Oh Dear

[Longboarder]

Just an observation, not very helpful as you're sorting the problem but the caps pressed into the yokes should have a bearing seal sitting in the rusty gap in your pic. The seal holds the grease and the needles in place. Yours seem to have gone. Perhaps this is why they failed?

 

Nigel

[Guest turbo]

received my new prop today and glad to say it looks to be twice the job of the robin hood one.

can recommend dunning and fairbank.

[Guest vacinc]

are all 2B props standard lenght ?

[Guest Andrew M]

Hi All,

 

Has anyone had a fail on a prop with a 1998 s3 kit ? any information would be fab on this.

 

Cheers

 

Andy

[Grim]

does it have the rubber doughnut?

[Guest timswait]

I was getting a bit paranoid too so I've cut an inspection hole in the floor of mine and checked it. Fine at both ends, oil seals and grease nipples stll in place, no obvious play. So I gave it a good grease and had a cup of tea!

[Guest klaxon]

In answer to the question "is there another way to get the propshaft out"

If you can get the car on blocks and work from underneath you can remove the diff in about 2 hours. then it's easy to get the propshaft out.

You will need to remove wheels and brake drums, then unbolt the hubs and draw the half-shafts out. Then undo the propshaft bolts and diff mounting bolts and drop the diff.

It's a hell of a lot easier than taking the engine/box out and less destructive than removing the tunnel side.

[Snapperpaul]

Has anyone had a fail on a prop with a 1998 s3 kit ? any information would be fab on this.

 

Should be a Dunnings & Fairbanks so as long as you keep it greased you will be OK

[NeilD]

Now I'm getting paranoid about this...

 

if you take the gear lever out you can get at it there,

 

But i would say 5" back from gear lever

 

So if I get the holecutter and cut out a hole in the floor 5 inches behind where the gear lever is in neutral I should be able to get to the grease nipple ?

[Longboarder]

Steady Neil. Get a grip on yourself lad or you'll have a turn!

Remove the gear lever boot, put the lever into 3rd gear, apply torch and eyeball to the hole revealed and you can work out for yourself where to cut a greasing access hole to the prop front yoke. Only needs to be big enough to get the gun nozzle in. 10mm tops.

 

Nigel

[Les Welsher]

I greased mine the other week by removing the tunnel top cover (fir tree fixings)

I think it would have been possible to get at be just removing the gear stick and gator and using a flexy pipe pushed onto the nipple.

 

Les

[Guest old_timbo]

My tunnel top comes off as well so I decided to grease my front UJ this weekend. Got the grease gun on ok but found grease spurted out round the nipple rather than through it. Took the nipple out and found it blocked with a hardened plug of graphite grease. Also could see that there was little grease in the UJ. Cleaned it out, refitted the nipple and tried again. Still no go. Took a closer look and noticed that the end of the nipple was poorly formed so no seal with the gun nozzle. Fitted a new one and pumped a good amount of grease in before any ouzed out. The nipple was the standard very long type that RH used to fit. I wonder how many other duff nipples were fitted, and if this is the reason for early failures of some UJs?

 

Tim

[NeilD]

Steady Neil. Get a grip on yourself lad or you'll have a turn!

 

Bit the bullet and removed the tunnel top.

Both ends took a fair bit of grease before it started oozing out but otherwise looked sound as a pound - only took 1.5 hours from start to finish and I'm reassured now that it has been done - how often should they be greased?

Still think I will put some sort of reinforcement is the tunnel over the winter though....

 

Thanks folks

 

Neil

[enforcer]

I'd like to replace mine - never bought one before; where can you get them?

[Guest vacinc]

the neck of the grease gun is to short to grease the shaft end at the gear box (from up top ), so take out the gear stick gaiter, and punch a dent in the floor with a long screw driver, then drill a hole from the under side ( 10 min job )