Technical Drive shaft oil leak part one.

[Trodd69]

I had some oil that looke like it was coming from the NS driveshaft so I thought I'd better try and sort it out. It looks like it might be one of those ongoing jobs though...

Since i've looked through the forum for help in the past I figured I'd join up and post a few bits and bobs to try and give something back so here goes;

First was to jack up of course, I used the mounting for the torsion bar (feel free to correct my terminology on anything, I work on marine diesels so I'm OK with a spanner but not great on some of the car specific stuff)



Then get the axle stands in



Then once the wheel's off undo the lower suspension mounting bolts and hammer out,



Then onto the Track rod end and the saga it entailed

 

[Trodd69]

In the end the lock nut came off in several pieces;

I didn't have any trouble splitting the taper joint but made the mistake of doing so before fully removing the nut. Once I'd split the taper I didn't have enough purchase on the stud with a set of grips so it just turned with the nut due to the exposed/rusted threads binding. Note to self, remove nut before splitting joint next time!

It then turned out that my socket would not fit on the wheel hub nut due to the taper around it - I'll try and get it machined in the next day or two and post details.
I thought I'd see what I could do from here whilst awaiting parts etc.


The rubber bellows looked OK and it looked like the oil was coming from the inboard end

I removed the metal clamps and cleaned up the rubber a bit and then replaced everything since I couldn't get the shaft out yet anyway. I used a jubilee clip on the outboard end and a plastic zip tie inboard, proper bodge job but I'm not planning on driving it more than a mile or two for spares after the weekend.

 

[Trodd69]

That's about as far as I could go for now until I get a new clamp for the inboard side of the rubber bellows so just topped up the gearbox.

I just managed to get the bottle spout in

until a level could be seen from the filling/level plug.


That's it for now, I'll post more once I get back under the car. Hopefully someone can make use of some of this or the pictures.

 

[Mark Saunders]

It's definitely a job worth doing. One of these seals failed on mine and the gearbox ate itself.

 

[martyc5674]

Cheers i just ordered a seal for mine today...turns out my recent wishbone breakage goosed the seal aswell..

Ive done these on other cars....All ive had to do before is undo the strut from the wishbone at the ball joint...and that coupled with full lock is usually enough to pop the driveshaft out of the box.

Also if you remove the bottom turbo hose to intercooler(2 minute job) it makes a much easier job of topping up.

Great photos and post.
Thanks,
Marty.

 

[Trodd69]

Thanks for the tip for poping out the drive shaft, I'll definately be giving that a try when I get the proper spares. As for the turbo mine's the 1.6 petrol so it's all coolant pipes in the way, I got the oil in though with a bit of manoevring