PORSCHE TECHNICAL TOPICS

Technical problems solved

You probably won’t be overly surprised to hear that I have a substantial collection of car magazines – and not least 911 & Porsche World. Not quite a full set of the latter, but certainly all of them since I first became directly involved with it, in 1996. I was going to say ‘library’, by the way, but that suggests rather more organisation than currently prevails. I’ll sort them out one day. When I retire. Perhaps.

However haphazardly they are currently stored, they do, though, warrant occasional inspection, as a reminder of what we’ve done over the years, and sometimes of what we have not done. In my Q&A pages in the June 2014 edition, for instance, my eye was caught by this photo (far right) of a rather odd-looking object and the accompanying short story. Intrigued, I began reading, and quickly concluded that, nearly five years on, and with the relevant car population ageing accordingly, it will undoubtedly bear repetition.

Our reader was asking why the clutch pedal in his 996 might suddenly have become markedly heavier. He, as the car’s regular driver, hadn’t noticed, but his wife used it one evening, and she most certainly did. Paul Stacey from Northway Porsche, then one of my primary contributors to this section of the magazine, provided his typically nononsense suggestions, and I offer them again here (with a couple of minor amendments) for obvious reasons.

‘Breakage of the clutchpedal “helper” spring is a common problem in all 996s, and 986 Boxsters. This causes the pedal either to become very heavy when you depress it, or sometimes to make a loud creaking noise. At around £35 plus VAT it’s not an expensive part to replace [current Porsche price is £48.27 plus VAT – CH] but it’s not a job I would recommend tackling yourself unless you are particularly agile. It’s never easy working underneath a car’s fascia, and these are no exception.

‘You will need to remove the heater pipe that runs under the dashboard – but that’s just a case of carefully pulling it down and then out of the way. Next you will need a split-pin, or something similar, that can be pushed into the hole at the end of the shaft projecting from the spring – hidden behind the white plastic casing in the photo shown here. [That casing is there simply to keep the spring in its compressed state before installation – CH] Push down on the pedal with your hand, and thanks to the split-pin the spring will be pulled out.

‘Now comes the rather more difficult part: trying to get the new spring into the slot and locate it, while at the same time pushing the pedal down. Once it is in place, pull the split-pin out before pushing the pedal down again, and that should be that. Reckon on about half an hour’s labour if you are paying a specialist to do the job, perhaps a bit more if you are doing it yourself.

‘For the record, there are three different springs, depending on the age of the car. For those built up to and including the 2002 model year you need 996 423 081 14. For the 2003 model year alone it’s 996 423 081 17, and for 2004 on you need 996 423 018 18. For that reason, it’s probably best to order the spring from your Porsche Centre against a specific Vehicle Identification Number.’