Alfa Gt 1.9Jtd odd problem

[z06tim]

My father had a really odd vibration issue with his GT diesel. It sounds a little different to yours, but it may be worth checking. His was an out of balance drive shaft. I can't recall which side it was (guessing passenger). Don't know what caused it. Could have been a pot-hole impact, or just bad from day one, as it was fairly low mileage at the time. In my experience the obvious wheel balance or damaged rim is usually felt through the steering wheel. This was felt through the structure of the car and you could convince yourself you could see the movement in the footwell at certain speeds. Think it was the Alfa dealer in Amersham that diagnosed and fixed this, and the bill was't horrendous if i remember right. His car has been perfectly fine for a couple of years since.

[rijmij99]

Take it to a decent indy and get them to chuck it on the ramp. A knackered driveshaft will look the same regardless of Marque

[crostonian]

I had this on my 159 it was sticking front brake calipers. The wobble was felt through my feet and when driving and worse under braking yet nothing through the steering wheel. After it's done it just pull over and see if one or more of your wheels are hotter than the others.

[redrobbo32]

Old thread I know , did you resolve this , was it the diff ?

[PapaJohns]

Thread revival !

Which side shaft was it ?

Iv the same issue, especially on long sweeping left hand bends and under load. Started as a juddering as first but it distinctly a wobble know ,

I know it's over a year ago since the last post but worth a punt

[Nigel_O]

I work part-time at an Alfa Indy and I've just had exactly the same issue on my own GT diesel (for the second time)

It is the inner driveshaft joints - the bearings wear and sometime seize, which causes the joint to only want to work in a straight line - as soon as there's an angle (steering or suspension movement) the joint gives a "kick-back", which manifests itself as a shimmying of the engine. This can be felt throughout the car and feels like a seriously buckled wheel or a mis-beaded tyre.

Genuine inner joints are about £100+ per side, but are massively better quality than many aftermarket joints.

Alternatively, reconditioned driveshafts (with a 2yr guarantee!) are available for about £50 per side - this is the solution I chose when I had my GT fixed yesterday.

[PapaJohns]

Thanks for the reply mate,

Where abouts did you get the reconditioned shafts from ? Do they work on an exchange basis ? Did you do both sides or just one .

It's got worse the past day, it's not really noticeable around the doors only when you get up into 3rd gear and making progress it starts to really wobble , feels like front left of the car

[Nigel_O]

I did both sides - £45 for the near side, £55 for the drivers side

J&R driveshafts in Birmingham. No exchange. Almost certainly Chinese imports (judging by the huge container being unloaded while I was there). However, the quality seems OK and they carry a two year guarantee. It's a very well-run organization, with (I'm guessing) tens of thousands of driveshafts in stock, with their own branded boxes.

The mechanics at the garage I work at said the quality was adequate and couldn't understand how they did them for the price. Given that they were going on a 218,000 mile daily commuting hack, I can't be bothered spending £500+ on genuine Alfa shafts.

[PapaJohns]

Iv found the spider bearings on line for £99+ vat. New shafts from the likes of autolusso was a round £300.

Asked my local Indy to give it a check over and see if they could confirm my suspicions , but they came back with some lame excuse about fitting new tyres and rebalancing the wheels. Which to me was there way of getting me to spunk £300 on nothing ,I suggested a cheaper way of finding that out by swapping front wheels to the rear etc, but they didn't have time apparently .
There's a couple Alfa speacialists around here so once the New Years celebrations are out the way,I'll get it booked in