What's broken?

[Fu Manchu]

Is that Joondalup Auto Care? if so, I'll give them a call tomorrow.

Yep. Round the back. Office entry through the little door facing Winton road. Almost where the grey marker is. Where the white car is parked is the workshop entry.

It is often a long wait to get the car in there but book it anyway. Worth their weight in gold.

 

[Fu Manchu]

As an idea, if the centre bearing on the drive shaft is flogged, it will be like this one on a VZ. Sometimes it can be worse.

Go to 1:25 in this and hear what a rooted centre bearing sounds like.

You’ll know what to look for now.



Axle tramp as well could have occurred as mentioned already.

Engine mounts another possibility with advice on how to check that.

 

[snicklefritz]

As an idea, if the centre bearing on the drive shaft is flogged, it will be like this one on a VZ. Sometimes it can be worse.

Go to 1:25 in this and hear what a rooted centre bearing sounds like.

You’ll know what to look for now.



Axle tramp as well could have occurred as mentioned already.

Engine mounts another possibility with advice on how to check that.

Thanks for the info.

I checked the video re: rooted centre bearing. I don't think that was my issue, what I experienced was much worse.

The best way I can describe it is it was like a combination of a stack gym weights banging up and down whilst simultanously having the vehicle roll down a flight of stairs.

Never experienced anything like it before.

I have since driven the vehicle a fair bit, I can rev out the gears smoothly. So whatever it was, only occured as a result of basically dumping the clutch and I am extremely reluctant to try and reproduce the issue.

I rarely give my vehicles a hard time, but I have occasionally kicked the rear end out and it felt nothing like that.

 

[snicklefritz]

Update:

For those playing along at home, I took the vehicle to autobahn and they advised the centre bearing is absolutely stuffed. They also mentioned something odd, that my ute may have had a manual conversion as the driveshaft isn't sitting straight?

I was under the impression it was a factory manual.

Anyway, they said they can't help me and said I need to see a drivetrain specialist.

Edit: I have it booked in with a drivetrain specialist.

 

[Fu Manchu]

Firstly, bloody good one for posting back with what is going on.
People don’t do this often enough. Big ups.

As for the conversion, it’s answered simply by telling us what is stamped on the build plate in the engine bay.

It will have codes stamped for paint colour, engine, model, trim, transmission, suspension, Build date and axle type.
If you post the code for the trans type, someone will know the factory transmission it had.

 

[vc commodore]

Didn't realise a factory auto to manual change would change a tailshaft angle....

As for making sure it is running straight...That requires the car to be on a 4 post hoist and the shaft check for straightness from there...

Not too sure with your era Commodore, but the earlier models had spacers inbetween the centre bearing bracket and floor pan, to get the tailshaft running straight....What would happen over the years is, the tailshaft would be removed and those spacers would be lost, causing the tailshaft not to be straight anymore...

So something else to check into

 

[snicklefritz]

The trans code is M35 which I understand to be the getrag?

The drivetrain specialists said they would need to get it up on the hoist to know for sure what needs doing, but quoted a little under $500 to replace center bearing and rebalance shaft or worst case scenario $1200 if the entire thing needs replacing. They said they can resize the current one if neccessary or make an entire new one.

Seems reasonable enough to me.

 

[snicklefritz]

Didn't realise a factory auto to manual change would change a tailshaft angle....

As for making sure it is running straight...That requires the car to be on a 4 post hoist and the shaft check for straightness from there...

Not too sure with your era Commodore, but the earlier models had spacers inbetween the centre bearing bracket and floor pan, to get the tailshaft running straight....What would happen over the years is, the tailshaft would be removed and those spacers would be lost, causing the tailshaft not to be straight anymore...

So something else to check into

This problem occurred after I had the clutch work done. I don't want to point fingers, but could it be possible they forgot to put the spacers back in?

Also, is it odd that thay didn't mention anything at the time about the driveshaft not being straight or the center bearing being stuffed?

 

[vc commodore]

The trans code is M35 which I understand to be the getrag?

The drivetrain specialists said they would need to get it up on the hoist to know for sure what needs doing, but quoted a little under $500 to replace center bearing and rebalance shaft or worst case scenario $1200 if the entire thing needs replacing. They said they can resize the current one if neccessary or make an entire new one.

Seems reasonable enough to me.

Going back about 2 years ago, it cost me just over $600 to have the following done to my VC tailshaft

New unis,

New CV (that's the common part to flog out..It has 6 allen key headed bolts that hold the 2 sections of the tailshaft together )

New centre bearing

New uni section, that the unis go into within the tailshaft

Shortened 25MM and rebalanced...

All done through Hardie Spicer

 

[vc commodore]

This problem occurred after I had the clutch work done. I don't want to point fingers, but could it be possible they forgot to put the spacers back in?

Very possible....

Generally it's a case of people not knowing they exist and/or not taking any notice when the tailshaft is removed and they vanish into the abiss

The straight thing....Sounds like Autobarn were dribbling and couldn't be fagged looking properly. Even the gearbox change thing sounds like B/S


And those centre bearings don't get checked very often.....It's only when a vibration starts or some grease starts spewing out that people look at them