quattrorunner

Yup, you read right! I don't offer much to this forum often but had to offer this bit of experience I had. I was going up a hill entering the expressway I think in third gear @ 5000+ rpm WOT and at around 90 MPH? when BANG and I saw "stuff" flying out the back in my mirror . I thought to myself "this is a rich mans car and I am not a rich man!" Still coasting up the hill listening for clanky sounds from the engine or transaxle. What I heard was the engine idling normally. What I noticed was the clutch pedal to the floor and the throttle pedal in the same location as the clutch posistion. WTF! I got out after wondering if I was ready to look at what I may see. OK, here goes, I lay down to look under the car and see the axle to the pavement and the throttle cable dragging behind. The clutch attachment bolted to the 915 case was broken and slightly loose. CV joint seems to be in good but dirty shape and in need of new boots and new bolts to the transaxle. I guess the the bolts had untorqued and loosened to the point that they could hold no more. One bolt is sheared off but only one other was really damaged being bent. I didn't get all the bolts back but am only missing one. Has anyone found the need to retorque these bolts? Turns out to be not too big of a deal I guess, I may be out a couple hundred dollars (cheep compared to how it all went down).
Anyway, I guess all this a has humbled me and I may be selling when I fix it. I just got too freaked out! I love it, it's awsome. BTW, I'm not done with 911 ownership just need to take a break . brandon@ba-design.com

fixnprsh

lucky you, they sound like a gun going off behind your head huh????

quattrorunner

Lucky it wasn't worse

fixnprsh

Yeah atleast its a cheap easy DIY and not a blown trans of clutch ***.

the good ones are 951 axles, they make a horrid noise.

Corrales911

That's not really that uncommon a failure - I had it happen on a FIAT X1/9 once. I wouldn't dump the car over it, though.

Remember that if you play you pay and if your car regularly sees 90 mph getting on the freeway then you'll need more and different maintenance than a grocery-getter. Retightening CV bolts once in a while seems to be an appropriate one here.

My87Targa

that same thing happened to me not long ago. pretty straight forward DIY and not too costly

theiceman

I have been hearing about this a fair bit lately and there is quite a long thread on Pelican about it . It certainly would be prudant to have your cv joint bolts checked periodically and torqued to spec. I just did my CV joints a while back and at 5K I am retorqueing and plan on making it a part of my spring inspecton. I guess the gaskets compress on new jobs so they have to be redone but beats me why they do it after a long while in their .. Anyway thanks for sharing the story, we can all learn fom this ..

ice

fixnprsh

best thing is this stuff we used in racing, its called Torque-seal, it basically a neon or bright colored glue/paint you put on all the nuts, it will crack when a bolt loosens up, so you can do a quick visual instead of having to check every bolt for the proper torque every race

Alpine_Racer

you think the 911 is bad..... you guys with the aircool are lucky the engines come out so... easily. Take a look at any job with a 924, 944, and 928 such as a clutch. You wonder how they shove all of that wiring, piping, etc... into a small space. These germans are clever but never thought about simple maintainence issues.

theiceman

I did my cv Joints onmy 944S ..not a big deal at all really...

quattrorunner

I didn't realize it was common. I had the trans out last year but thats another story. I thought it had not been torqued correctly. I won't ditch the car because I can't fix this, just because I worry about the major expenses ie engine throwing a rod through the case (this happened to me when I had a 72 911t) WOW! That would kill me! This car is taken care of well though. I have been thinking of Bagging it up and storing it for a while. It will be getting hot here in vages and I haven't done the procool conversion yet.
Hey, anyone have an extra bolt on part of the 915 that holds the clutch cable? Where can I get new axle bolts and some throttle accessories? I'll need from the throttle rod connector to inside the engine compartment assembly. Any ideas before I got get em all at the steelership?

theiceman

Well the bolts are standard metric hardware. just make sure you get the right hardness I got mine from a local industrial hardware suplier. Any wrecker of porsches should eb able to help with the other stuff.. try searching the net .. I would not try German Auto Dismantlers though .. ;-)
I do have a question though , when you had the transmision out was the same end of the half shaft you disconnected the same half that just came out ? and di you use new gaskets when putting it back in ? I have read a few threads that state after you get the axle back on , you should take all the bolts out again one at a time and clean the bolt and hole with brake cleaing fluid to get the CV joint off and retorque. Sounds like a lot of work but there may be something to it..

quattrorunner

Well the story is that the car got stolen and while the A.. hole was prepping for paint and all other changes he made to the car, he also swapped the transaxle as well. Needless to say, I'm not on any speeking terms with this "gentleman" so I have no idea what his method was with that. Or what method he used in swapping out my origional fuchs. Anger, must settle down now.

theiceman

Wow what a story ... I'd like to hear more .. but I think we will you sort out your anger issues first :-)

quattrorunner

I know, but I'm mostly better now. I would like to enter the octagon of ufc 60 with him still though, I think he deserves that at least.