driveshaft nut removal

[gareyt]

Im going to tackle my biggest job yet at the weekend, I intend to replace my righthand driveshaft on my megane.

My issue is the driveshaft nut, and im looking for advice from those of you that have removed one before using hand tools.

Ive got the sockets and a breaker bar but when I gave it a quick go the other day it didn't budge a bit and the breaker bar seemed to just flex.

Any top tips would be great, thanks.

[gareyt]

Well I don't have anything bigger than 1/2" sockets, breaker bars and torque wrenches. I did think about taking it to a garage but that kind of defeats the purpose because my aim is to do everything myself but if it wont budge I guess I wont have a choice.

I plan to tackle it tomorrow (sunday) There has been some great advice here and ive got myself a hollow steel bar for extra leverage and I will have my scissor jack to take the weight if need be.

Fingers crossed for tomo and I will give a update when its done.
Cheers

[gareyt]

Well I got the nut off. I used the method where you rest the knuckle of the breaker bar on something to take the weight. I used one of my axle stands. I put a hollow steel bar over my breaker bar which gave me about 2m of leverage at most. and I put some chocks under the rear wheels and had the handbrake on.

I bounced it for a few minutes then started to put the real effort in after spraying it with plusgas. My stepdad said I should try levering up from the other side rather than pushing down. I wasn't convinced but suddenly there was a big crack and it was done.

As well as changing the driveshaft I had to remove the lower arm but after taking practically everything off there is still a nut on the lower arm that Im having problems with. Its one of those torx types.

Anyhow a big thanks to the tips and advice as it gave me confidence that it would work. cheers

[gareyt]

Yeah your not wrong there. The car is still on its axle stands until I get the torx socket. Totally unforeseen. Tried getting it off with other sockets and ring spanners but they just eat into it. And I thought the hub nut was going to be the biggest problem.

[gareyt]

Yeah totally agree, try working on a small stone gravel surface. I put my tools down and then when I go to get it again its gone missing, covered over by little stones.

Probably spent half the time sifting through stones to find missing sockets etc.

All part of the fun I guess.

[gareyt]

Good idea about the taupaline, simple but effective.

Ive finished the job now and the other bits I was doing. Im a novice and I would say that if you have all the right tools then it shouldnt take more than about 2hrs.But it really depends on the difficulties that you might run into such as extremely tight nuts. For me everything came off easy because I have been replacing all the parts that I had to undo or move so I knew that it would all undo easily.

I had to top up the transmission fluid afterwards as I lost about 250ml when I removed the driveshaft. I measured what I lost so I knew how much to replace it with. My clever invention for refilling the fluid was a handwash bottle with a bit of rubber pipe connected and fed up into transmission filler point. Then just squeeze away. Easy and cheap.