Author Topic: New front wheel bearing, then no drive (Read 2529 times)

embee · « **Reply #15 on:** June 08, 2022, 06:01:37 PM »

Definitely looks ground down to me. Curiouser and curiouser.
Just watched a bit of a youtube vid of changing a Jazz shaft and it shows very clearly the shaft end and wire circlip at around 3min30sec here

The end should have the spline features showing.

Lord Voltermore · « **Reply #16 on:** June 08, 2022, 06:28:04 PM »

Ground down, but I dont think deliberately by a mechanic. But possibly still negligence. To me it looks more like damaged when the shaft popped out of the mating splines on the gearbox hub.These mating spline slots would be rotating, trying to drive the car and may have randomly mangled the tip of the now stationary drive shaft.

I saw something on here recently which suggests the drive shaft may be an intentional weak link,because its easier to replace a damaged shaft than gearbox parts. In which case the gearbox part may be hard enough metal to mill away softer metal on the shaft without suffering much damage itself.

Its possible the C clip fractured and fell off earlier due to excess play and vibration from the faulty wheel bearing. Or the other way round. The C clip may have broken ,causing excess play that damaged the wheel bearing. Or the C clip may have been omitted on an earlier repair job.

I havnt looked at the video yet so I cant say if the mechanic would have known the C clip was missing , or whether he should have known there should be one. I cant see what advantage it would have given him deliberately grinding the shaft in such a botched way.

Jocko · « **Reply #17 on:** June 08, 2022, 07:09:40 PM »

For the Mk 1, you do not remove the driveshaft to replace the wheel bearing. In fact, there is a warning: NOTE: Do not pull the driveshaft end outward. The driveshaft inboard joint may come off.

Just checked. It is the same for the Mk 2.
Do not pull the driveshaft end outward. The driveshaft inboard joint may come apart.

JonnyJazz · « **Reply #18 on:** June 11, 2022, 08:53:03 AM »

Jocko is quite right, there is no need to remove the shaft to do the bearing. I think they pulled the spider out of the inner CV joint and therefore had to remove it to put it back in.

Also, I can see why an incompetent would grind it. On fitting the replacement I found it would only go half way into the diff and then stop. Looking into the diff, there is a groove in the splines, so if the shaft is not perfectly aligned the end of the shaft won't go in. It needs to be wiggled about while being tapped with a soft hammer in order to get it go right in.
In addition, the clip has to be centralized in its groove as this will also foul the inner groove. I held the clip in place with grease. I suspect the idiots working on this car could not work this out, so butchered it instead.