JasonAndreas

Has anyone ever seen a cracked transmission bellhousing lobe? This is the part of the transmission that the release shaft pivots in? Mine looks like it broke away in two places. I'm pulling the engine tomorrow and hopefully a local machine shop can weld it back together but if anyone has any suggestions for how-to reinforce this I'm all ears, retail $$$ for just this part of the bellhousing is $1900USD.

garrett376

Wow, that's a surprising breaking point - how heavy is your clutch, anyways?!

It looks like there's plenty of room to beef up the lobe with extra metal - welding it looks like the way to go. Too bad you have to take your whole tranny there!!!! It's not the lightest thing to transport!

Indycam

Hiya
Ive heard of this before , yours isn't the first .
I think it was on smartgroups .
http://www.smartgroups.com/groups/964porsche
"Message archive unavailable at the moment."

Do you know of hydraulic throw out bearings ?
http://www.tiltonracing.com/content....st2&id=196&m=d
http://www.stockcarproducts.com/clutch8.htm
http://www.mcleodind.com/newproducts.asp#Hydraulic
http://www.daymotorsports.com/product/105/c//

JasonAndreas

Thanks for the links Indy! I dropped the engine last night and both ears are cracked so I will load the tranny into a pickup truck later today and I'll bring it to machine shop to have it welded.

Its the standard 964 pressure plate, nothing special.

springer3

Jason:

If you can, post a picture of the fracture surface. It is likely a fatigue failure, but I would be curious to see. If it is over-stressed, there could be another fault that needs to be fixed to make sure this does not happen again. How many miles on the tranny? How many times has the clutch been replaced?

JasonAndreas

I will take some photos later today.

The tranny has a 141k miles and the clutch has been replaced twice.

Are you still looking to sell your engine stand/holder thing? Is it the rotating version? If its still available how much do you want? I don't really need it but...

Slappy

What was your reason(s) for checking this ?

Indycam

Mr Jason Andreas
I was really hopeing you would do all the legwork on the hydraulic tob , so if and when my bellhousing goes **** up , I could just copy your set up .

JasonAndreas

I went driving for the first time in two weeks and several miles from my house I pushed the clutch pedal in and it wouldn't return (or go into gear).

JasonAndreas

The old guy at the machine shop were I left the transmission for repair thinks that I either damaged the ear while removing the release shaft with a bolt puller last year or the defective release bearing that pulled through the pressure plate (last November) stressed the casting and just now (11k miles later) caused it to finally break. They will clean, reinforce and weld the transmission (for $100USD or so) and I should be okay so I am HAPPY HAPPY . When I get it back I will post photos of the fix.

mark lintott

My clutch was squeaking or creaking or similar for some time until I found there was a hairline crack through one of the bolt holes that connect the bellhousing to the back of the engine. I'd already cleaned/ lubed the pedal housing etc then fitted a new clutch slave before realising that was not the source of the sound. Anyway cutting a long story short the engine was dropped and tranny separated. Had a guy weld along both sides of the fracture and so far all is back to normal. Big relief really as the bellhousing part was going to run about US$1500 or so!

Hope yours works out. Make sure he welds evenly along both sides to ensure proper penetration and no new stresses on the casting.

Cheers