Before I scrap the car!

[devilly]

tail-shaft sounds like uni joints to me. or unbalanced.or the rubbers are gone on the tail-shaft. good luck with it .hope you get it sorted.

 

[Terrystatesman]

Hi everyone.

Thanks so much for all the helpful advice.

I am certain that the blow out was something I hit that was lying in the road. I definitely hit something fairly solid, but very small. In hindsight, not that I can recall much about the accident, it looked like a small piece of iron rod? Tyres are nearly new and top quality ones!

I think a few of you may be right, that the front and rear parts of the tail shaft were not put back correctly, but how many splines out is the question? I will have to have a look into that a bit further. I did notice that there are no marks on the shaft, so it is reasonable to assume that the shaft may have been reassembled wrong! There are no facilities here to have shafts balanced, so I guess it will be trial and error!

Uni joints do not have any slop at all. There is some side to side play, but all uni joints have a tiny amount of side play?

Both front and rear rubbers are new.

I am actually now away on holiday, so I will have a look into that suggestion of the shaft being reassembled wrong!

Thanks everyone for the input.

Oh! I had a look at the wheel that had the blow out and found a couple of cracks, so that is scrap!

Terry

 

[edelbrock1]

You say that you had the center bearing replaced and then this issue started??

When I did the AWD conversion I had a massive thump/knock coming from the tailshaft under acceleration. It turns out there a quite a few centre bearings, all with different offsets to move the bearing position sideways. I ended up slotting the holes about 7mm each way. This allowed me to 'tune' the tailshaft so it found its happy place. Each time I moved the bearing it would make the thump/knock better or worse. In the end the shaft was as far over to the right hand side as it would go.

I cant help thinking that when they changed your bearing they have used the wrong bearing housing that puts the bearing in the incorrect spot, causing the same issues as it did for me.
See in the pic where the bearing is as far right as it can go? maybe yours just needs some 'tuning' as well.

Would be best to try and get the old bearing back and make sure the numbers on the housing are the same.

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[Terrystatesman]

Hi.

Not sure if that really applies to me. The tail shaft shown is the VT one? My car is a 2004 WK Statesman, aka Chevrolet Caprice, which has the 2 donuts at both ends of the shaft.

The centre bearing that I had replaced was the exact same one as I had previously had replaced, the only difference this time was that I replaced the rear engine mount. Before replacing the centre bearing for the second time, I had noticed that the tail shaft was not lying central in the bearing, but after replacing the rear mount, it is now central, but vibrating at 40 kph.

Terry

 

[edelbrock1]

The pic is of a 2003 VY so same era as yours. Has had Uni's replaced in place of the donuts. Stupid donuts are notorious for creating the thump/vibration if they are not in perfect alignment. Uni's give a little more flexibility.
Got nothing to lose by moving the centre bearing to the side as far as it will go and see if it makes a difference.

 

[Not_An_Abba_Fan]

The tail shaft can be put together in 150 different positions. There are 25 splines on the CV joint times 6 bolts that hold the two halves together. (25 x 6 = 150)

The front and rear uni's have to be "in phase", that is the yokes on the shafts have to be on the same horizontal plane. Then the CV joint has to be in the same position as it was when it was originally balanced.

The easiest fix is to find another shaft. Or you will have to get it balanced after you make sure the uni joints are in phase.

 

[Terrystatesman]

Hi Guys.

I have taken the front part of the shaft out twice now, turning it about 90 degrees each time. On the 1st try, it made no difference, but on the 2nd try, it is now much improved, hardly any shake at 40 kph.

Good enough now to make the car saleable.

Off to the new car dealers now! Time comes when enough is enough. I have thrown lots of money at this car, and the lack of availability of spares also makes it very difficult to maintain/fix, so decision has been made that it has to go.

Shame really, because it is a nice car.

Thanks guys for your info. You helped me a lot.

Terry