Cheap driveshafts any good?

[jansu83]

My mates had a big split in the rubber and when it was replaced it was clear to see it was worn out. Yours may be similar.

My van had a broken gearbox upper mount rubber too, I changed it today. Now the powertrain doesn't feel that loose, but there are still same issues. The shaking feels even sharper now. I have to try to take out the J&R and put the better of the old ones back some day, because I think it got worse after changing the J&R in. Maybe I will replace front wheel bearings too, it still sounds like there's going to be failure at one side. When I drive straight, no sound, when I turn right, still no sound, but when I'm doing about 50mph or more and turn left even a little, there's always that "bearing sound", even when clutch is pressed. It's not loud though, but what else it could be? I can't hear it if I open window, so I believe it's not a tyre. My left tyre has worn a little more than right one, but I have divers seat on left, so it's easy to listen left side through window while driving.

I will let you know if I get this sorted some day.

[jansu83]

Checked the wheel bearings today and there's already play on right side. So that's why it's willing to go to the right and is cutting studs from the other side. Funny that they didn't mention about it on the MOT. Other side didn't have play yet, but when I lifted it up and turned the wheel I could hear a sound like the bearing was dry. Also when I put my hand on the spring and turned the wheel, it felt a little "rough" so the other is bad too and I must replace both of them. Have to wait for salary from work before I buy them. I will take SKF branded bearings, as they cost only a little more than the others.

Will let you know when I get the bearings replaced if it solves my problems.

[jansu83]

Bought new wheel bearings on Friday and now both of them are replaced. Damn those shock absorber lower bolts were tricky to get out There's no more sound on bearings when I drive. Must get the wheels aligned as it's willing to go to the right side even more now.

But I'm still having these vibration issues. It must be driveshaft or gearbox problem.

There was also a clatter sound on the gearbox side of the car, when I had cold starts last winter so it may have been a bit faulty already when I bought it on January. This driveshaft show began when the original inner CV joint boot was damaged on the shorter one and I decided to change the whole driveshaft. I bought a second hand driveshaft that had done only 3000 miles and put it in myself. The same clatter sound was still there and I could hear some clunks when I used my clutch and switched the 1st gear. So I replaced the other driveshaft for the longer side, also a second hand unit. Both felt ok, but same clunks when using clutch were still there. and the vibrations had begun already. Well, I bought new GSP shorter shaft, and gearbox has been out on June when I took the van to the carage and they replaced the clutch. They didn't mention anything about the gearbox and put the new clutch in. They put the GSP shaft in at the same time. Same cluncks and vibration were still there. New clutch cured the rattle at around 1500...2000 rpm, but the crankshaft flywheel side oil seal started leaking when they did the clutch. (Went back to show it but they said this was just my bad luck, not the carage's fault.) Now I have noticed that the gearbox also has started to rattle when I drive on low rpm.

So now the situation is that the shorter GSP driveshaft has been in for 2 months and it feels already worn and I already found small crack on outer CV joint boot. But the issues got worse after I changed the longer one to the brand new J&R. Maybe I should try one more time to change drveshafts back to what they were before those GSP and J&R, both were second hand original shafts, as it felt a little better with them. The shorter one is just so hard to get out of the box. It may be that I have even damaged the box when I changed it last time and it's beginning to fail now after half years of driving. Or it may be that the box has been faulty all the time and is getting worse now.

I have gone for a test drive with another Connects and some of them have exactly same issues, only without vibration, so I'm still hoping that it's just these cheap driveshafts that are causing it. My Connect is a nice car to drive but I'm getting a bit frustrated with these rattles, vibrations and driveshafts, especially with viration as it's always a bad sign. Would like to get it working again. I have been thinking to buy a Focus box and replace the whole box and do the crankshaft seal at the same time. But I will drive a while with these vibrations and I guess that the van will show the faulty part some day and I find myself on the road calling for someone to get my van at the carage.

[jansu83]

I have noticed that the whobble-bobble and vibration goes away when I make a turn and comes back after another turn. For example, if I turn to highway and start pushing the van, there's sometimes nearly no vibration at all even if I hit the pedal as much as it takes. And I can drive miles without problems . But when I get off the highway and make a turn to some other road I get a very hard vibration at 20...30 mph even for a light acceleration. So it somehow depends on the relation of the wheels / driveshafts / differential. I think it still may be possible that one driveshaft is bad, even though they are both renewed this summer. It could be just one bearing of either tripod that is making this whole thing. I have tried to put front tyres to back but no difference.

When there is vibration, I can see the gear shifter vibrating too when I drive on 3rd gear. And when there's no vibration after next turn, the shifter settles and stops vibrating too.

Would it be possible that there's a problem in the gearbox differential? I Would like to get this solved, but I wouldn't like to change those driveshafts all the time

[nokivasara]

Could it be the strut mount bearing? (iskarin yläpään laakeri)

When turning the wheel with a bad bearing the spring twists and maybe that can cause vibration until it settles?
Sounds like you have checked everything that can cause vibration...

[jansu83]

I haven't thought about those strut bearings, as it is easy to turn and steering centres itself very well, but it could be a possible place for a fault.

But somehow that GSP driveshat just felt strange when I tried it while changing the wheel bearings. Felt like both joints were worn a lot in two months. When this GSP was new, the inner CV joint wasn't moving in and out as easy as it should, the J&R felt a lot better when I tried the same while taking it off from the package.

EDIT:
And now when I looked through the Googles, I found this:

http://forums.nasioc.com/forums/showthr ... ?t=2107417

On some of the reviews and advice here, I picked up the GSP axles. Immediate after replacement, the front end knocked. It was worse when cold, and when accelerating.

I tried the GSP axles on my Impreza....they were horrible...had vibration leaked grease.

Total agreement. My original axle boot deteriorated and I figured rather than replace the boot I would by the Advance GSP axle. I went through three of them and they all made noise after 15-20 miles. Since I tossed the original I had to bite the bullet and by a rebuilt OEM unit for 3x the price. However the rebuilt OEM has been great for 2k miles so far.

Someone has made about the same diagnosis with the GSP shafts. So it might be worth trying another J&R if there have mainly been no problems with them....

I have never had this kind of problem with any of my cars yet. Hope that I get it fixed some day.....

[paul2012]

Have a look at eh faults & fixes list here viewtopic.php?f=54&t=124877&p=1304608&hilit=#p1031398

[jansu83]

Thanks Paul for this list, but I didn't find correct fault description from there.

Today I checked that 3000 miler shorter driveshaft and guess what, it really was faulty from inner joint. It is made in -08 (stamp still very clear 090108) and I guess it's been either stored for a long time and got rust inside, or more likely it may have been damaged on an accident, as the "bowl" had pretty sharp tiny burrows on each bearing mating surfaces, so that's the reason for the first vibration. Now it just may be the GSP shaft as someone else has had problems with them also. I'll try the original one again. It has a lot of play on the inner end in every direction, but as far as I remember it didn't have a noticible vibration or shaking while driving. I checked it too from inside, but it looked much better than that faulty 3000 miler.

So here we go again and change the drive shafts But first I must get the old one back together. I renewed the inner and outer CV joint boots on the 3000 miler when I bought it but didn't notice this failure then. I replaced the boots by taking off the tripod bearing and it was very hard to get off the shaft splines. I will try to take off the the old one's tripod too, as I would like compare if it is as stiff as the other was. If it's not, it could be a sign of a sharp inpact that has damaged the inner joint from the low miler. So let's see again what happens and I'll let you know if I get a solution for this problem at last.

[jansu83]

Took photos of that fault. This is the inner joint bowl I had on Ford original driveshaft that was driven only 3000 miles (and from the outside it actually looked like it would have done only that!!). I bought this from scrapyard, so it may have had a strong impact that has caused the damage:

Reason for the vibration before I tried that GSP driveshaft. All three tripod bearings had this kind of mating surface:


Closer look:

[jansu83]

Here's one more report about GSP quality:

I had cheap GSP axles from Advance Auto on my W8, vibrated horribly, and 2 weeks later one of the inner joints blew apart.

http://www.passatworld.com/forums/volks ... stion.html

[jansu83]

Just updating this topic:

I changed winter tyres and noticed that the GSP that was put at the carage during clutch replacement, had blown it's grease out from outer joint:



So I took it off and put the J&R now on which had been bought over a mont ago. I also noticed that GSP HAD PLAY ON BOTH JOINTS AFTER ~6000 MILES, not only at the outer end that had blown the grease out, so it was pretty much like a piece of crap.

Anyway it didn't help to my vibration problem. I'm been thinking about to get my van somewhere onto the dyno rolls so that I could see from below the van where it begins to vibrate during acceleration at around 25...40 mph.

I have also noticed, that vibration occurs nearly always when I drive alone. When there's more load like someone sitting on passanger seat, there are no noticable problems and I can push the van a lot without noticable issues. If i put passangers on the back seats, the vibration is stronger again. I have began to think that it could be a problem in some front arm bushes or joints, even if they didn't mention about it in the MOT (just like they didn't mention about play on wheel bearing... ). I have been looking for front lower arm bushes and noticed that the rear bush is a little special. How is it mounted to the arm? Maybe I'll renew the bushes or whole arms and get my van to wheel alignment at some carage if that would sort out the vibration. I believe that the alignment alone could help, but would like to get new bushes mounted before I get the alignment done.

Any advice for the bushes? Should I just renew the bushes and bolts or is it easier for the rear bush to take it complete the whole new lower arm, where it is already included and mounted? I have no idea how is it mounted to the lower front arm. I'm just afraid that the mounting bolt is worn out and it is not possible to change it to the old arm so it would be better to renew the whole arms with new bushes + buy new arm mounting bolts from Ford dealer to get all the worn parts renewed at the same time.

[jansu83]

I started a new topic regarding to the bushes, and it can be found here:

viewtopic.php?f=54&t=164605

[pervect]

Did you ever get it sorted?

I'm having similar issues, changed all three engine mounts, but doesn't quite resolve the issue.

For me, I have the distinct impression the problem really gets obvious when I steer sharp right while accellerating.

TIA,

Jan