Flat 6 Innovations

Here the bearing is attached to the puller and the tool and bearing are removed from the IMS completely! Mission accomplished!

Look inside the IMS tube at the nasty oil. Even though the original bearing is sealed, oil does slowly get in, washing out the permanent lube, and fills the IMS with contaminated oil, especially on cars serviced with extended drain intervals. It is our hope that this procedure and these tools can save your engine from complete catastrophe!

Now we'll fetch the center stud from the IMS tube and begin cleaning and prepping the area for the LN Engineering dual row bearing IMS Retrofit kit.

In this shot you see the improvised bearing installation tool being utilized to insert the new double-row bearing. This tool is an improvised prototype and was machined from high grade plastic. When LN Engineering loaned us the tools, they unfortunately did not have any of their bearing install tools in-stock as they were all on loan to customers with single-row bearing IMS Retrofit kits.

Sorry, but no detailed, up close pictures of the dual-row hybrid bearing are available, but photos of the ceramic hybrid bearings used are available on LN Engineering's website. 

Driving the retrofit bearing home into the IMS tube using the improvised installation tool.

Here is the best shot of the new bearing. Note that we have removed the outer seal (we leave the inner seal on to limit the amount of oil getting into the IMS while allowing ample lubrication of the bearing, which is how it should have been from the factory). Using a sealed bearing in this environment seems to be a one of the contributing factors to the abundance of IMS failures.

The washers pictured will be removed, they were improvised to hold the center stud in place during bearing install. LN Engineering's installation tool actually is countersunk to allow you to hold the center stud in place and drive in the bearing at the same time with a single tool.

...and here the washers have been removed and the retaining clip has been installed.

...now we'll lubricate the IMS bearing flange seal and install it. Note that this prototype IMS Retrofit kit uses a factory flange which has been modified to work with the billet chromoly center bearing support stud.

...now ready for some torque and finesse.

We have applied some of our favorite sealant to the head of the IMS flange retaining bolt for added insurance against oil leaks. We have also added some of another favorite sealant (not a Porsche authorized sealant or procedure!! :-) into the bolt holes to aid against oil seepage that may wick up the threads and end up on the garage floor as a nasty mess. If the proper sealants are used, the microencapsulated bolts can be reused or replaced with higher quality fasteners if so desired.