 2 bolts that you have to access from behind the rear seats.
I took the rear brake light out and have drilled a tiny hole at the rear of the casing to drain the water out. I'm gonna see if doing this and allowing it to dry will fix it. Iv accepted I need a new one but hopefully this will do as a temporary measure.
The springs are over 20 each over VAT which is painful, they must cost pennies to make!!
Reassembling the shoes was a pain, you've got to put the ling tension spring in first and then fit the shoes, this resulted in many cuts on my hands and many hours of struggling.
However they got installed in the end.
[url
|https://thumbsnap.com/U9JEPSHh[/url]The car was now back on the ground for the first time in nearly 2 weeks and the handbrake was working fine. However on the test drive the car gave me this error:
The error went away of the spoiler was raised which was odd, I went round to the rear pf the car to look and the middle brake light (not the spoiler one - these cars have 2 middle brake lights, one for when the spoiler is down and one for when the spoiler is up.
The middle brake light for when the spoiler is down was half full of water so that explains the error, it did work but was dim.
I went about removing the brake light to see if i could fix it in anyway:
There was 3 bolts from the engine compartment to undo nd then 2 bolts that you have to access from behind the rear seats.
I took the rear brake light out and have drilled a tiny hole at the rear of the casing to drain the water out. I'm gonna see if doing this and allowing it to dry will fix it. Iv accepted I need a new one but hopefully this will do as a temporary measure.
Edited by adean22 on Tuesday 24th May 11:07
Thought id give a small update on costs of owning the car.
I keep track of it on a spreadsheet. Everyone always wonders how much it is to run a car like this so that's the reason I keep track of it.
Id always wondered about the costs myself so its interesting to keep track of it .
This is excluding fuel, insurance and tax
Now iv hidden the purchase cost just to make life easier and get rid of anyone piping up with their opinions on the purchase price.
So its costed 1410 to maintain/ modify the car . Divide this over the 7 months iv had it and it comes to 201 a month . A figure I don't think is too bad tbh.
This number is subject to huge change as things may go wrong but i cant predict the future and i can only go off what has happened.
So that's a total of 1410 over about 6.5k Miles .
Now lets compare that to a very different car......
My MGTF
Iv had the MG for 17 months and iv spent 3275 on maintaining and modifying it. I know this sounds like a lot but the car is exactly how I want it and there is very little on it that hasn't been upgraded/replaced. I'm very happy with the car and iv got it to my perfect spec.
This cost is over 15K miles with it
So 3275 divided over 17 months comes to 192 a month.
I know the ownerships aren't the same length but it does show that both cars so far have pretty much the same "cost per month" to maintain . Both cars are on pretty much the same mileage.
I will keep track of both cars and it will be interesting to see how much iv spent on the 911 once iv had it for 17 months in comparison to the MG
NOTE:
I am fully aware that the 911 will have very high maintenance costs and I am sure it will cost me a fortune to maintain. This is purely based on my experience so far.
I'm also fortunate enough to be able to work on my own cars which decreases the maintenance costs by a vast amount - this is only possible having more than one car as I always have a car I can use when the other one is in pieces
I keep track of it on a spreadsheet. Everyone always wonders how much it is to run a car like this so that's the reason I keep track of it.
Id always wondered about the costs myself so its interesting to keep track of it .
This is excluding fuel, insurance and tax
Now iv hidden the purchase cost just to make life easier and get rid of anyone piping up with their opinions on the purchase price.
So its costed 1410 to maintain/ modify the car . Divide this over the 7 months iv had it and it comes to 201 a month . A figure I don't think is too bad tbh.
This number is subject to huge change as things may go wrong but i cant predict the future and i can only go off what has happened.
So that's a total of 1410 over about 6.5k Miles .
Now lets compare that to a very different car......
My MGTF
Iv had the MG for 17 months and iv spent 3275 on maintaining and modifying it. I know this sounds like a lot but the car is exactly how I want it and there is very little on it that hasn't been upgraded/replaced. I'm very happy with the car and iv got it to my perfect spec.
This cost is over 15K miles with it
So 3275 divided over 17 months comes to 192 a month.
I know the ownerships aren't the same length but it does show that both cars so far have pretty much the same "cost per month" to maintain . Both cars are on pretty much the same mileage.
I will keep track of both cars and it will be interesting to see how much iv spent on the 911 once iv had it for 17 months in comparison to the MG
NOTE:
I am fully aware that the 911 will have very high maintenance costs and I am sure it will cost me a fortune to maintain. This is purely based on my experience so far.
I'm also fortunate enough to be able to work on my own cars which decreases the maintenance costs by a vast amount - this is only possible having more than one car as I always have a car I can use when the other one is in pieces
Edited by adean22 on Wednesday 25th May 11:53
Fair play on the work so far, hopefully it's a very rewarding ownership and you're not afraid of using a spanner.
I do wince a bit at you jacking up on such a slope however, I think mines less and I still go side on with wheel chocks because I'm afraid of being squished:
https://i.imgur.com/t9v10vC.jpg
https://i.imgur.com/8Fk5lch.jpg
But that's maybe me just being a wet lettuce
I do wince a bit at you jacking up on such a slope however, I think mines less and I still go side on with wheel chocks because I'm afraid of being squished:
https://i.imgur.com/t9v10vC.jpg
https://i.imgur.com/8Fk5lch.jpg
But that's maybe me just being a wet lettuce
I am finding it very rewarding, I'm hoping for no repairs in the next month as iv spent enough time and money this month on it.
The sloped driveway is far from ideal but there isn't much I can do about it , I have wheel chocks and a few bricks infront of the front wheels to prevent any movement and iv had no issues with it so far. Plus I always use 2 jack stands underneath just incase on of the stands fail
Nice to see that someone else isn't scared of getting the spanners out on their porsche .
Your neighbor's LS400 has caught my eye. My mum had one when I was growing up and I have very fond memory's of it. It was a 1996 car and had things like electric headrests and even electric seatbelt height adjusters, they were way ahead of their time. The indestructible V8's are fantastic engines too.
The sloped driveway is far from ideal but there isn't much I can do about it , I have wheel chocks and a few bricks infront of the front wheels to prevent any movement and iv had no issues with it so far. Plus I always use 2 jack stands underneath just incase on of the stands fail
Nice to see that someone else isn't scared of getting the spanners out on their porsche .
Your neighbor's LS400 has caught my eye. My mum had one when I was growing up and I have very fond memory's of it. It was a 1996 car and had things like electric headrests and even electric seatbelt height adjusters, they were way ahead of their time. The indestructible V8's are fantastic engines too.
Edited by adean22 on Wednesday 25th May 16:42
Edited by adean22 on Thursday 26th May 09:23
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