Porsche 944+Chevy V8

StokerDon wrote: ↑

Sat. Feb. 20, 2021 12:31 pm

Thank's!
Yes you do get what you pay for.

The conversation I had with this guy was pretty long and detailed. It is obvious to me that he knows what is going on inside these things, knows common failure and ware parts and what to do to make it a better trans. I will check out a couple other places that are more local but am am most likely going to send it to CMS.

On a conversion like this the transaxle can make the difference between it being a really nice car to drive or something that you get sick of quickly. Your V8 914 will be the same. Forget about first and second gear. Also forget about driving it on the highway with the original trans!

-Don

A flipped 930 Turbo transaxle will be perfect.

Or a G50/52

Mid-Winter Update...

Well, this was a really bad idea.
The last ride before the transaxle rebuild. The driveway has about 5" of snow and ice in it. Will we make it out?
Will we make it back??? I don't know? It's pretty gooshy out there!

Lets find out!


-Don

Well, I didn't take it apart yet...

So, I took it out for one more last ride! This time I washed it up after I got back. It's at least kind of clean now. We have some stuff to work on now. While I was washing it I realized that we have popped another oil line! The cat is pretty Pissed about this too. She thinks the car should get it's own Kitty Litter! Hopefully replacing these stupid oil hoses will fix the problem.

Transaxle update:

A week ago I talked to CMS in California about rebuilding and upgrading this trans. My other 2 options are, my local guy and SSI near Baltimore. My local guy does trans rebuilds on the side so I figured I would call SSI first.

In talking to the owner of SSI, I found out that my local guy sends SSI transaxles to rebuild when he is too busy to do them. On top of that, CMS, SSI and my local guy all know each other and help each other out.

I'm currently waiting on a quote from SSI. I will most likely take it there since it is less than an hour drive and I am confident that they can do the work properly.

-Don

Looks like you have been enjoying yourself even with the small issues cropping up
enjoy

Today was transaxle removal day.

Everything came apart pretty easy since it already was apart last year. This is an "AOS" code transaxle, 25100. I spoke with SSI last week about rebuilding the trans. They hooked me up with one of their customers that has a 944 Turbo race car that runs in one of the PCA Club series's. Turns out that my 944 S2, AOS trans has gear ratios better suited to the turbo track car. The 944 Turbo trans has better gear ratios for my car, just need to swap the 5th gear.

So, the plan is to swap trans-axles even up and have them both rebuilt at SSI. I think this will be a "Win-Win". Hopefully it works out that way.

While the trans is out we will be replacing the oil lines with new Russell lines. On our last ride we popped another oil line. It made a real big mess. You can see the oil all over the bottom of the car on the left side, and even up in the rocker panel. It looks like it popped near the engine this time. You can see where it actually leaked out of the rocker panel onto the floor. We will take a closer look at the remote oil filter or maybe we will try a different one.

We will take care of a couple other jobs while the trans is out. The right side axle CV joints need new boots and we will finally replace that noisy rear wheel bearing!

-Don

Two ways too look at that oil leak,
an irritating mess to clean up, OR
dang look at that rust proofing.

Well I guess it's a little too late for the April update so we'll do an early May update instead.

The transaxle is still out being rebuilt. I am hoping to have it back in the next few weeks. In the mean while I figured I would pull the driveshaft/torque tube back and remove the bell housing so I could get the clutch and flywheel off. Then I could take the clutch and flywheel out to get them balanced.

I got a rude awakening when I tried to pull the torque tube back. It turns out that the long driveshaft is stuck in the clutch! This is bad news because there is no way to get the bell housing off until we get this un-stuck. The first thing we are going to try is clamp something onto the coupler (the Gray thing) and make a puller to pull the driveshaft out by force. Once we get it un-stuck and taken apart, we will see if the front of the driveshaft is damaged. If it is, then we get to take the rear suspension off again and send the driveshaft off to be fixed, again.

In other news,,, I finally replaced that annoying right rear wheel bearing. Not an easy job, but it's done.

-Don

This little Frankenstein has certainly taken on a Life of it's own!! Geometry Under Torque Relationship could be off on top of it all,perhaps? You're next tale of what it takes to divorce that Torque-Tube Driveshaft oughta be a Real Screamer,Don! Thanx for a once again Great Read!

I'll Never forget my first torque tube driveshaft.
17 years old and swapping engines in a 63 Pontiac Lemans convertible from my Tempest hardtop that tried to tip over a tree

Finally, after 3 weeks we got back on this project!

While the transaxle is out being rebuilt and upgraded, I figured I would pull the torque tube, bellhousing, clutch and flywheel. I want to send the clutch and flywheel out to be balanced. Hopefully that will cure our vibration problem. When I started this three weeks ago, the driveshaft was very stuck in the clutch splines! It took a while to come up with a way to deal with this problem. The first thing to try was the puller idea. I made a puller out of the driveshaft coupler, a bearing separator, all thread, a 4x4 and a couple 1x's. You can see the bearing separator and the coupler up in there. Luckily that worked. Every other method we came up with would have involved cutting the driveshaft.

After pulling the driveshaft back out of the torque tube about a quarter inch it was free. I looked at the splines and the nose of the driveshaft and I don't see anything wrong! There is some very, very light corrosion on the splines but that should be a problem. I'll wire brush the splines real good before it goes back together though. And, yes we did a video to describe what we did!

Next will be pulling the bellhousing, clutch and flywheel.

-Don

Well, today we spent a few more hours wrestling with this car. Here are some pics of the front end of the driveshaft. Looks pretty good to me. Then it was a simple matter of pulling the bellhousing to get at the clutch and flywheel. Left side bolts are pretty tough to get at. One took an hour and a half to get completely out.

Then it was time to pull the bellhousing off. Wait,,, What??? It won't come out! This bigger bellhousing doesn't clear the tunnel far enough to pull it back clear of the clutch.

So it looks like next weekend we will be disconnecting a bunch of front suspension stuff so we can drop the engine down far enough to pull the bellhousing out.

Here is a little video of today's complications.


That's it for this weekend!
-Don

Yesterday, we wrangled some things around enough that we could drop the engine down a few inches. That was all we needed to get that big bellhousing out of the car. The Bellhousing looks good, I don't see any problems there, except for the fact that it is BIG. Then, finally we pulled the clutch and flywheel. There is a hot spot on the flywheel. Not sure why that happened. The only other problem I found is the pilot bearing has been pulled out about an 1/8"th inch. I am starting to think that the nose of the driveshaft had to be stuck in the pilot bearing and that is what pulled the bearing out. That's the only thing that makes sense, but the nose of the shaft is smaller than the inner race of the bearing and fits very loosely. Maybe they got together cocked and got stuck?

It's apart, but there are still unanswered questions.


-Don

Don, any chance you had some grease in the center bore of that pilot bearing when you assembled it?

Rob R. wrote: ↑

Tue. Jun. 01, 2021 10:30 am

Don, any chance you had some grease in the center bore of that pilot bearing when you assembled it?

Yes, I put a smear on the nose of the driveshaft to be sure it would go in friendly. I also pushed some grease in the cavity between the bearing and crank. Is that a problem?

-Don

StokerDon wrote: ↑

Tue. Jun. 01, 2021 12:53 pm

Yes, I put a smear on the nose of the driveshaft to be sure it would go in friendly. I also pushed some grease in the cavity between the bearing and crank. Is that a problem?

-Don

An old school method of removing a pilot bearing is to put grease in the center and pound in a tight fitting shaft. The grease gets behind the bearing and forces it backwards.