I don't know if these issues are related or not, looking for advice/experience here... Car is an '88 Porsche 944 NA, 5-speed.
- Fairly serious vibration at 75-80 MPH. Pushing in clutch reduces severity of vibration but not by much. On/off gas does not seem to make much difference.
- Outer CV joint mount bolts on the driver's side were all working loose and were finger tight if that. I snugged them up when I noticed this but could not get proper torque as I did not have the correct triple square tool with me. (an allen wrench works, but you can't get full torque on it without stripping the bolt heads. Ask me how I know this.)
- Boot on same CV joint is looking very dry rotted and cracked. Not cracked through yet, but darn close. It needs attention soon. Inner boot is fresh as a daisy, as are the boots on the other axle. Both axles were replaced with remans around the first of the year; I had a CV joint let go Dec. 23rd of last year so I spent my xmas eve turning the pass. side axle around backwards to get me through the holidays.
I'm thinking that the outer CV went bad, got hot, cooked the grease and the boot and that is why this is all happening. The vibration caused by the bad CV made the bolts back out, which compounded the problem and made the vibration perceptible to me. does this sound plausible? I've only driven maybe 10-20K miles on the new axles, as I got a company car a couple months ago, and the car has been in a body shop for the past month and a half or so. The place I got this axle from advertised that they only used new joints and that they were packed with Amsoil grease (I know, I would have preferred Redline, but for the price I wasn't complaining.)
Thoughts? Is it worth swapping in the one good used axle that I have to see if that makes the problem go away?
thanks,
nate