Breakdown Troubles

[Guest timswait]

I bought a Rover V8 to sierra diff propshaft with my kit from RHSC 4 and a bit years ago. With the extra torque I am now worried, has anyone had aproblem with this prop ? were these made in house at RHSC ?

I don't know about the V8 prop, but RH do build props for the other kits in house, so I suspect yours probably is.

The older props which had a rubber doughnut in them had a strong habit of going, I thought that after RH started using ones with a UJ on each end this would stop happening, but apparently not. AFAIK from the reports on this forum these are the props that have gone:

-About a year ago someone (can't remember any details) reported that the grease nipple had sheared off the rear UJ causing the joint to loose grease, fail and break. Happened as pulling away so little other damage. As I recall it was a staandrd Pinto engined fairly un-tuned car. After this lots of people checked their nipples ( ) and a few reported that they had sheared off too. Why this happens is a bit of a mystery, they are quite long but there's still no reason why there should be any force on them.

-About a month ago Dan Beeston's one failed as pulling away. This time it failed in the middle of the tube, not at the joint, and appears to have collapsed and buckled (the thread's still in this section), very odd, especially as the car has a fairly stock engine.

- This latest one by Turbo, I wonder if the nipple had sheared off on this one before failure too? Of course if it is sheared now then it will be hard to tell whether it happened before or after the prop broke.

 

Anyone know of any others which have gone? I suppose three out of the hundreds of Hoods out there isn't that many, but it's still very worrying. Also that fact that the ones that have gone haven't been fitted to cars with exceptional amounts of power or which have done exceptional milages points to it being a manufacturing defect.

[Grizzly]

Hi All,

 

I just thought I'd pitch in again with what I've found out.

I've just spoken to GBS. They've told me that their propshafts are OK.

The first one mentioned above was Battery Bills (I think).

The second one was probably due (according to GBS) to the fact that the proshaft had been dented at some point and thus weakened. Dan?

The third one (Turbo's) failed due to it being modified to fit the MT75 and was, as a result, out of balance.

Personally, I don't know if the RH propshafts are 'balanced'.

The reported assumption that they're too short to worry about though worries me a bit.

 

GBS say that their standard proshafts "should be fine" and very few have failed.

 

OK, this is all I know at the moment. I'm therefore considering on getting mine checked somewhere (probably after taking it off the car) and while it's off, getting it balanced. This would probably be a cheaper option than rushing off and buying another one.

 

Are these things easy enough to remove from a fully built car?

[Guest turbo]

how can gbs state why my prop failed when i cant,they dont know bugger all about the mod that was done and when i asked about there shaft for the mt75 it sounds exactly like mine was

[Guest MrT]

hi

 

I had a joint failure which caused quite a bit of damange, the easiest repair for me was to have a new tunnel pressed in thick stainless cut out the old tunnel and a matching floor plate for the underside to bolt up to the new tunnel.

I also had a panel cut into the top of the transmission tunnel too make it easier for access to the back of the gearbox, brake lines and hand brake

 

I had the prop done at Dunning and Fairbank http://www.propshafts.co.uk/ very quick service and would recommend

 

Paul

[Grizzly]

how can gbs state why my prop failed when i cant,they dont know bugger all about the mod that was done and when i asked about there shaft for the mt75 it sounds exactly like mine was

 

That's what I thought Jamie. I've seen the very high standard of work that's gone into your car for myself and I wouldn't doubt the workmanship on the prop. I guess they're just trying to blame something/someone outside of their domain eh?

[Guest timswait]

The first one mentioned above was Battery Bills (I think).

I think you're right, sounds familar now

 

hi

 

I had a joint failure which caused quite a bit of damange,

Any more for anymore?

[niduncan]

The propshaft that was supplied with my Series 3 kit in 1997 was manufactured by Dunning and Fairbank. RH must have started to produce their own at some time after 1997. Glad to know mine is a goodun.

 

[Guest salty_monk]

First one was defo Battery Bill's.

 

I wouldn't bother having one of RH's balanced.... just put a new one for the sake of the extra 50 quid or so.

 

Lots of peops have had no problems with the RH props. Me for one. Chris brown & Bob Tucker both have more miles than me & theirs has been ok too afaik.

 

Dan

[Guest timswait]

Mine's done 23000 miles and touch wood has been fine, that's also been used fairly aggresively, a few grass autotests, lots of track time, quite aggressive tyre warming ( ), a few doughnuts, etc.

I'm still getting very jittery though, and am thinking about getting a replacement whenever I get round to fitting an LSD...

I agree it doesn't seem worth getting the RH one balanced. We don't know why they have been failing, it may or may not be because they're out of balance.

[Guest old_timbo]

What is the alignment between the gearbox and the diff. like? The diff. input shaft should be parallel to the output shaft of the gearbox. When I changed my diff. I found the original was miles out which explained the drive train vibs. I was getting ocasionally. Was probably stressing the UJ's too Couldn't see any instructions on the build videos to check and get it right. You really need to fit the engine / gearbox to the chassis and the diff. + rear subframe and jiggle them around till the alignment is right before you go too far with the build. The holes you have to drill in the chassis for the two bolts that go into the rear of the diff can be positioned anywhere over a significant area on the chassis plate.

[Guest Guy]

Tim's got a very good point there, the input and output shafts have to be parallel but I seem to remember that the engine's in the RH are not straight in line with the chassis, I'm sure the diff's are tilted slightly as well, this will certainly put a lot of strain on a prop shaft.

[Guest timswait]

I think you might have hit on it there! That sounds very likely, mis-alignment between the two ends of the prop will cause vibration and will put un-due stress on the prop as a whole. They don't have to be in line, but they do have to be parallel. It doesn't do much to put my mind at rest though, it wasn't even something I thought to check while building the car.

Perhaps people who have had prop failures and people that haven't could measure the position the diff bolts to on the chassis and we could compare? I'll measure mine over the weekend.

[Guest old_timbo]

I was limited to how much I could change the position of the diff bolts as the car is fully built etc. and the best I could do still left the diff pointing slightly downwards to the front of the car. Therefore to get the gearbox right the engine also slopes downwards to the front as well. Looks slightly odd, but no other option. I kept the standard Pinto engine mounts and adjusted the angle with the gearbox mount. As I was junking the too soft Sierra one for a Westfield mount I was having to make changes anyway and could raise the rear of the box at the same time.

[Guest turbo]

the guy at dunnel who is making my new prop advised about the accuracy of the flanges to be parrallel.

is this north south if you like?and whats the best way to check good enough.

[Guest Eric]

well thats me just made it home from newark at 12.35 on the breakdown wagon.

the bloody prop went bang doing 75 just before carlisle.

strewth Jamie, brown underpants moment or what !

(only just seen this, bloody puter died newark weekend, more expense)

see, the car is upset at you trying to sell her

do you think "christine" will be back on the road for smallways?

? were you changing up/down accelerating/braking?

glad to hear you and sandra ok, albeit a little shaken up,i know i would be.

 

take care buddy

 

ek