Steve in New Hampshire

My 944 has developed an intermittant problem when I engage the clutch in first gear. I get a nasty take up chatter...shakes the car...and the gear shift shakes quite a bit. Happens a few times then totally goes away! More apt to happen when cold then hot.

Any ideas? The car has fairly new engine mounts, but the clutch has almost 90,000 miles on it. No sign of clutch slippage though. Just does this nasty vibration once in a while! Only in first gear...

-Steve

Legoland951

The rubber donut center is broken and its hitting metal to metal causing the chatter. The clutch friction material could be fine and not slip still the center will almost always break first. Time for a new clutch due to a retard Porsche design.

KuHL 951

You might check your transaxle mounts and recheck the bolts on your motor mounts also. Usually a failed rubber donut will make a loud metallic clunk and chatter in all gears both up or down if the limp-home tabs are banging into each other...1st and reverse gear might be noticeably worst than 2nd-5th gear due to gearing...does it shake even worse in reverse? It should if it's your clutch.

BlueDog944

For reference... I'm in the middle of changing my clutch... here's a pic of the broken rubber centered clutch disc:

KuHL 951

I was amazed when I did the clutch on the 83 to see that the lining was in great shape just like yours; the center on mine was completely trashed and the metal tabs were banging in both directions. This was on the original (4/82) clutch disk with 161K miles.

zoxx2004

what oil do you have in the tranny?I used redline 75-90,it was noisy in 1st. Went to redline for transaxles (75-90 ns) .Quieter and shifts 100% better.Don't know why, but it works!

MM951

Legoland is right and over time it will destroy your ring and pinion in the transmission (dont ask me how i know)

Steve in New Hampshire

When I bought the car 5 years ago the PO said he just had a new clutch done by a Porsche dealer. Were they still using the rubber clutches back then? I've put 90,000 miles on since then. It only happens in 1st gear...and only once in a while...that's what has me baffled. No metal on metal sounnds, it just vibrates like hell. Then 2nd etc. engagae fine. No noise or vibration. I'll get underneath over the weekend and look at the various mounts...and pull the plug out of the peep hole and see if any peices of rubber come out!

Steve

KuHL 951

If it is the rubber center clutch it's easy to check. Jack the rear of the car; trans in neutral; remove the large rubber inspection cover on the rear TT housing; grab the TT shaft and try to rotate it back and forth. If it rotates more than a little (1/16") and clunks up front your rubber centered clutch is going.