Alternator Shaft Failure - Scary

[DonTraver]

Photo link of failure. https://www.flickr.com/photos/2010-2011 ... 084433382/

I'm in Clemont-Ferrand France this week, home of Michelin Tires. Anyway I was driving to this castle and had just driven through the village of Le Vernet Sainte Margeritte when I heard and felt a large bang from the rear of the RSA and smelled burning rubber, the Interlock Alarm came on too. I thought only C4’s had interlocks. Opened the engine cover and it wasn’t pretty at all. The engine cooling fan and belts were all tangled up and the fan was up against the rear crossover body piece where the engine cover lock is. After going OHG, crap, I’m screwed. I used the Garmin GPS to see if there was a Porsche Dealer close by. It said there was one in Clermont-Ferrand 35 kms away and even had a phone number for them.

Called them, tried to tell them what had happened and that I needed a tow. Yes there was a language problem. Thing was they wouldn’t call a tow company for me, they did give me 3 help phone numbers, none of which worked.

I pulled out my tools, cut the belts, they were toast, removed the belt pulley’s and got the fan out and removed the belt sensor. Looked everything over and it looked like the only damage was the Alternator shaft had sheered which sort of ejected the fan from the housing and wiped out the belt sensor. No housing damage or damage to the car body other that a ¼ inch dimple where the shaft had hit the cross member.

I was thinking with all of the damaged parts out I’d just drive her to the dealer on the battery , then it hit me, oh crap, I don’t have a cooling fan. So much for that idea.

Then I called my insurance company, I do have towing. Spent 2 hours and spoke to 5-6 people, got cut off 3 times all for them to tell me. Sorry, you’re on your own in France. I was a real happy camper by then.

So I’m thinking, can I run her for a couple of kilometers at a time without a cooling fan, then let her cool down, and do it again without ruining the engine. If I do I’d better do it quick before it gets dark. About that time this guy drove by and I flagged him down.

He spoke English. Showed him what happened and he said he knew a shop with a flatbed tow truck and he’d call them for me. How cool it that. The tow truck showed up around 1630 and we had the RSA loaded by 1645. I’d called the dealer and they said they closed at 1700, so I told the driver to just take me to the hotel for the weekend. He didn’t, he took me to the dealer and they were still open, not working, just hadn’t closed up the shop yet.

So we got the RSA into the shop, filled out the paperwork, paid the tow truck driver and they’ll order parts next week. I think Monday’s a holiday. So I’ll be here a bit longer than planned.

Couple of thoughts. Looking at the broken shaft shows that it has been cracked for quite some time. Over 90% of the shaft was already cracked before today’s final failure. I was only driving 15-20 kms when it failed. If I’d been on the motorway when it failed, it would have taken off the rear of the car and caused extensive engine damage. I think I’ve been real lucky that is was a low rpm failure. I’ve seen pictures of a high rpm alternator shaft failure, not pretty at all. I’ll attach pictures of both sides of the break. Just 4 days ago I made a 8 hour drive from Burgos, Spain, scary.

Talked with 2 guys from the online 964 club. One had a low rpm failure and it resembled my failure, the other was a high rpm failure. He had to rebuild engine and replace a few body parts as the fan tried to fly. Wow, I am so lucky.

Oh yeah, just went over 150,000 miles, 65,000 of them touring Europe and next month I'll have been touring Europe for a year on this my 3rd extended tour, or a total of 3 years driving around Europe, Woo Hoo.

Later, Don

[Sparks]

What a story Don, thanks for sharing!