Rear Stabiliser Bar

[Paul911]

I thought it was about time I threw some waxoil about. So jacked up the car, positioned the axle stands and spotted a 2" crack in the rear stabiliser bar attachment bracket (the bit welded to the car). You can clearly see this on the attached photo. Not quite what I wanted to see !

The Bentley Manuel says "The rear stabiliser bar attachment points at the body have been upgraded. The new stronger braces must be welded to the underbody. this work is best left to the authorised Porsche dealer or other qualified repair shop."

Obviously a professional welding job. But have the following questions :

Dose this mean as mine have failed that the upgrade has not been done? and when should this have been done?
Is the car safe to drive to my local Porsche specialist some 10 miles away?

Cheers
Paul

 

[plhorner]

Paul,
Don't worry, its not the end of the world and is actually quite a common failure on the 3.2. I've no idea when they were upgraded but I'd have thought that with yours being an 89 car, by definition they would have been fitted.
Its safe to drive, just don't go off and do a track day! It needs sorting fairly quickly however, not a job to leave till the next service.
HTH

 

[Paul911]

Thanks for the quick response Phil. Comforting to know its a common problem ! (I think). I will get the car booked in tomorrow, as you say I wont leave it too long.

Thanks
Paul

 

[tripe]

Paul,

As Phil says, no problem to drive it around for the time being. The same happened to me last year. I jacked it up and removed the anti roll bar (a 10 minute job) and then removed the remains of the old bracket with an angle grinder (a grotty job when working on your back under the car - took me about half an hour).

The new bracket (later, strengthed type) cost £43.35 after discount from the OPC (ouch - bit of an expensive item - part no. 911.501.983.00.GRV) and a mate at the local garage welded the new one on for a fiver - took him all of 5 minutes with the car on the lift. I then sprayed the job with zinc oxide primer and then painted it with Hammerite. Roll bar re-fitted and away we go...

 

[nottage]

Tripe,
I don't suppose your mate with the garage is based in North London by any chance. I have had this strange banging noise from the right rear for a couple of days when I happen to hit a bump in the road. Just put my head under the car and low and behold mine has cracked right the way through.

Paul,
Have you had yours fixed yet and if so, how much did it cost.

Cheers,
Kevin

 

[Guest]

I am sure JAZ in Wembley would do it for a reasonable price. Steve is racing at Spa this weekend so he won't be back till Tuesday I suspect. Its a simple job and common. The 89 car will certainly already have the upgraded sway bar mounts but they are not immune from cracking. The G50 cars all have a bigger rear sway bar plus the bigger mounts. The "problem" is that 911s have fairly soft spring rates with fairly big sway bars (and stiff damping). The sway bars do a lot of work compared to the old cars that started with 13mm sways (if any). G50s have 20mm rear sways IIRC. I think the stiffness increases to the third or 4th power or in porportion to the cross-sectionsl area (someone help me out here!), so even a couple of mm difference in diameter makes a big difference to stiffness.

 

[Guest]

Had the same thing earlier this year - one had been upgraded and the other hadn't - which then broke. It cost about £100 to sort out.

Incidentally, I drove to Leeds from Berkshire like it (out of necessity) and no problem - just take it easy on the corners.

 

[Jonathan Collins]

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The same thing happened on my 1988 car,which I think has the later stronger brackets as standard.It happened on a Saturday when I noticed a banging from the rear suspension after I hit some traffic calming measures too quickly, I had A good day out in the car planned for the next day so I had a neighbour mate of mine look at it as he is an engineer and coded welder. We both agreed it looked like a flimsy bracket and had probably been used either to jack the car or support it at some time. I said that after a quick internet search I had found out that the fault was not uncommon and that I could easily get a new bracket in a few days, he told me to just clean the broken parts with a rotating wire brush in my drill and a blow lamp,and not to use my angle grinder as this would remove metal, while he went and fetched his welding kit.I was quite surprised when he returned in the dark some time later with an arc welder as apparently his MIG welder was out of gas, well I can weld but I would never have been able to arc weld such a thin piece of metal especially in that position. Anyway it took him about half an hour using some old 0.5 mm rods which were damp thus making the job a little more difficult, the finished job looked surprisingly good and I set to work with the red lead paint before it had time to cool and then giving it a coat of guards red' touch up' first thing the next day.
So it cost me next to nothing to repair (well a few beers) and I did intend on changing the bracket later on but that was two years and two M.O.T.'s ago and it is still going strong but I do check the brackets on both sides frequently now.Jon.

 

[Guest]

My car is an 89 model year and it did not have the reenforced brackets. I'm not sure they were ever fitted during 3.2 production but strengthened ones were used as replacements when they realised there was an issue. I've not heard of the later mounts failing but they havent been around as long as the originals so we will see.

I had both mine done 2 years ago by Machtech for about 80 quid a side including the new mount.

Cheers

Andy

 

[Paul911]

Kevin, all done and sorted. It cost me GBP 250 at my local Porsche independent garage http://www.tech9.ms/ As a matter of precaution I had both sides done. This is a job I could have sorted myself with help from a welder, but wanted the car back on the road ASAP so stumped up the dosh. Hope you get yours sorted soon.
Paul