Question about Installing Propshaft

[EburgE]

After several painful hours I got the differential hung. Unfortunately I failed to understand the significance of the line above that said "lay the propshaft in the transmission tunnel". :ack:

 

Now I cannot seem to get the propshaft into the tunnel. I'm thinking it goes in through the opening that is blocked now by the differential.

 

What would you do?:

 

A. Bite the bullet and reinstall the differential.

 

B. Take the propshaft apart at the universal joint, and try to reassemble the universal joint in the tunnel.

 

If you were Mazda you would C. cut out the transmission tunnel, but that is not an option here.

[yellowss7]

It's been a few year now, but I remember the instructions said to attach the Propshaft(english term) to the diff and intall them together as a unit. (I remember because it was very Heavy to hold up and get the propshaft in the tunnel while a buddy played with the spacers and the long bolt trying to center and mount the diff.

 

Don't know if you can do it after the diff is in. Seemed to me that there's not alot of room to get it in and torque it up. Tom

 

 

 

 

[Arya Ebrahimi]

Any chance you can remove the panels surrounding it to get it in that way?

[Ian7]

My 2002 Caterham doesn't have an aluminum skin closing in the underside of the driveshaft tunnel (Caterham's oversight?), so mine's dead easy, but my buddies 1987 does. He rebuilt and re-installed the diff, forgetting the driveshaft as you've done.

 

Short version of long story - - bite the bullet, take out the axle and start over. We lost best part of a half-day trying to find another way, and in the end redoing the axle installation was relatively painless.

 

Happy holidays

[scannon]

My 2002 Caterham doesn't have an aluminum skin closing in the underside of the driveshaft tunnel (Caterham's oversight?), so mine's dead easy, but my buddies 1987 does. He rebuilt and re-installed the diff, forgetting the driveshaft as you've done.

 

Short version of long story - - bite the bullet, take out the axle and start over. We lost best part of a half-day trying to find another way, and in the end redoing the axle installation was relatively painless.

 

Happy holidays

My '04 Caterham doesn't have an aluminum skin on the bottom of the tunnel but I still could not remove the factory prop shaft and install the custom shaft until I removed the diff. Fortunately, the diff had to come out for the installation of a Quaiffe LSD so it wasn't a problem.

 

You can lay the shaft in the tunnel and then "offer up the diff" (Caterham manual words). There is room to bolt the shaft to the diff after the diff is installed.

[Alaskossie]

I'll second scannon's advice. I simply laid the driveshaft in the tunnel before "offering up" the diff. We offered up the diff by placing a piece of particle board on top of an upended aluminum beer keg (the perfect height), and then slid the whole set-up under the frame. Then the shaft flange was bolted to the diff, with the diff already in place.

 

The trouble came when I decided I wanted to insulate the tunnel. I unbolted the shaft flange, but was unable to maneuver the shaft out of the tunnel. I confirmed with Ben at RMSC that it is not possible to install or remove the driveshaft with the diff in place. (If the handbrake mountings at the top of the tunnel were not fixed permanently, it might be possible to do it).

 

Alasksossie

[EburgE]

Thanks for all the quick feedback.

 

I ended up dropping the diff and attaching the propshaft on the ground. It's tight, but the whole thing goes in from the rear.

 

Two lessons learned.

 

1. It goes get easier when you've done it before and

 

2. That first cold beer of the day sure tastes good!

 

:cheers:

[Ian7]

Hi "scannon"

 

I'm curious about your similar-but-not-the-same driveshaft installation.

My driveshaft rear flange is a four-bolt flange that sits on a 1/8 inch spigot on the diff flange. To remove the driveshaft I take out the four bolts, slide the shaft forward a half-inch (front spline plunge allows this and a little more), push the aft end of the shaft upwards, slide aft to disengage the front splines, and drop the shaft straight down and out.

 

With all the oddball features of my chassis, I'm not surprised that others are different. How does yours differ from this?

Happy holidays

[scannon]

Ian7,

 

My SV has frame tubes going across the bottom in two places that will not allow the shaft to drop out the bottom. The tunnel is also so narrow behind the transmission that in sliding in the driveshaft some of the paint gets scraped off the welds at the forward end. The flange on the diff end is too large to remove the driveshaft by taking it forward as I once tried to do with the engine and trans removed.

 

I had to use 2" tubing instead of the normal 2 1/2" tubing on the RX-7 driveshaft as the narrow point in the tunnel is less than 2 1/2" wide.

 

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