Club 80-90 Forums

Whilst going up a very steep hill yesterday in first gear a clunking noise could be heard, at first I thought something had got stuck in the wheel as it appeared to happen at intervals with regard to speed, (higher speed, the quicker the clunk come round again). Anyway, I couldn't see anything that could be causing it.

On looking in the Haynes manual, I read it could be either
a) Loose bolts on the driveshaft flange
b) something up with the CV joint.

I got underneath and the flanges were all done up well. However I could see some leakages coming from somewhere. (nb the noise appears to come from the rear left wheel.) Where the left driveshaft (when standing behind vehicle) goes into whatever it goes into, this thing has an obvious leak at the bottom. Sorry for the bad description, but lost our camera recently and unable to get pictures, I have drawn a picture in paint an attached
The flange where the left driveshaft goes in, doesn't look in too good a condition, but am not 100% sure the leak is coming from here.

Additional, although I do not think is related to the above issue, is the rear left shock absorber appears to have a big leak, the whole thing is "wet" and at the bottom (where the drive shaft goes into the wheel) everything is "wet" and dirty.

As mentioned above the noise happened when attempting to go up some bloody steep hills. When the land flattened out for a bit and I was able to get into 2nd gear the noise couldn't be heard.

Questions
1) Anyway got any idea what the problem could be?
2) How serious it is?
3) Am I able to drive?
4) What's the worst that can happen.

Problem is am currently on Ko Phan Ngan in Thailand, I need to go back over the hills, then get a ferry to the mainland and drive at least 60km to town. Then I've got 5 days to make the Malaysia border before visa runs out :-S

damp weepy flage not the end of the world, probably due to a poor cv joint more than anything else, give the shaft a w a n k side to side to spread whatever grease is in there about a bit.
4 speed or 5 speed ?
check the oil level as low oil can kill the box, if it's been weeping a while in hot conditions you may have lost a bit, top it up GL4 spec gear oil , ideally but if nothing else than GL5 will do but change it when you can
proceed with caution and an ear out for noise
worse case the box is shagged and it seizes hence my advice to check level and top up oil, if lots of oil available you can change it and check the drain plug.
Once somewhere with some facilities you can investigate further - driveshaft off, flange too if necessary change seal etc...but in meantime keep it full

re the shock if that's leaking then you will have reduced damping and worse braking and directional stability so drive accordingly but you probably already drive fairly cautiously unless you've gone native

Many thanks.

The van is a 1.6turbo diesel 5 speed.

On further inspection and a little clean, the leak is definitely coming from the inner left flange join

if leaking where the flange goes into the gearbox then it's the seal, nearside is normally first one to go; if leaking where the cv joint joins the flange then the internal cap in the flange has come off and gear oil is leaking into the cv joint - although it's lube the cv joints don't much like it, it washes off the grease, usually don't leak so first you know is when doing a cv joint service and you undo the bolts and black liquid runs everywhere

Busmans holiday coming up eh Aiden
mike