General Vibrations...

[Albert Alfvag]

Hello all.
I have recently had some issues with vibrations in my panda 4x4 1988. The vibration starts when I hit around 80 km/h. The tires are newly balanced so that's not the issue unfortunately.

However I think (and hope) I may have found the culprit as the u-joint closest to the rear diff is failed and has lots of play.
Is this likely to cause a vibration?

Does anybody know if the part of the shaft that goes forward from the u-joint is available to buy somewhere? As you can see in the picture the rubber is broken and I would like to replace it.

Input would be appreciated.

Cheers,
Albert

 

[the green vanper]

Hello,

On the bottom of the forum banner there's a link to ePER - it's a spare parts catalogue. Your panda model seems to be covered - you should be able to find the correct part number and then start to look for it over the internet Good luck

Try searching with the VIN - it will allow to show only the proper parts. Assuming the shaft you have in your car is original. Or same.

 

[Wiltshire Chris]

I think this is the set of drawings you need. Seems to be two types depending on when your car was made

24301/00 - TRANSMISSION-TO-AXLE PROPELLER SHAFT

FIAT PANDA 4X4 MAQ 91 (1991-2003)

eper.fiatforum.com

Hope that helps

 

[Dragon Man]

yes that boot was broken on mine too. a cut down steering rack gator works perfectly as a replacement. if it still extends and retracts with no rotational play i would not bother replacing it. just clean it up maybe give it a nice coat of fresh paint and give it a good greasing with that steering gator boot over it all.
i would actually highly recommend completely removing and overhauling the full prop shaft.
4x13mm bolts and nuts at the UJ diff end, 8x 13mm nuts hold the central mounting point to the underside of the car (dont loose the bolts, they slide into the holders), and i think 6x 6 or 8mm allen key (hex slot) bolts hold the front CV to the gearbox.

the CV joints may be ok, just the rubber gators need replacing. again you can just use universal CV boots as a good replacement over the whole CV joint as the original ones were hard to get.
for the centre prop shaft bearings you can quite easy make replacements using the same sized bearings, steel braided wire, and polyurethane bonding (like tiger seal)... (as i know centre bearings are practically impossible to find now). for added durability you can fit a worm drive clamp around the whole thing over the central mounting plate and over the top of the bearings. i made these for mine and they are still in perfect condition.
the UJ is a standard size thankfully and can be bought from ebay or other places. they can be a pain to get the retaining clips out but its not impossible mine were stuck in pretty good and broke into many bits but i managed to pick them out and press the UJ out with a vice and 2 sockets.

one thing to do if you dismantle your prop shaft is to mark every component! just a simple indent from a hammer and chisel is enough just so when you rebuild it, you get everything aligned up. getting things out of alignment will cause it to vibrate. i have rebuilt 3 so far the first one i did not mark and it vibrated badly. i had to make a balancing jig using lengths of angle iron and a battery drill to spin the prop at different speeds to check for vibration to see if it was in the correct alignment. after taking it apart many times and trying different parts at different angles i eventually got it correct again.

should parts be hard to find,
i hope this helps...

 

[Albert Alfvag]

Thank you for the thorough reply. I actually refurbed the front half of the prop shaft only about two years ago so the CV joints and gaiters are basically new. I will remove the back half though, as the rubber mountings on the support bearings are held in place with cable ties at the moment, and I have had new bearings laying around for a few years just waiting to be put in.

When I replaced the CV joints I too forgot to mark the alignment.. luckily there was a rust spot on the face of the mating surface that helped me identify the correct alignment. Balancing sounds like a nightmare.

 

[Albert Alfvag]

Right so I thought I might bump this thread. I removed the whole prop shaft and replaced the u-joints and the central support bearings and gave the whole thing a coat of paint. I did mark the position of the components with a punch aswell as with some white marker to make sure everything would line up on reassembly.
Put everything back together after spending days with the damn thing and lo and behold; vibration still present.....
Now, with me laying under the car marking everything, there was a bit of ambiguity when reassembling one component; the solid steel plate (no. 3 in the eper diagram of the central shaft) that is mounted on splines and bolts to the CV joint just in front of the central mounting plate.

Now the question is: Could being just one spline out on the mentioned component result in a vibration strong enough to be felt?
And question 2: is there something else other that the prop shaft or out of balance wheels (recently balanced) that could cause a vibration that is felt (and heard) through the floor and visible when looking in the rear view mirror (image shaking)

Cheers,
Albert

 

[the green vanper]

Right so I thought I might bump this thread. I removed the whole prop shaft and replaced the u-joints and the central support bearings and gave the whole thing a coat of paint. I did mark the position of the components with a punch aswell as with some white marker to make sure everything would line up on reassembly.
Put everything back together after spending days with the damn thing and lo and behold; vibration still present.....
Now, with me laying under the car marking everything, there was a bit of ambiguity when reassembling one component; the solid steel plate (no. 3 in the eper diagram of the central shaft) that is mounted on splines and bolts to the CV joint just in front of the central mounting plate.

Now the question is: Could being just one spline out on the mentioned component result in a vibration strong enough to be felt?
And question 2: is there something else other that the prop shaft or out of balance wheels (recently balanced) that could cause a vibration that is felt (and heard) through the floor and visible when looking in the rear view mirror (image shaking)

Cheers,
Albert

Long, long time ago my father had a Polski Fiat 125p, which was a post-licence derivative of a FIAT 125.
I remember we had similar symptoms somewhere on the road and it was the spider, which is part no 2 on the following diagram:

24301/00 - TRANSMISSION-TO-AXLE PROPELLER SHAFT

FIAT PANDA 4X4 MAQ 91 (1991-2003)

eper.fiatforum.com

It was annoying as we (me + my sister) were sitting on the back seat, but I was amazed how the image was shaking in the rear mirror Since then my father kept a couple of them in the spare parts box in the boot

 

[Albert Alfvag]

Long, long time ago my father had a Polski Fiat 125p, which was a post-licence derivative of a FIAT 125.
I remember we had similar symptoms somewhere on the road and it was the spider, which is part no 2 on the following diagram:

24301/00 - TRANSMISSION-TO-AXLE PROPELLER SHAFT

FIAT PANDA 4X4 MAQ 91 (1991-2003)

eper.fiatforum.com

It was annoying as we (me + my sister) were sitting on the back seat, but I was amazed how the image was shaking in the rear mirror Since then my father kept a couple of them in the spare parts box in the boot

Yeah that's what I thought was the problem because the rear spider/u-joint was worn out and had some play in it. Unfortunately now that I have replaced both u-joints and support bearing and the problem stilI remains I don't know what to do. I ended up removing the whole thing again and shifting it one spline over as I said above but still vibration, but not as bad.
It may not even be the prop shaft but it "feels" like it is.

 

[Albert Alfvag]

Right so.. by process of elimination I believe I have traced the vibration issues to bad or failing inner driveshaft tripod joint/joints (hopefully).

Replacing the tripod joints themselves isn't a problem.
My question is this:
Would it be likely that I need to replace the inner "buckets" that hold the tripods too?
Because I guess the movement of the tripod system working would wear grooves just like it happens in a normal CV joint right?
And how would one go about replacing the buckets if that were to be the case?

Cheers,
Albert

 

[Albert Alfvag]

Scratch that.. the tripods were fine. Simpler question:
Could bad engine/gearbox mounts cause vibration issues that becomes noticable at speed?
It's basically the last thing I can think of to be honest.
Sorry about my rambling, having a vibrating car is seriously annoying and takes all the pleasure out of driving.

 

[Dragon Man]

i have seen it where a front drive shaft can be bent. maybe worth looking. jack up the front end, right in the middle on the sump guard, stick some support under it that it wont fall off, make sure the hand brake is well on, make sure boh front wheels spin free, start it up stick it in 5th gear on idle (wheels spin the fastest, more easy to see if somethings unbalanced, and if it does fall, being in 5th gear it will stall rather than drive on with no one in it)

check and see what does not look right. if you can feel vibration, you will see it too.

 

[Albert Alfvag]

i have seen it where a front drive shaft can be bent. maybe worth looking. jack up the front end, right in the middle on the sump guard, stick some support under it that it wont fall off, make sure the hand brake is well on, make sure boh front wheels spin free, start it up stick it in 5th gear on idle (wheels spin the fastest, more easy to see if somethings unbalanced, and if it does fall, being in 5th gear it will stall rather than drive on with no one in it)

check and see what does not look right. if you can feel vibration, you will see it too.

Well I did go straight into a ditch (actually straight like 90°) last winter when the road turned to ice. It's after that that I started having issues. It wasn't at a high speed but it resulted in a sudden stop obviously.
So a messed up driveshaft is a possibility. But having done a thorough visual inspection and having felt around everything feels solid. Maybe I can remove the axles and put them in the lathe to see if there are any clear faults.
It seems like the right side axle (the thick one) is difficult to find. I already have a spare left hand one.