Club 80-90 Forums

First major job on the van been tackled over this weekend!!! replacing rear wheel bearing story so far hub nut off, brake drum off rear wheel hub off, bolts from gearbox end of driveshaft slack. problems now starts, bolts on other side of driveshaft hiding deep inside trailing arm, not playing and now damaged and laughing at my feeble attemts to slacken with allen key sockets
question if i take off bolts from gearbox end and remobe bolts from wheel bearing housing will the shaft slide through trailing arm enabling me to get the bolts off with mole grips??

I took mine off by removing only the inner CV bolts, left hub on trailing arm as bolts were well stuck, bit of a wiggle and a fiddle and out she popped, so really you don't need to remove outer cv or hub imo

cheers for quick reply! great news thought i was going to have a nightmare, hope its plain sailing from now on!

Except....that its a pig if you try and reverse that sequence (I've been there). Devil of a job to line it all up and have the welly to shove it back through if its tight (often is with new bearings).

Best bet is remove as you're doing - ie whole shaft and stub axle still bolted together but once out, seperate them and fit stub and housing on their own with new bearings. Then replace driveshaft after with all new bolts.

If stub is tight to remove, replace the castle nut to protect threads when you clout stub end.

Oh, and a good tip, paint cleaned up driveshaft with hammerite as it makes it a much cleaner job in the future. In fact anything I remove from underside gets painted before being put back now. Makes jet washing underside a more satisfactory job too.

Put a peace of 3x2 on the end of the drive shaft so you dont damage the thread and tap it with a hammer. There is enough play in the rear cv's that the driveshaft will move back quite a bit. You dont have to take the drive shaft off. Syncro Spares do a new baring pressed in a nice new housing for £45 so all you have to do is take the 4 nuts off and bolt the new housing on. Very easy.

If you jack the rear wheel in the air the wheel turns freely to line up the inner cv, again very easy.

If you do want to get those stuck driveshaft bolts out get a long ten star bit rather than a hex one or a 8 star one, a size bigger and tapit in with a club hammer. They come out very easy then.

if you do it this way it will take about 40 minutes tops.

jed