I had split outer boots on the driveshaft’s on the 12. No problem methinks, I have a few spares that are okay so I’ll whip out the shafts with the split boots and just replace them and do the boots at leisure.
Now, I thought all R12 driveshaft were the same except maybe the R12G and maybe the R12 Automatic. But no, not so it seems. The offside was no problem (apart from separating the ball-joints) but out it came, new one slipped in, do everything up again, sweet. Not so the nearside. Undid everything as before took a day and a half to separate the ball joints (covered in another post) and eventually got the driveshaft out. The first driveshaft I tried as a replacement would not go in the stubalxe. Greasing, ‘percussive encouragement’, harsh language, nothing worked, it wouldn’t go in more than a couple of millimetres. The next one I tried slipped in like the proverbial ‘finger in bum’. No resistance, easy as you please. Unfortunately, when I took the car for a spin round the block there was a knock/rumble in the shaft and the inner joint appeared to be knackered. Bugger it will have to come out again. Okay, plan B. I bought a replacement boot kit and fitted it to one of the drive shafts that come off the car. Came off the car so should fit back or right. No, when I tried to put this one on Murphy’s Law was in force and the shaft wouldn’t fit the stubaxle. The shaft was from the opposite side and was fractionally bigger than the one from the nearside.
Now, the question I have is are there supposed to be different size outer shafts or maybe different number of splines on the R12 shafts or stubaxles? I’ve had five R12’s over the last 30 or so years and I’ve never had a problem swapping driveshafts before. Not that I’ve had to do the shafts on all of them. Didn’t matter which side, just grab a shaft and fit it. As far as I can tell, these are the original driveshafts fitted in the factory and should be the same I would have thought.
I took the liberty of measuring a few of the shafts and sure enough there was a difference between the three that I measured. The one that fit easily was about 22.18mm across the splines, the one that was on the car and was tight but sill fit was 22.22mm, and the one that wouldn’t fit for love or money was 22.3. I wouldn’t have thought a tenth of a millimetre would make that much of a difference but it did (my $40 non-digital calipers might not be reading 100% too).
Is this lousy quality control or were there different sizes? I suppose at the factory they would have the assembly made up and moved into place on a dolly and then bolted up so if the shaft was stiff they just kept trying different shafts until they got one that slipped in easily.
Were there differences between say, the early, facelift, and Virage versions? My R12 parts manual only has one part number for the driveshafts and one for the wheel hub so I’m assuming not.
Could one sand a bee’s dick off the splines so it would fit (or would it be wise)?
Cheers
Ren
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