drive shaft play!

[mak]

My car went for an mot on thursday and passed but the guy pointed out an exesesive play in the drive shaft's (left 2 right not up and down) the shafts (both) slide in and out the diff by about 3 inch with no friction at all, its been droped off at my local tvr dealer 2 strip down and see wot the problem is but at £104 an hour (£816 a day)a little problem turn's into a big 1, i'll no wednesday wot they have found but just thought i'd ask if any one's seen this before.
cheer's.

[GreenV8S]

Go back to the MOT station and give him a belt round the ear, they're CV joints and the drive shaft is supposed to float endways. The only way to get excessive float is for the wishbones to stretch or the diff to physically move sideways within the chassis, both of which would require a pretty catastrophic failure. I hesitate to say the guy's an idiot, but ...

[mak]

i'm biggining to think i've been a bit hasty cus like u say there's gotto be float BUT! the tvr garage has said there's to much so its to late and i've gotta stomach wot they tell me, 2hr's to strip it down (204) 2 hrs to but it back (204) + parts if needed, i'm going to have to make this a lesson and learn from it. nice!

[GreenV8S]

By the way I've just noticed £104 an hour, that is daylight robbery IMO. I would expect to pay half that at any reputable TVR dealer or specialist.

[2Munkys]

Ooh, Big numbers there Mak !

The C/V joints are not difficult to replace. Given access, you just need a good set of socketed Allen keys, torque wrench and circlip pliers. By what you describe however, it's possible you need the whole L/R shaft assemblies. Either way, it's an afternoons work for you and a buddy. I recently bought some re-man'd C/V joint kits at something like £53 a go (and yep, they are the correct items). I think they came from these guys: www.carparts-warehouse.co.uk. If I've got the supplier wrong then a search on tinternet'll dig something up for ya.

Give it a go.

[Jonnyb]

I took mine to reco-prop in Luton. 2 drive shafts and a prop shaft. The drive shafts needed 3 CV joints and the prop shaft was balanced as the UJ were ok, The whole lot cost £250.

[2Munkys]

Jonnyb said:

I took mine to reco-prop in Luton. 2 drive shafts and a prop shaft. The drive shafts needed 3 CV joints and the prop shaft was balanced as the UJ were ok, The whole lot cost £250.

An utter bargain that is sir!

[rfisher]

Slightly OT but;

Ever checked the play in a 350i rear wheels? First time I had a MOT in my old 350i the examiner nearly fell into the pit in shock.

Something to do with trailing arm link thingies apparantly.

[waynester]

Jonnyb said:

I took mine to reco-prop in Luton. 2 drive shafts and a prop shaft. The drive shafts needed 3 CV joints and the prop shaft was balanced as the UJ were ok, The whole lot cost £250.

I needed new uj's fitted to my 400SE as they had seized on the offside driveshaft.
Picked the car up the following day, and was presented with a bill for £698!!!!!!!!

A TVR main dealer i might add.

[mak]

mmmm! £698 nice! fair play to most of u guy's cus you seem to do a lot of work yourself, maybe at those labour prices there's not much else we can do. i've done some big jobs on a lot of cars myself by hook or crook but these days i really cant be ar**d and not got the space (drive) to do it, i'm going away on holls in the car next friday so that's y i put it in the garage to get sorted, rang today but they've not even looked at the car but tomorrow i should have my quote, wonder if i can beat £698 lol, think i'll clean the dust of my tools and prepare myself for scraped knuckles.

[jonnyb]

waynester said:

Jonnyb said: I took mine to reco-prop in Luton. 2 drive shafts and a prop shaft. The drive shafts needed 3 CV joints and the prop shaft was balanced as the UJ were ok, The whole lot cost £250. I needed new uj's fitted to my 400SE as they had seized on the offside driveshaft. Picked the car up the following day, and was presented with a bill for £698!!!!!!!! A TVR main dealer i might add.

When my local TVR main dealer wanted £1000 to change the clutch on my car, down went the phone and out came the spanners!! Its a license to print money!

[dtpugh]

2Munkys said:

Ooh, Big numbers there Mak ! The C/V joints are not difficult to replace. Given access, you just need a good set of socketed Allen keys, torque wrench and circlip pliers. By what you describe however, it's possible you need the whole L/R shaft assemblies. Either way, it's an afternoons work for you and a buddy. I recently bought some re-man'd C/V joint kits at something like £53 a go (and yep, they are the correct items). I think they came from these guys: <a href="www.carparts-warehouse.co.uk.">www.carparts-warehouse.co.uk.</a> If I've got the supplier wrong then a search on tinternet'll dig something up for ya. Give it a go.

I had a report from recent MOT that I had a split in one of the boots. So I guess that it will need replacing, I tend to do the work on the car myself, but have never replaced these before. Couple of questions:-

1) Do you replaces these in pairs. i.e. each side.
2) Can you give brief step by step instructions to replace a joint.

Thanks
Dave

>> Edited by dtpugh on Friday 15th July 19:31

[dtpugh]

In answer to my own question, I found this site which gives an overview in replacing these joints on a VW. I doubt it is not far off for a chimp. I thought it was well written and am listing the link here for anybody else for future reference.

[url]http://type2.com/bartnik/cvjoints.htm[[/url]

Anybody know the torque settings for the bolts for a chimp?

Dabe

>> Edited by dtpugh on Sunday 17th July 02:09

[2Munkys]

dtpugh said:

In answer to my own question, I found this site which gives an overview in replacing these joints on a VW. I doubt it is not far off for a chimp. I thought it was well written and am listing the link here for anybody else for future reference. [url]<a href="http://type2.com/bartnik/cvjoints.htm">http://type2.com/bartnik/cvjoints.htm</a>[[/url] Anybody know the torque settings for the bolts for a chimp? Dabe >> Edited by dtpugh on Sunday 17th July 02:09

Sorry for not getting back, P.C'less over the weekend: new DVD burner goin' in.

Good article on that link so follow it. I don't remember the torque value I applied to the bolts but your supplier/dealer should be able to provide the answer.

It'd be a false economy not to replace all four CV joints at the same time as they are all subject to the same loading and wear pattern. On 'front-wheel-drive' cars the outer CV joints have the additional burden of coping with accute steering angles and tend toward a lesser life than the inners.

Good luck