Drive Shaft Relocation

[mattkw174]

Hi, first post so please bear with me,

 

I replaced the f/n/s shock today with the intention of doing the o/s as well but I ran out of time. I had both front wheels of and hubs detached from the drive shaft, I forgot to tie up the drive shaft ends and the passenger side one fell out and I thought I had put it all back together nicely until I went to pull away and it started to shudder but still drove. It only shudders at a certain point as the wheel rotates but also makes some banging noises when I change gear. Does anyone have any idea what I have done ? Is it easy enough to disconnect the hub and pop it back in ? Thanks in advance

[BrianH]

I'd guess you may have had one of the bearings that sits on the tripod in the upper end of the shaft come out of its housing - this will allow movement if so, but may only be detectable at certain angles.

 

If you can free off the hub you should be able to check this, not sure how easily you'd be able to get the two parts of the shaft apart and check/fix it though.

[mattkw174]

Thank you Brian, I will get it up on axel stands when I get home and strip it down and hopefully find out what I've done. I forgot to say I drove the car home from my mates garage, about a mile, in the condition it's in, so hopefully I haven't made things worse. I'll report back later this evening, cheers.

[mattkw174]

Hi Brian, all done, as you suspected, one of the bearings had come off. I haven't got the tamper proof torx key for taking out the gearbox drain plug so I couldn't take the drive shaft out of the gearbox. I took the cv boot clip off, pulled it back and put the shaft on my bench, popped the bearing back on and she's all good to go, thank you for your help.

[BrianH]

Hi Brian, all done, as you suspected, one of the bearings had come off. I haven't got the tamper proof torx key for taking out the gearbox drain plug so I couldn't take the drive shaft out of the gearbox. I took the cv boot clip off, pulled it back and put the shaft on my bench, popped the bearing back on and she's all good to go, thank you for your help.

Good to know you got it sorted, getting the shaft out of the box can be a pig of a job anyway, plus you risk damaging the oil seal when its disturbed, so may be easier overall to do what you've described anyway.