944S broken spring centered clutch

[VA944]

Hello everyone,

I have a 944S which I put a new clutch in a few months ago and have put a few thousand miles on. Everything this was good till I will driving and it became harder and harder to shift into gear and then I heard a noise coming from the bellhousing and then the car wouldn’t move. After further inspection I realized it was my clutch. The center of the clutch disconnected from the outer friction disc. Does anyone know what would have caused this? I also put in a new sachs pressure plate. The pressure plate looked 100% fine. And so did the flywheel.

[944 Ecology]

It sure looks rusty for having been installed a couple of months ago. Was it new?

If not, metal fatigue.

[VA944]

It was new. That is just clutch dust

[djnolan]

interesting. sorry to hear this happened. can you post a pic edge wise of the broken disk and center hub? Also a pic of the back of the disk? Maybe the disk was contaminated with oil and grabbed and caused the metal to break?

[wwdwgs]

is that Sachs clutch disk? Where, I may ask, did you buy it from?

[VA944]

I can’t get any more pictures I shipped the clutch back for warranty. The clutch is sachs and I got it off of ebay. No doubt it was sachs though not a knock off.

[wwdwgs]

Normally, ebay and amazon is "saturated" with fake items. These knock-offs do look like the genuine counterparts. Even the packaging and boxes look "real". The only way to know if the item in question is real on not is to compare it side by side with a known genuine one. Even the low cost items are copied. Remember, Chinese industry is very good at imitating.

[walfreyydo]

I always buy important parts from known parts suppliers (Pelican, FCP, Germanautoparts, etc). Little odds and ends or used stuff Ill get off ebay or similar.

[Monkey Wrench]

im wondering if something caused excessive sideloading. it looks like there are a bunch of small spot welds holding it and they all snapped. could it be the welds are hard and perhaps brittle? maybe caused by a wrong heat setting , not enough penetration, or similar? was it shocked, by releasing the clutch suddenly, for example? any recent burnouts?

maybe careful examination can determine a fault in the welds. You sent it back and it soulds lke F and S stood by a warantee, but but it leaves you with either the cost or time investment obvioulsly this is not a quick to change part.
im wondering if the kit included the throwout bearing assembly or if maybe there were some mismatched parts in the area?

can anyone thingk or a reason why the clutch disk could have been sideloaded excessively?

[djnolan]

are you saying there might have been an axial alignment problem that stressed the metal?

[Jfrahm]

Originally Posted by Monkey Wrench

can anyone thingk or a reason why the clutch disk could have been sideloaded excessively?

If the torque shaft is at an angle to the clutch disk, the disk has to flex with every rotation. A small misalignment of the torque tube to bellhousing or a bent torque shaft (hang the torque tube off the bellhousing unsupported and loosen the bolts).

Or I suppose if the pilot bearing is is badly worn the shaft could whip around. Seems unlikely though.

[Jfrahm]

Oh yeah maybe also front torque tube bearing migrating rearward. Don't know if the S has a split torque tube but those especially can suffer from a wandering front bearing.

[Monkey Wrench]

Originally Posted by djnolan

are you saying there might have been an axial alignment problem that stressed the metal?

I'm not stating that it was misaligned but rather , "speculating" that perhaps some axial load or similar may have been a factor.

of course a repeat of this affair would be frustrating so ' WHY it happened" is probably quite important to the OP

a careful look at the shear point may offer some indication as to how the stress which caused the failure was applied.
all the torque of the engine has to transfer through thise welds, I figured perhaps some other sort of load could have weakend the spots.

If he attempted to spin the wheels by reving it up and dropping the clutch that would perhaps be an explanation in itself.

[walfreyydo]

Originally Posted by Jfrahm

Oh yeah maybe also front torque tube bearing migrating rearward. Don't know if the S has a split torque tube but those especially can suffer from a wandering front bearing.

I dont think they do, I believe the split TT were only on the S2s