Hi All:

Rick's Rotary here in the Bay Area inspected the R1 that I bought at the seller's expense. It had a couple of problems...one of them being that the powerplant frame is cracked.

I bought another one and took the original one out. I cannot find a crack in it anywhere.

Rick told me that although he couldn't see the crack (since the PPF is largely hidden by the exhaust), the car exhibited symptoms of a broken ppf: grinding under acceleration and a rubbing sound when cornering.

Unless there is a crack that I cannot see, I think the original PPF is ok.

Any ideas?

Thanks,
Sonny

 

i read a while back something about the quality of the welds that held it together being very poor...

 

From the pics I have seen, they usually crack near where they mount to the diff.

 

I went ahead and installed the replacement ppf. I inspected every weld on both units and everything looks ok.

I'm gonna have Rick's take a look at the original ppf. Maybe there's something that I'm missing. If not, I'll have spare.

Sonny

 

i'd say they were using the ppf as an excuse to cover a different problem. mine is currently cracked from the top to about midways down, right in front of where the diff mounts. it's currently out of the car and getting ready to get band-aided with a welder. btw, don't drop a ppf on your face, it hurts

 

i would think that if you properly rewelded the ppf, it would be just as good as a new one.

 

I could definitely weld the PPF if it wasn't broke beyond repair. I'd just grind out the crack and lay a nice 308L stainless steel bead in there. The small heat-affected zone offered by a TIG machine is perfect for something like this.

The problem is that I can't find anything wrong with it! I thought maybe the inner piece was separating from the outer piece, but doesn't appear to be the case.



Oh well, the replacement ppf is installed. Once I finish the DP install, I'll take it out for a drive and see what happens.

If that rubbing/grinding noise is still there, obviously it's not the PPF.

Sonny