924Board.org

Slam · Last edited by Slam on Tue Jun 30, 2009 7:14 am; edited 1 time in total

I'm sure this story will strike a familiar chord.

My early 944 (most 924s are similar, so harken one and all) had developed a clunk in the front suspension. I had replaced the struts fairly recently and impacted the top nuts on after spiffing up the upper mounts. I ruled those out as a source of unwanted rackets.

Then it was on to the rest. The front control arm bushings had pancaked onto the crossmember, so off I went to get myself bushings. Things came apart suspiciously easily - no frozen bolts, no recalcitrant nuts. I thought I was in for a good time.

Since I distinctly recall having to get a local auto wrecker to BURN out the control arm bushings about 10 years ago, I took the arms to a local shop, handed them the new bushings and gave them my blessing. A week went by.

I collected them in time to reinstall them on a weekend. The resident lackey told me he hadn't a clue how much the shop was gonna charge for doing the job. These guys have done stuff for me in the past quite reasonably so I was unconcerned. I took the arms home and put them back in the car. Struggled a bit with the rear mounts as all the new rubber had made things more...springy...and the bolts wouldn't catch. Got new fasteners all round (twisted one of the roll bar bolts in half) and figured it was time for an alignment.

Clunk now worse than it was before.

Ordered ball joints and waited expectantly. Got both for a little over $50CDN. Good deal. But no nuts and bolts for them. Got laughed at by hardware store guy who refused to believe there's any such thing as M7. I ended up reusing the old bolts (except for the one I broke removing it) and one new one. Today I got to drive the car, thinking it was time for an alignment, finally.

Clunk still there. Handling is better, but the FIRST thing the car did was clunk! Bugger!

So now the fun part. Off I go to the shop to pay them for pressing in the new bushings. Guess what? $200 shop time! And that's AFTER the boss knocked about an hour off just for me. He said never had they had so much trouble with a f-in' control arm.

My bill is now $200 in time, $56 for ball joints, forget what the bushings were (about $40) and all those new self-locking nuts. And I still need an alignment.

New control arms, sans bushings, are about $40 each.

See what I'm saying?

DON'T REUSE YOUR CONTROL ARMS!

Well, I'm not anyway.

There's nothing wrong with my front suspension now.

Except a clunk...

I think it's the battery hold-down.

Nope. I suspect my R/F caliper, oddly enough. It seems I get the clunk only when braking and shifting the load on the front end front to rear. It seems that wheel grabs a little, too.

Anyone else have to deal with this?
_________________
'84 944 - kid blew motor
'83 944 - resting comfortably. For 12 years
'87 944 - sideswiped by trucker
'80 924 - gone
'78 924 - gone
'77 924 - rusting comfortably

Slam · Posted: Fri Jun 05, 2009 3:07 am Post subject:

TTT, just hoping to get some opinions.
_________________
'84 944 - kid blew motor
'83 944 - resting comfortably. For 12 years
'87 944 - sideswiped by trucker
'80 924 - gone
'78 924 - gone
'77 924 - rusting comfortably

Arominus · Posted: Fri Jun 05, 2009 3:29 am Post subject:

Have you replaced the sway bar bushings? i have a clunk myself but it only came on after i bolted on some 944 turbo bars with not so great rubber in them. they are passable but they do make noise

I went with new control arms, i couldn't resist since they were so cheap. The shop pressed on the bushings for about $75 as i wasn't having a good time with my vice. They were even nice enough to listen to my request and make sure the bushings were oriented correctly (ie the flat spot that sits against the frame).
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1987 924s

gohim · Joined: 02 Nov 2002 Posts: 4459 Location: Rialto, CA

Dead strut cartridge, OR upper strut mount has collapsed down onto the upper spring perch.

Did you install the spacer between the upper spring perch and the upper strut mount per Porsche TB dated close to 25 years ago?

Slam · Posted: Fri Jun 05, 2009 4:56 am Post subject:

Well, gohim, I'm kinda leaning toward the strut mount on that side. I put new struts in last summer and reassembled as per disassembly. Before that I'd had new upper mounts put in but didn't verify that the update had been done. My mistake for thinking the shop that did it knew what they were doing. I assumed they did and reassembled accordingly. With some luck I'll have time to do that this weekend.

Arominus, going over the sway bar bushings was part of my front-end work. At this point, I've got pretty much new or recently-refreshed everything.
_________________
'84 944 - kid blew motor
'83 944 - resting comfortably. For 12 years
'87 944 - sideswiped by trucker
'80 924 - gone
'78 924 - gone
'77 924 - rusting comfortably

Slam · Posted: Fri Jun 05, 2009 5:18 am Post subject:

I have a pair of these

http://www.paragon-products.com/product_p/pp944.343.071.00.htm

and was wondering if I can fit them into an early 944 chassis.
_________________
'84 944 - kid blew motor
'83 944 - resting comfortably. For 12 years
'87 944 - sideswiped by trucker
'80 924 - gone
'78 924 - gone
'77 924 - rusting comfortably

ideola · Joined: 01 Oct 2004 Posts: 15550 Location: Spring Lake MI

Min · Posted: Fri Jun 05, 2009 6:17 am Post subject:

Slam · Posted: Tue Jun 09, 2009 3:16 am Post subject:

Spacer is NLA, according to a couple of places I visited. The mounts in my link are for the early cars, so that's fine. However, I wasn't able to get this done this weekend 'cause nobody around here has the self-locking nut for the strut.

I've read that a good-sized washer can be substituted for the spacer, but does anyone have any real-world experience with this?

I had to console myself with cleaning the car's interior and helping Mand do bodywork on her Lada Niva.
_________________
'84 944 - kid blew motor
'83 944 - resting comfortably. For 12 years
'87 944 - sideswiped by trucker
'80 924 - gone
'78 924 - gone
'77 924 - rusting comfortably

Min · Posted: Tue Jun 09, 2009 3:25 am Post subject:

I was asking because I can machine a spacer for anyone that wants one. Especially if they are no longer available. Do you know the dimensions and material gohim?

Min
_________________
Custom means it didn't come from a box.
1980 n/a with EDIS and Megasquirt II Injection. 7 different colors and counting.

Slam · Posted: Tue Jun 09, 2009 3:47 am Post subject:

I'd be in for about 6 of them, Min, if you can do that. I'll pm gohim.

What's really strange is that I did the struts on Mand's 924 at the same time I did my 944 last autumn and there's no clunk in her car. The setup is exactly the same as my 944 - no spacers.
_________________
'84 944 - kid blew motor
'83 944 - resting comfortably. For 12 years
'87 944 - sideswiped by trucker
'80 924 - gone
'78 924 - gone
'77 924 - rusting comfortably

gohim · Joined: 02 Nov 2002 Posts: 4459 Location: Rialto, CA

I don't remember much about the spacers. When I needed them I simply ordered them from a Porsche Dealer.

I'll don't see any reason why they couldn't be fabricated. All they are is thick metal washers. If I remember correctly, they were plain, stamped out washers, not machined, precision made shims. ID is slightly larger than the strut shaft, thickness was 5mm or 6mm, and the OD was smaller than a body washer, and larger than a common/ordinary washer, definitely not a tube in appearance.

Min · Posted: Tue Jun 09, 2009 7:06 am Post subject:

I can investigate building the tooling to stamp out a bunch of them. Anyone have the dimensions of one of these things? (the thickness specifically, the inner and outer diameters probably aren't that critical)

Min
_________________
Custom means it didn't come from a box.
1980 n/a with EDIS and Megasquirt II Injection. 7 different colors and counting.

Slam · Posted: Sat Jun 13, 2009 4:58 am Post subject:

So two nights ago I put the brand spanking new upper strut mounts in the 944. The ones I took out were identical and the only difference I could see that would indicate wear was that the old ones had collapsed about 2 to 3 mm. Frankly, not enough to make them unusable. But I figured I'd change them just in case. I'll post some pics (well, ummm, Chrenan will probably have to do it for me) of what I found. I'll also include a 931 mount assembly for reference. It's the old 2-piece style that the ones in my link above replace.

Min, the only part I can see people needing is the sleeve that fits inside the mount. Both mine were grooved where the mount bearing rides on them, but I used a good one from the 931 and flipped the other so the bearing was riding on its good side when I reinstalled it.

As far as spacers go I had no spacers between the mount and the perch as in the parts diagrams. I used a nice big hardware store washer. The car's being aligned today and I'll let you folks know what turns up.

The clunk is still there. I'm gonna ask the alignment shop to do a thorough check.

Becoming miffed.
_________________
'84 944 - kid blew motor
'83 944 - resting comfortably. For 12 years
'87 944 - sideswiped by trucker
'80 924 - gone
'78 924 - gone
'77 924 - rusting comfortably

Slam · Posted: Tue Jun 30, 2009 7:16 am Post subject:

[img]

[/img]
944 part on the left. Audi 2-piece part on the right - from 931. Shown right-side up.

[img]

[/img]
944 part on left. I removed it from the 944 to track down the clunk. There's nothing wrong with it. The 931 mount on the right was clunk-free and looks to have settled a few millimeters. Both 944 mounts got changed.
[img]

[/img]
There's the sleeve that sits in the top of the mount to accommodate the strut. This one was dead - groove marks all over it.

I don't think you can make out the part numbers from these pics, but I'll get them and post. The Audi mount may be cheaper - it's a 2-part affair - rubber donut and metal insert w/bearing.

Min, if you're watching, I took a caliper to that sleeve but the pics don't really show the measurements well. I could e-mail them to you or send you the sleeve itself.
_________________
'84 944 - kid blew motor
'83 944 - resting comfortably. For 12 years
'87 944 - sideswiped by trucker
'80 924 - gone
'78 924 - gone
'77 924 - rusting comfortably