Removing driveshafts

[Captain Jack]

Welp, it's all done. Gave the guy at the garage £10 for the bush press-out/in, walked back home and put it all back together without any big issues (the biggest pain is refilling the gearbox with oil - it's so slow. Took me 20 minutes).

So, did the mount orientation change fix it? Er.... well, don't know. With the car up in the air on stilts, the steering wheel rattled like there was no tomorrow, so I thought "f**k". However, with both wheels on the ground, the vibration is quite minimal compared to what I would expect. So I guess the wheels put some sort of damping on the engine vibrations as well? I can't be for certain as the engine ran for around 5 minutes on stilts, so I could check for any leaks/problems, so it may have warmed up sufficiently to reduce the shaking. But... initial results are encouraging. I just need a nice cold morning to see if it really worked!

Took it for a drive and it seems OK - doesn't sound like I broke anything by taking the drive shaft out.

Thanks to John/jasper5 and others for invaluable advice and directions as well as rummaging the local breakers for the mount. It's a shame it turned out to be the wrong one - a bloody minefield these car parts! That means if I ever need to replace the driveshaft, I have to make sure it's the right one for the mount. So much for saving money by reusing the same parts, eh? The best part, though, is that I saved £100 by doing this myself! The garage wanted £150 (the same one that charged me just over £100 for doing the same job 4 years ago).

Just hope it worked..... else I am really tempted to throw this bloody car in the bin!

[Captain Jack]

Welp, I think we can call it success so far! Just went out to start the car and the rattle isn't there. The steering wheel is slightly shaking when the rev drops down to idle but it's pretty much imperceptible now!

Before:

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After (not sure why the audio is so quiet but there is no rattle at all now):

zM-NwNP-WWc

[jasper5]

Sounds promising, hopefully you got there in the end...pity about the mount not fitting

[min]

Managed to get the driveshaft out with some careful prising out with a crowbar. Yay!

I had to do this some months ago on my crashed/scrap 2.2HDI saloon and I faced exactly the same issue: the shaft would not separate from the engine mount under no circumstances. Finally I forced somehow the removal of the whole assembly (engine mount plus shaft as a piece) but is was obvious that this operation was creating abnormal forces between the gearbox shaft end and the gearbox inner bearing. I did it anyway since the gearbox was cracked in the accident, so no chance to reuse it.

Next week though I'm planning a shaft removal for my other 2.2HDI saloon and I'm concerned I will face the same dismantling issues. Any other suggestions except removing completely (if the space allows) the 2 small bolts, spraying some WD40 around the intermediate bearing, tapping it towards the right wheel direction?


Thanks.

[Doggy]

I recently helped change a clutch on a Saxo VTR, which had the same issue. We could not budge the driveshaft out of the support bearing. The guy had tried to refit the gearbox by sliding it onto the driveshaft at the same time as sliding the gearbox input shaft through the clutch, which proved impossible and mangled the driveshaft oil seal on that side.
After further unsuccessful attempts to remove the driveshaft, we finally unbolted the support bearing mounting from the block and managed to pull the driveshaft clear while we got the box mated to the engine, then slipped the driveshaft back in.
Getting the bolts back into the bearing support was no fun, but we got there in the end.
Several weeks on it's running fine with no noises or oil leaks, so I guess this method works.
(I was just grateful this was a BE3, not an ML5 or 6 - those are HEAVY).

[min]

Thanks, Doggy.

To be honest, using a crowbar to take support bearing mounting away from the block scares me a little (from gearbox seal/bearing damaging point of view). I'm planning to install the ML6C soon and I hope though to be able to take the shaft out through the 'conventional' method. Or at least to take it out with a crowbar (since for the old ML5T on the car I don't care anymore) but regarding putting it back - I hope that with the shaft/mounting removed as 'a single piece' to put it on a table or something and lightly tap it until it gives up

The one I removed from my scrapped car is in the warehouse till today as one piece - I will play with it this weekend as practice - if I manage to remove the shaft from the mounting I will keep them as spare and use them if I do not succeed in putting apart the ones on my current car.


Anyway the method you mentioned - playing with the gearbox (partially removed from the engine) and with the mounting simultaneously I think is out of discussion on the 55kg ML6C gearbox