Pulling away from a stop light this morning in traffic, so not accelerating aggressively at all. While climbing through 2nd gear, I suddenly lost all drive and heard a grind/whine that corresponded with engine RPM. No ugly crunching or clunking.

Coasted into a parking lot and checked the axles. Both feel tight, and I cannot rotate either independent of the transmission. With the car in 1st gear, I can roll it back and forth with little to no resistance, and just a faint “ticking” coming from under the rear of the car. If I start the car and put it in gear, it gives no hint of trying to move forward as I start releasing the clutch. Just the noise. My next check will be the coupler.

Am I missing any indications of a stripped or otherwise failed axle? Anything else I can check? Hoping it’s not the transaxle itself. Quotes for replacement might indicate a death sentence for this car.

Inputs and suggestions appreciated.

Interesting diagnostic to know. Unfortunately I didn’t notice as I was trying to wrap my brain around the situation and look for a safe place to coast into.

$500? Wow, made a quick phone call while I was waiting for the tow truck and got a price of $3K for a used 951 transmission. And an hour or so to change them out? Clearly you’ve not seen me work in my garage!

LOL! Called my local indy Porsche dude. Great guy who I’ve done a lot of business with. I’m sure there was some type of misunderstanding. Maybe he thought I was looking for a rebuilt trans.

Colorado Springs, CO

I want to crawl under and have a look at the coupler before I seriously start looking for a tranny (that just sounds weird...). After doing some reading, it sounds possible that the splines might have stripped out of either end of the coupler. Should be easy enough to see if that’s the case once I can get at it. I can’t imagine how else the coupler could possibly fail...there’s really not that much to it.

At any rate, it’s nice to know a transmission failure does not necessarily render the car dead.

Thanks for the feedback!

I’m curious as well. Will be crawling under to have a look tomorrow, if not this afternoon.

Will post updates with with what I find.

Update...

Crawled under and found potentially good news. Somehow the coupler has slipped back onto the transaxle input shaft far enough to come disconnected from the “driveshaft”. With a pry bar, I was able to move the coupler back onto the driveshaft enough for it to “catch”, at which point I could no longer turn it by hand, so the splines are possibly still good.

My plan is to completely loosen both bolts on the coupler so I can move it fully back and forth and get the best look at the area that I can. If all looks good, I’ll slide the coupler back in place and bolt things back up. Bolts were pretty tight, so they’re soaking in penetrating oil now.

One thing I did note... The “notch”for the bolt on the drive shaft is a bit forward of the hole small round hole in the bell housing. Seems it would be difficult to get at the bolt tthat far forward. Is there any play in the torque tube that would allow that shaft to come rearward if I could somehow manipulate it? I’d like it to come rearward maybe a 1/2 inch or so.

More updates to follow.

Problem is, the coupler has moved so far aft now, I can’t get the Allen socket in it to loosen it. Tried loosening the bolt on the TT end thinking maybe that would loosen things enough for me to slide it forward enough to get at the other bolt, but that rascal is TIGHT!

Anyone please correct me if I’m wrong, but as I understand it, your not supposed to be able to remove the coupler without taking those bolts completely out? So how on earth did mine slide back off the TT shaft with both bolts still in place?

Both bolts still in place with with another dose of penetrating oil, and she’s off the jack stands and pushed back in place for now. Coupler is in the aft position, off the TT shaft. I guess my only course of action next time I have time to get to it is to just crank on that forward bolt til it gives one way or another. If it comes loose I’ll continue with my plan of moving the coupler forward back into place and snugging everything back up. If it snaps? Well, at least it’s already off the TT shaft and I was kinda thinking I’d have to pull the transmission when this whole thing started anyway.

Thoughts?