Miss January

[Ian65]

CRK269 rebuild kit & xw61t needle

[wolfie1]

there used to a brown coloured rx7 like yours but with different wheels round the corner from my work, i wonder if somebody on here owns it, there cant be many of them left in the uk now

[David Nock (RIP)]

there used to a brown coloured rx7 like yours but with different wheels round the corner from my work, i wonder if somebody on here owns it, there cant be many of them left in the uk now

Need a Reg Wolfie. now that the nights are getting dark that\'s perfect cover for you creeping round to look at it for us if it\'s still around.....:Giggle

[wolfie1]

next  time i see it i will get a reg but i havent seen it for 2-3 months now, i know its an x reg (at the end)

[David Nock (RIP)]

Ta for that.

[johnnyboy]

You might have noticed that on another thread I was looking for a differential, as Miss January was making funny noises underneath....
(old ladies do that sometimes...)

So I picked up some bits (Axle, diff, propshaft, gearbox) from Andy, the breaker in Banbury, over the weekend.

Having now got the damn thing up on a ramp, the problem is a collapsed front propshaft universal joint.

I had tried wiggling the propshaft while lying underneath, and there was no play. On the ramp you can see that the two halves of the UJ are no longer in line - so a vibration and occasional graunching noises as it slips, but no "play". So much for my diagnostic ability.

So, forget the diff and gearbox (why didn\'t I get it on a ramp before I bothered.... ), but it occurred to me it might be better to get some new UJ\'s (if I could...) rather than use the 30 year old ones on the Banbury propshaft...

So off to my jolly old Unipart Automotive branch.

Two UJ\'s being delivered tomorrow for £16.07 each (probably plus VAT...).

Remains to be seen if they have got the part numbers right of course (want to take bets?).

John

[A7RXY]

Remains to be seen if they have got the part numbers right of course
 
LOL ............... are you sure you told them the right car ............
 
 Good luck
   Dibs

[Steve-A]

Glad to hear you\'ve got to the bottom of the problem John. UJs should be a nice easy fix.

[johnnyboy]

Remains to be seen if they have got the part numbers right of course
 
LOL ............... are you sure you told them the right car ............
 
Good luck
Dibs

If not, it will still be their fault. As experts in the field they should have guided me into giving them the correct requirement details.
 
So there. :evillaugh
 
(Never guess I was a management consultant, would you?)
 
John

[johnnyboy]

Hi Guys.
 
These are the UJ\'s I got from Unipart / Blueprint:
[/img]
 
Note the spring clip grooves are INSIDE the mounting "ears" on the propshaft.
 
[/img]
 
Also note that you can just about see a new grease nipple in the packet with the spring clips... (OEM parts do not have this feature...)
 
[/img]
 
It turned out to be a good thing that I had got a secondhand propshaft from Banbury - on mine, when the bearings collapsed (they were completely solid in one plane, so the overall effect was to turn a Universal Joint into a hinge...), the bearing endcaps has started going around inside the mounting ears, so if we had put some new ones in they would probably ben a bit loose, so we used the Banbury propshaft.
 
The UJ\'s on the Banbury propshaft felt OK, but since it was on the bench and we were set up to take them out... we took them out and had a look. They fell apart. No grease at all, completely dry and a bit rusty - the only sign of lubricant was some "varnish" on the shafts. As a point of interest this was true at both ends, not just the front. So we put the new UJ\'s in on the Banbury propshaft and put it on. And it works. Simples!
 
As regards technique, I had never done this before so my friend and ace mechanic Rob showed me how. We took off the circlips (they hide on the inside of the "ears"), put a large socket (big enough to miss the UJ and support the "ears") on the one side and a small socket (small enough to press out the UJ) on the other, then tightened them up in a vice (I just held the long end of the propshaft...). This pushed the one end cap out into the big socket, so we stopped and reversed the procedure to get the opposite cap out, then the other two caps.... and by this time the central cross had room to come out. Fitting was the reverse of the above. Then do the other end...
 
Net result? Much quieter and no vibration. Another win.
 
In retrospect, I think these have been "going" for a while, and I have not recognised the gradually increasing noise and vibration for what it was until the UJ actually collapsed.
 
John