When we were on the Lion run we both noticed a funny little clattering noise coming from the tunnel, It went away very quickly so we just put it down to being a stone or something like that.
Anyway after an otherwise uneventful trip to Smallways, we decided to take a quick run to the local Coop. On the way back we got a rather loud noise coming from the tunnel, It seemed to be worse when on the overrun but as we put the power on it got better.
When we got home a quick look showed that our RH supplied Propshaft had lunched itself!
Removing the Propshaft was not as simple as you would expect, we removed all the Diff bolts and Jacked it up and as far out of the way as possible.
Unfortunately the propshaft would not clear the Diff on the way out, I decided that if we trimmed out the dotted section it would hopefully allow the Propshaft to clear everything allowing us to remove it.
As you can see it cleared the Diff, "Just" So out it all came.
Here we see the rear part of the propshaft and its obvious what has gone wrong! Look where the Grease Nipple should be, Its bloody snapped off! Obviously after the Extended Nipple broke off all the grease got flung out of the hole in the middle, and we know what will happen running a Propshaft on no grease!
We were quite prepared to put it down to a one off, possibly a stone had knocked it off, Or Metal fatigue on the Nipple. But when we looked at the front end the Nipple had sheared off as well!
What a mess!
Obviously the front Nipple had lasted longer because it was not in such a bad state as the rear end. We actually found the sheared off Nipple in the Tunnel, Mmm need a better quality one than that I think thats the sort of Nipple that a Plumber would use (If a plumber ever used a Grease Nipple!)
Here we Have our "Spare" Driveshaft off 2B(2) with a decent quality Shorter Nipple Fitted and the whole lot filled with Grease.
Finally we trimmed the section that we needed to get the Propshaft out and will Give it a nice coating of underseal after the new Propshaft is fitted. The Shaft went in easy enough with one hand guiding the front shaft into the Gearbox through the little inspection hole cut at the front end. It was quite a struggle to line the Diff up again especially getting the top bolt lined up, (The one you drill in the Chassis early on in the build)
Anyway all went well and the car is running nicely again.
