Adam Roberts

I was driving my 86' N/A home from a whole day of city driving and running errands when I pull up to a traffic light to make a right turn.


Clutch in.. put it in first........ and its that horrible RRRRrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrraaaaaaaat grinding noise.


but the clutch was in all the way.... I pull it back out.. try to put it back into 1st... didn't want to go.. but eventually did.


I take off. .and it won't shift into 2nd now........ so I put it into 3rd instead.... now a funny whining noise is coming from the back of the car..... also it starts to jerk when I give it gas and let off the gas like it would if you did a bad shift......


I finally made it home.. but I struggled to keep the rpm's above 2000 because 2nd gear would only engage half the time... and then sometimes 3rd wouldn't work either... and sometimes 1st..


Is this the clutch failing or something worse? bad synchro? but more than of them bad?
I'm able to shift through all the gears with the car off, so I don't think its the linkage.

anybody know whats wrong? Anything like this happen to you guys?

nine-44

Posibly the rubber damper is torn on the clutch causing the clutch to drag the flywheel. Thus making it hard to get into gear. Is reverse bad too? 1st and reverse are not syncronised. I don't think they are atleast. Bad master or slave would do it too. Try to pump the clutch to get a little higher pressure and then try to get it into gear. The jerking would point to the damper also.

slevy951

Yeah, sounds like the rubber center in your clutch has failed.....

Fishey

no-no-no-no.......
Its blown gears my boy... Same thing my 944 did Blew the bearing between 1st and 2nd and ripped it all up to hell... and now your gears are not staying in place becase the gears are moving around.. Since you drove on it you can expect 1-2-3-4-5 gears to be gone.. along with the syncro's and bearings...... There is a whineing sound from the rear of the car that is made... (ahhh the horrid sound..) I will try to find my post about it.

special tool

Yeah - I agree with Fishey - a torn rubber disk will give you about 30 degrees of free spin and then a clack noise as the safeguard metal teeth on the other side of the disk smash into each other.

SoCal Driver

Could be the step bolt on the shift linkage cross over brace. These come loose and the shift lever gets all mushy. Hard to put into most any gear.

This is on top of the trans just over the left side axle.

Fishey

Nope its what I am saying it is... The gearing went bye-bye....... The "wining" sound is a sure bet on the blown bearings between the gears alowing them to flop all over the main shaft.

Fishey

the reason it wines is becaise the gears are angles like this /////////// and its pushing the gear into the other gears instead of pushing on the bearing..

Adam Roberts

If that's the case.......
Does this mean the junkyard for my car?

soundboy4

i had the same problem and it was the clutch, i had blown a chunk of the rubber stuff on the clutch at the track. the only thing i can say about that situation different from yours is that at high speeds the car would vibrate a lot. New clutch fixed it for me though, how many miles on your car?

Rich Sandor

Adam - it means you are about to learn what the gearbox of your car looks like - ON THE INSIDE!!!

Adam Roberts

for some reason that just doesn't sound like a lot of fun right now



I'm hoping its the clutch.. I'll put it on jackstands today and check the clutch.... and then the tranny.

nine-44

Put the rear on jack stands, in gear and have ssomeone hold one wheel while you turn the other wheel. If you get a ignificant ammount of play followed posibly by a click. It's the clutch. I've see about 4-5 944s with the same symptoms and it was the clutch.