Thread: Driveshaft Advice

Welcome to the forum.

Check those uni joints carefully,particularly the front double one,many have come apart and caused extensive damage to other parts of the vehicle.If you can’t check them out yourself,have a Land Rover Indie look at them for you,as soon as possible.

Good luck with it all,and have fun with your new ride.

Personally, I cant see anything that indicates a typical failure of the joints. These look like aftermarket servicable joints and they look like they have been regularly greased up judging by the excess around the joints. The rotoflex on the rear looks fine to me also.

That said, you'd have a far more accurate idea by seeing and feeling the joint.

Nice dry rear pinion seal but a bit of rust around.
Make sure the aircon drain is not draining onto the double cardan joint, and route a hose from the drain away if this has not already been done. That front shaft is a replacement one. Ditto the other side which drains onto the XYZ switch.
I had an acquaintance go through about 4 shafts before he rerouted the drain. great pommie design.

The vibration at idle is probably the engine mounts.

The front uni on the rear shaft is easy to replace but they last forever as there is little deflection of the driveshaft.
Regards PhilipA

One thing to note with the rear rubber donut(rotoflex), which I read about, saw in videos, and then experienced myself.

When replacing the rotoflex, it should be done in total, that is not just the rubber ring, but the inner bush and the centralising pin as well.
Rotoflex is easiest thing to replace, and as long as you have the correct sized tools for the nuts/bolts, can be done easily out in the bush.
centralising pin wasn't easy, but also not hard. an appropriate bolt to screw into the pin end and something to brace the bolt to the diff housing and it slides off easily.
The bush can be a total PITA and pig of a job tho, and most likely would need to be chiselled out.

Most folks don't do it all, as it's just a few minutes work to do the rotoflex on it's own, and can be hours doing the bush.

I was sevicing my D1 one day and pushed this, prodded that and found my rotoflex, whilst still looking OK, when flexed a bit showed many hairline cracks in it. Only when removing it did I then notice a half a mm of play in the uni-joint(at the drum brake) too.

Ahhh! I had the parts, so on went a new spare rotoflex and a new unijoint too. I shouldn't have done it. D1 then vibrated like mad at highway-ish speeds .. basically 80k/h and up.

I didn't really check(didn't really know!) that the spare rotoflex, someone gave to me, wasn't an original/GKN branded unit. No matter, as a spare it's only purpose was to 'get me home'. D1 is my daily so I needed more than that.
So I got all the bits, genuine/GKN branded roto, plus the pin and bush. God damned bush! Arghhh! ... anyhow. Once all fitted up, smooth as silk(considering it's a tdi! )

My spares rotoflex has no markings on it at all.. zero, not even the direction arrows(which it should). No idea what brand as a spare it'll do tho.

Moral of this diatribe: don't assume the last person who did the work did it out of love/care ... more likely save $s which means probably found the cheapest parts!

I say this just to warn you that .. a failed double cardan joint is going to be massively costly. If in doubt, no matter if it's feeling and looking new .. I'd recommend changing it!
Peace of mind, so to speak.

The bearing for the cardan joint is not easy to find, but can be got, and isn't the easiest thing to replace either.

vibes at idle: more than just the engine really. What gearbox? (auto/manual?). TD5's have hydro type engine mounts. You haven't said what engine? Liek Philip said, engine mounts can cause excessive vibes at idle, but I'd have thought maybe even more with faster engine speed too(dunno).

if a TD5 does it idle smoothly, as in seems to be firing evenly? Maybe a video of the engine idling so that someone can assess if it's misfiring, which will cause vibrations.

eg. if yours is a V8 and say a lead has gone dead, or coil pack misfiring, then of course the V8 will misfire and vibrate. TD5 can have similar happenings for various reasons.

Mostly concerned about the amount of grease and oil that is gunked onto the u joints (and everywhere under there), particularly up front where it attaches to the brake drum. Surely that's not a healthy drive shaft?

I agree with others, they look fine to me. excess grease around uni joint is a good thing, joints have been regularly done.
Grease is forced in via the nipple using grease gun, normal to continue until visible sign of it squeezing out.
some mechanics then clean off the excess, most don't bother.

I'd be more concerned if they were completely dry.

Listen for a squeak at drive off, shiney and/or red is bad.. get under and give it all a shake...

When my front shaft went, it sounded like a flock of starlings under the bonnet. The second one, when it went gave a vibration at 50kph up.
As has been said, give it a good shake.

Hi,
I would be inclined to check that the front propshaft double cardon joint is fully greaseable including the centre spherical joint between the 2 UJs. Tom Woods does one from the USA with this, and GKN units can be sourced from the UK but I've lost the part numbers.
Good luck,
David.