Club 80-90 Forums

Morning all, if someone is foolish enough to cut off the hex heads of the six bolts at the drive flange ( I am not admitting to anything), will the drive shaft ever come off?

jaylo

Only if the gear box were to be moved over/dropped by the length of the remaining stubs if the joint cannot be jiggled around enough I would have thought.
Not tried it so wouldn't know for sure.

Oldiebut goodie wrote:Only if the gear box were to be moved over/dropped by the length of the remaining stubs if the joint cannot be jiggled around enough I would have thought.
Not tried it so wouldn't know for sure.

I'd have thought a combination of jacking the wheel up and down and turning the shaft should get the bit of movement required. It's not that rare to have to cut off a cheesy CV bolt head but all 6 !

You could always undo the wheel end of course ?

Ian

Glad this is hypothetical. Surely no one would actually do that

Even with mangled allen heads you can always start them off with a cold chisel and a good couple of wallops in the right direction then follow on with vice grips. Usually they get mangled because someone didn't bother to clean the grit out of them first.

Nobody I know, anyway.

Come on, own up....

I even borrowed an old tooth picker from a dentist friend, plus used wee screwdriver etc and plusgas( 18 days soak) then carb cleaner dried off, and they wuz CLEAN, but a 6 mm hex rounded all of them off, and a 7 would not go in but broke rusty bits off, then a chisel chopped more bits off all of them till it was either drive the van into the sea (again?) OR cut em off, not that I did of course.......

Surely a shaft should lever off the gearbox? ? It is acting as if the thick flange plate/inner cv housing has threaded holes in it where those hex bolts go through. [shurely not, Ed?]

All I want to do is find out why I can't change gear! ( I think the release lever is also a relic of the rustferrets)

Anyway, I'm a marine biologist, not a b mechanic....

jaylo

Thread is only in gearbox flange - CVs are straight through holes. You probably won't be able to remove shaft without first removing other shaft at gearbox end and moving gearbox (after unbolting it), towards the front or opposite side. If bolts are left in, there won't be enough room to remove shaft basically. Wheel and gearbox now need to be further apart as mentioned above.

When you replace bolts, fit proper splined ones. You can get them on ebay less than VW branch price. Hate allen bolts.

Thanks Covkid, I guess this means I shouldn't cut off the hex heads on t'other side ? -- oops! -- ( only joking) .
These are even more rusted on than first side, tried "better " side first , but i think I will now weld a cut off of 6 mm hex bar to each one in turn and try that. Hate welding under a petrol camper, even tho all fuel lines and tank etc were replaced two years ago. ( I kept an ancient exhaust going for three years using MIG, 9 years total in sea air, till we could afford a stainless )

But I still think the shaft should move sideways away from the gearbox flange........

jaylo

Hello,

We think you have 4 choices, (by the way you havn't said what bus)

1. Undo the CV joint at the other end of the shaft, and this will give you enough play to recut the headless bolts. The big problem is that you will have to leave enough meat to get the remains of the studs out.

2. Drop the rear suspension arm complete with shaft. Never tried this.
3. Drop the gear box
4. Accept the inevitable, take your grinder, cut the driveshaft in 2 and go from there.


This is only hypothetical cos no one, even on their 6th can of strong ale would cut off 6 CV joint
bolt heads

Cordialement

you can remove the shaft from the remains of the bolts by taking the hub carrier off and removing the whole lot through the trailing arm as long as the heads of the bolts on the gearbox end are cleanly cut through where they go through the metal part of the boot leving no head at all, the bolt stubs will pass through the cv joint and they will be easy enough to remove, even if you have to take the flange off the gearbox
so wheel off, brake off, backplate off, hub carrier off pull it through

Yep, agree with Aidan, you could do it that way too. The choice I think is whether you want the weight of the box or to attack a series of items that may not have been removed since it was built. Think I'd still go for the box, unless you can't shift outer CV bolts. That may be deciding factor. However, remember if you do pull shaft out that way, you'll need some way to grip driveshaft in order to remove remaining bolts when its out - big vice or similar. Look ahead - thats the main thing. You may aldso find other things to replace if you strip out hubs

Quickest though uncomfortable (as suggested above), is to cut shaft in half but again, state of outer CV bolts may make that route pointless. Again, this is hypothetical as no one would actually find themselves in this situation.

Mornin all, thanks for replies, it is as I feared ............ yes, I am an idiot , don't mind if you rub it in ( the wife certainly is, in a rather bitterlips way)

I have a wee paint picture I want to put in my post, can anyone tell me how to do that ?

Aidan, may be bringing a gearbox from 1986 1.9 DG 4 speed maual to you when you have a spare slot....

jaylo

Aidan wrote: backplate off

Ah, that's so funny, you should be on the stage mate

Unless it's newish or been off in the past couple of years this can be a HORRIBLE job

Ian

yes but if you say it quickly it sounds easy doesn't it
next slot in the new year, no more bookings this year too much already in /due in and house sale going through so a move to make too sometime