I have had a glitch in the drivetrain of my '84 944 since the day I drove it off of the wholesale lot 3 years ago. A few mechanics including a veteran Porsche mechanic tried in vain to figure out why my rear end shuttered when reversing but hooked up normally through forward gear changes. A few months ago the veteran mechanic said that "the only way we are going to cure this problem is to start eliminating possible causes, starting with the clutch". The deal was made, I would leave the car with him for a couple of days and he'd install a Fuchs clutch and replace those noisy fork bearings. I arrived at his shop on the evening that it was to be finished and was told that he was unable to cure the shutter. I said, "I've got the cash for the clutch with me, did you do the clutch?" He replied "Uh, yea, we did the clutch." So I paid him. He then asked me to drop off the car again the following week as he had a few on-line aquaintances that were brainstorming a possible cause. I dropped the car off the next week and returned the next day to find that he'd found the ghostly glitch and that the car was no longer shuttering. He had found a crack in the block at the bell housing bolt. The area of the block that was cracked was allowing the bell housing to play enough that it was creating the shutter when any type of reverse thrust was applied to the clutch including downshifting. He went on to say that "short of replacing the engine block we had to weld on a customized "ear" onto the block (with a special welder) to allow for the rethreading of a new bell housing bolt. Now that this huge virus has been eliminated, I am still bugged by one small issue that could be nothing at all... or my intuition is giving me a red flag. Why does my brand new Fuchs clutch feel exactly the same as my old clutch? I'm fighting with this feeling that I don't have a new clutch at all. I found the inspection plate is now missing. Why would they need to pry out the inspection plate when they were replacing the clutch, not inspecting it. Although hydraulic, shouldn't the new springs and thicker surface not change the pedal dynamics a little? I have no evidence that the clutch was ever replaced, other than a less noisy bearing sound when in neutral. Can anyone suggest a medication for this nagging thorn?

 

Fuchs is a wheel, Sachs on the other hand makes clutches, which is what he would have used.

A new clutch should feel very similar to the old clutch, there isn't going to really be a difference in clutch pedal feel at all....you are still using the same pressure plate, etc. That doesn't change.

 

Well, there is one aspect of this situation that is not quite impossible to answer. Whenever you have major work done, regardless of the car or who performs the work, always request that the old parts be returned to you. In this situation there should be a box under your rear hatch containing a spent clutch disc, pressure plate, t/o bearing and possibly a flywheel. If the existing flywheel was resurfaced by an outside machine shop then you should have a receipt for that work.

Saving grace here may be the quieted bearing in neutral. Even the laziest mechanic wouldn't drop a 944 transaxle and change the t/o bearing without taking an extra 15 minutes to unbolt the pressure plate and slip a new clutch disc in there.

Hope this helps.

 

Thanks Doc and Fast951,
I apologize for mixing up Fuchs and Sachs as I am still getting used to Fuchs/Sachs/Bosch/Boge. As usual my post has been answered loud n' clear.
Thanks again guys.