I had a sudden loss of forward motion earlier. Thankfully we were still on our driveway. My initial thought was that the driveshaft had come out, again. I'd had this about a 1k ago following a replacement of the outer cv boot and I'd failed to drive the shaft fully home.

I started to look into it and found the driveshaft to be fully home in the transmission but then I found that the outer part of the driveshaft could move around considerably as if the cv joint had no internals!

I had the cv joint apart for cleaning and lubrication 1k miles ago and all looked fine, no obvious damage / wear. The car has 140k on it. Its a 2007 3.6tdv8 BTW.

There's been no obvious noises or anything suggesting something wrong.

I can't get to it until tomorrow so I'm wondering what I'll find. Is sudden failure possible? Could it somehow fall apart inside and just need reassembly (unlikely I expect). In my earlier life I'd have had a new driveshaft on its way already, but comparative retired £££ poverty but time enriched necessitates a more considered approach!

Welcome any words of wisdom!
Cheers
Chris

I've just had another wee grapple with it, without getting the tools out!

Is it possible that the driveshaft has simply come out of the cv joint? Ie is there enough travel on the spline to allow this to happen? I'm thinking there might be as there's enough travel for the inner part to detach itself!!

Always hoping for an easy fix!!

Chris

Well, it turns out there is enough room for the driveshaft to come away from the cv joint. There was no evidence of the shaft retaining clip but this was eventually found in two pieces after a search inside with a magnetic stick. A messy job amongst the cv joint grease. Thankfully I had a spare clip, so onto reassembly, feeling all very clever with my cheap fix, only a clip and cv boot clip replacement required.

But getting the shaft into the back of the joint is proving difficult in situ. I can get enough purchase on the shaft to get the joint to slide in. It's awkward to aling too, but once it's in it feels solid, which is good. I'm taking an overnight break on it now and will look for any tricks that might help. I've already got a nice fitting exhaust clamp on the driveshaft but can't get enough on it by prying, hammering or even welding a stud to it to get a slide hammer on it! Nadal! Trying to avoid disassembly, but it's not looking good!

Any thoughts appreciated!

Chris

I had a brainwave about getting the driveshaft re- engaged fully in the cv joint without wholesale disassembly! Took the big nut off and pushed the cv joint through the hub. I had the hub jacked up such that the hub and driveshaft were in alignment. Put a large wooden dowell on the end of the shaft and a few good whacks with a club hammer the engagement was complete! Having previously drilled and tapped the cv joint output shaft it could easily be drawn back into the hub: initially by levering and then with a slide hammer, far enough to get the big nut on to draw it through.

Awaiting the arrival of a new big nut (not reusable, but already used twice!) and will source a cv joint clip locally, hopefully.

Chris

Good job, a nice cheap fix as well....  Pete
I now have permission from the boss to use Y.O.L.O. Enjoy life
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