I just finished almost 500 miles of driving this weekend after going to the imports meet at Carlisle and suddenly within two blocks of home the right rear went bad. I went through an S curve exit ramp fairly quick and on the brakes a little hard then within one block, the right rear started to make a bumping/banging noise and I got a very bad bouncing feeling out of the right rear if I got the car much over 5mph or so. I looked under the car and see nothing obviously broken in the suspension. I took off the wheel and looked and see nothing broken and the brake appears to not be hanging up. Any ideas. It is real bad. If I can't figure it out I will have to have it towed to a local shop.

Broken shock or shock mount? Try jacking the car up and watch the shock.

I jacked the car up and the shock did not seem to have any play in it. There was no wiggling when i tried to move it, everything felt tight. I do get a sound when I push down on the car sometimes that sounds like a spring creaking so I am focused on that area, but so far nothing.

1. give the axles a tug to and fro - maybe coming loose from flanges.

2. bounce rear suspension - major difference rt vs left? - maybe shock?

3. difference in wheel alignment rt vs left? is pass side wheel tilted in? visually inspect attachment of suspension to chassis.

4. with car jacked up, try to jostle wheels. loose? - wheel bearing?

The right wheel is now pitched in at the top. Before the left was and now it looks like both are and maybe the right more. The suspensiona attachment points appear to be fine. the car has no rust in the suspension console and the control arm attachment does not appear to be cracked. I am hoping it is just a broken shock and I am not seeing where, but I don't think so. Of course the rain here isn't helping me figure it out.

Trailing arm bushing?


I've had them make noise in turns (side loading) from either one side or the other, that normally settles down with "gentle foward driving".

Also a quick clutch release would make it clunk for a moment.


John

It only takes about 20 minutes to take it completely apart.

If you do, I bet you'll find the problem.

sounds alot like your CV's... check and make sure they are tight...that would make sense, that they would make more noise the faster you go....

Actually I am starting to question a CV joint/axle issue. I took the car back out after I couldn't find anything to check for sure. What I was feeling and hearing and what happened was that when I start moving , nothing. When I get up to a few miles an hour I get some bucking feeling/bouncing and noise with it. I tried to make a three point turn and when I started to move, the right rear tire jumped/broke loose slightly on the pavement and I got the same feeling of bucking. I got under the car and checked the axles with it on ramps. The left axle has some free play of about 1/2-1inch but it is smooth, the right has similar but it is not a smooth motion when I move it from side to side. My friend also stated that when I was turning the right rear seemed to pitch more, but our street are not flat here so it is hard to say for certain.

I will just tell you what I would do in your spot, and you can do with it what

you will. Rear up on jack stands, place blocks under front wheels, start engine and place in the gear you noticed

the sound and movement. Inspect from the rear, if you hear noise and can't place

where it is coming from, this will sound strange but what I have used is a piece of

dowel of even a dry stick. You place one end on the trans or the trailing arm

the other end behind the ear just behind the loabe. The dowel will transfer the

vibrations from the affected area to your inner ear. In this way you can pin point

where it is coming from. If it a shock or bushing I would disconnect the shock at

the lower point this way you can move the trailing arm and shock independant

of each other.

I read that it is not good to run the wheels unsupported. the cv's are at an extreme angle and you can break them.

shoving the cv's side to side doesn't mean anything. try to move them radially. alternatively, jack up rear, put in gear, and turn wheel by hand. disregard play from within gearbox. there should be next to nil play from cv's relative to axles.

other possibilities: loose or trashed tranny and/or engine mounts.

If other inspections turn up nothing drain the tranny and look for a broken tooth (pinion most likely) to fall out. Happens quite often on the 944's and 356's I would assume happens on teeners too though I haven't personally encounterd it . When being driven at low speeds it is noticible by a sudden jolt/skip when the missing tooth should be engaging the other gear. Obviously it would be werse at higher speed but don't find out !

I am leaning towards the CV because the axle binds when moved from side to side and does not on the other side. I could understand a tooth in the transmission, but shouldn't that effect both wheels. The problem is very obviously coming from the right side, the wheel literally lurches forward and it is not completely rhythmic like I would expect a gear tooth to cause. I wount rule that out though yet. Thanks for the advise from all so far. I am going to start disassembly tommorow if I get time.

Thats the whole point. To put the drive train under some of the stress that it

would be in while driving. Often it is hard to reproduce the same circumstance

that you experianced the noise or thump or what ever. It is at an idle after all.

Okay, let's see if this narrows things any. I jacked the right side of the car up to start removing the axle to check the CV joints and suddenly I could not move the axle at all. I thought it might be due to the angle of the car with the other wheel down causing binding, but when I dropped the car back down, there still was no play from side to side of the axle. I rocked the car forward a little with it in gear and suddenly it would move again from side to side. As I rocked the car some more I could get it to bind back up again and free again. The whole time the left side had easy free play. So is it a CV joint binding or a wheel bearing locking it up? Also how do you guys recommend raising the car while removing the axle. Do I need both sides raised and if so can I do it on ramps or should I jack it. Where do you recommend jacking it from to get it up before the stands go under it? How can you tell I am new to 914's?

Outer CV joing (where it links up to the wheel base, NOT where it mounts to the tranny. For years, I had a "clunk" when ever I started my forward momentum. Bothered the hell out of me but I couldn't track down the culprit... Then one day, loud CLUNK and I was going nowhere fast. Cheap fix though - CV joint is about $50. The broken CV joint looked like grenade shrapnel when it came off...

I had a shop take care of it but I'm sure you can do it on your own. Just remember to pack LOTS of grease in the "boot".

-Pete

No longer a cheap fix, as 914 CV joints are NLA.

Some people report some air-cooled VW (Bus?) CVs work if you drill out the roll pin hole (bigger pin on the 914).

I just bought a pair of brand new axles with CV joints off of e-bay and amazingly they are nearby in New York City so I should be picking them up sometime in the next week. Thanks for the input everyone has given. I will have the axle out in the next hour or so and then I will no for sure if it is a CV, but I think it is or maybe a wheel bearing but I don't think so.

Jeff - Good to know about the find in NYC. I actually live in Manhattan - curious about the place you found the parts, they could be a resource for me/you/us. I bought refurbished axle's, complete w/cv's from Auto Atlanta a couple years back. Please hold off the rants re AA - I know their reputation and will continue to use them when necessary. I think they ran me about $125 per axle.

Baldwin is not far from the city - there's a few of us nearby...

-Pete

if those are new cv joints and you paid less than what an nla item should fetch, i suggest you go buy 4 more. or 8, or 16...

k

Actually I got them off of e-bay from someone who bought them a few years ago and then never used them. By the way the problem with the car is the outer CV joint. Here is the destruction in the joint.

The worse part of this ordeal is that I had to admit to a Fiat driving friend of mine that my 914 broke after the trip to Carlisle and it was not one of the three Fiats/Lancias that broke. By the way to the Northeast people, more of you should go to Carlisle in the future. It was a lot of fun. There were only 5 914's on the field including mine. That is a pretty low number when compared to other makes. There must have been at least 15-20 Triumph Spitfires.

I just checked my receipts from a couple yrs ago. AA sold me rebuild axle's (not new cv's, but rebuilt) for $100 each w/a $50 core charge. I"ve had no problems w/the rebuilt ones. At the time, I purchased a new cv joint but never put it on. I'm saving it for a "oh shit" moment in the future...

Jeff - Good to hear that you got things sorted.

-Pete

I actually was able to get both axles with the CV joints for $350. I think that is pretty good so I jumped on the by it now option. Now to get them and get the car back on the road. I hope to do that by Sunday but I want to change the springs as well because I think the rear sag may have helped the joint fail. The car only has 44,500 miles on it and a Joint failed. That is bad.

betcha those "rblt" axles are reblt in same way motormeister engines are rblt - which is to say, not rblt.

Jeff - The car may only have 44.5K miles but its still over 30yrs old & things will break. Sounds like you got a fair price. Springs are reasonably easy to find (Pelican) and not too expensive. Good luck w/them - I got new ones put on a year or so ago and it did help out the ride (especially w/all the F'in potholes!!).

As for my "rebuilt" axles - they had fresh grease packing w/new rubber boots. There's really not much to them when you think of it. As long as the cv joints move smooth and the boots keep the water/debris out you are golden! Plus, I had the old cv's should something had gone awry. Been 2yrs and no probs so far! .....knock on wood....

I know 44.5K is not much a lot after 30 years, but man that is low for any CV joint. I have put 150K on cars and never blown one. I have my springs, I am waiting on some shocks to come in. I hope they are here soon. I would like to do everything at once. If not I will put the springs in and when the shocks come I will just have to pull them out again. I want to use the car while the weather is nice.

apparently $100 buys a blob of grease and a couple boots.



in about 350,000 miles between 3 porsches I've found inner cv's last around 100k mi. the outers last much longer. they dont just break somehow, they wear out. I believe eric shea on the board here is selling new 914 compatible vw joints which will be more reliable and a better value in the long run. hopefully 914 cv's will come back at some point.