That is all.

 

Care to elaborate?

 

So its so strong you are a tow truck now?

or... you need a tow truck? haha

second guess: So much engagement that it screwed your drivetrain!

 

So you don't know what you broke yet? I say front diff mount. Any other guesses?

 

When I got my current 2nd gen, it's owner said the transmission was dead due to the race clutch he installed. The tranny was fine. The front u-joint on the driveshaft snapped and the shaft hit the shifter box breaking it clean off. That's why the car wouldn't shift. Of course I was the lucky one who had to fix it.

 

I lined up at the drag strip, tried to launch the thing, and then I heard a big clunk. Car goes into gear fine, speedometer goes up, but the car won't actually go anywhere. I'm thinking it's something with the driveshaft maybe. I had it towed to my buddy's place, as he's going to look at it for me because I just don't have the time to do anything with it right now.

 

Is not so much the 4 puck, more like the "UNSPRUNG" 4 puck clutch. I have been saying it for a looooooooong time; I went thru 3 NA trannies

 

Why would you install a pucked clutch on an NA motor?

 

No, he broke the transmission, no doubt. I've done it myself. The gears in the NA trans are quite weak...it'll break and leave you with nothing except 4th, which is your straight through gear.

 

Isn't the speedo gear on the output shaft of the transmission? So, theoretically, wouldn't it have to be functional to run the speedo up?

Kevin, just for fun, do you have a link to those pictures of your broken NA transmission? Those were quite impressive.

-=Russ=-

 

I think I deleted those pics when I did my last format. Suffice to say the countershaft input gear was chewed all to hell.

Yes, the speedo gear is on the output shaft, which will turn regardless of the damage up front at the input end.

As i said, even with this failure you would still have 4th gear available, and I drove my car home from atlanta using only 4th.

 

Holy crap, did you just blow through all the stop signs and lights?

 

There aren't any on the interstate

The one time I had to stop for gas, I timed my entrance to the road at the end of the offramp by slowing down and watching approaching traffic on my way down the ramp.

And hell, I already had a metal clutch disc, so slipping/burning the **** out of the clutch to gain momentum with a 4th gear start was not so hard.

 

Depending on how hard you launched, you could've even broken one of the back axles. This happened to me and this big clunk was due to the loose diff mount that gave out in order to break the axle. Then again this was a hard launch on a bronze 4 puck sprung clutch (n/a tranny). I've seen people bust their tranny's and car was still able to move in some gears so......could be a possibility.

 

See, I think it's something other than the tranny internals. I don't see how the transmission could break internally and still turn the output shaft for the speedo gear, unless the speedo gear is driven off something else (which wouldn't make sense, because the speedo works in neutral).

-=Russ=-

 

Trust me...the output shaft will turn regardless.

 

Interesting. The output shaft turns, but doesn't directly drive the wheels?

I must be thinking of a different part, then.

-=Russ=-

 

I think you must be confused.

Have you ever towed a car with the wheels on the ground? The speedo and odo still work, dont they? The driveshaft still spins, doesnt it? The driveshaft is connected to the trans output shaft, so that still spins, doesnt it? Does that mean that the input shaft has to be turning, or that any gear in the trans has to be engaged during that time? OF course not.

 

You definately broke your rear end, not your tranny. I went through an N/A tranny and differential, and both of them went out during a launch with an upgraded clutch. What you are describing is exactly what my car did when I broke my rear end. When my tranny blew I still had 4th as mentioned above, when my diff blew I didn't. At first I couldn't tell by looking what was wrong with the car, but when I noticed that the drive shaft was spinning in every gear but the tires weren't I found that I had broken the shaft that comes out of the diff that the axle attatches to about two inches in to the diff.

 

HHTurboVert, yeah once again as I posted earlier the same thing. It has to be one of the rear diff halfshafts because same thing happened to me as well. I had to end up taking out both axles and stick a thin metal bar (thru diff) to hit other END OF THE HALFSHAFT which was STUCK INSIDE! When this happened I only snapped one axle and tranny was fine. Same symptom as above and happened when I tried to launch a bit harder.

About 3 months later tranny blew after TII swap was done. N/A tranny lasted roughly 4 months under BOOST!!

 

You know what, I'm completely wrong. I totally misread the part where he originally talked about his speedo...for whatever reason I thought he said that it DIDN'T work. My mistake.

Still, more often than not, it's the weak NA tranny that lets go. I've only heard of a handful of rearend failures on these cars, but lots of tranny failures.

 

It's your diff, same thing happened on my first gen, watch your drive shaft spin when someone else puts it in gear...I bet the D/S spins and the car goes no where....weeee

I grenaded the LSD in my SE....

 

The car will be looked at today I think. I'm hoping it's not the whole diff (car is '88 GTU with LSD) but I better be prepared. The car goes into all gears btw, just doesn't move. I may have to start hunting down some parts unless my buddy happens to have some of this **** on his parts cars.

I already ordered a new full faced clutch disc. The previous owner had installed the 4 puck and it only had like 3000 miles on it when I bought the car, so it seemed like a waste of money at the time to get a new one. I had launched the thing plenty of times and nothing had happened, but I knew in the back of my mind that something would break--although I worried more about the tranny.