Weekend outing and drive shaft disaster

[invjbo]

Well, the idea was to have a nice drive to meet up some other Europas for a cup coffee. But the car wasn't too keen on it. Suddenly i felt that something was wrong and stopped as quickly as i could, and when i almost had stopped i heard a clonk in the back, and scraping.

The U-joint out by the right hand wheel had broken down somehow and actually the driveshaft fell down on the ground. Never experienced that before.

So no coffee but i had to bring a trailer to get the car back home again.

Now I need to get hold of a driveshaft as the yoke on the wheel side of things got messed up.

[EuropaTC]

Wow, what a situation.  I don't know whether to sympathize or congratulate you on the weirdest failure ever seen !

I don't think I've ever seen a UJ fall apart before on anything, so I'd be very interested in some more photos when you get around to pulling it all apart. It is strange, I'd have thought with the twin link suspension the UJs would be under less stress and last much longer as they're no longer doing duty as the upper link.

What's the other side like ? 

Brian

ps - good to see smiles all round despite the trailer home. True Lotus people there 
 

[buzzer]

Yes Definitely bad luck..could have been worse tho. Looking at the pics the yoke on your driveshaft failed as the UJ cross price looks intact.
Good luck with getting it sorted

[Steve_Lindford]

If the needle bearings fail on the UJ - there is usually a knocking warning - and the car should be driveable carefully until the problem is sorted. I can't imagine how this could happen. Could it be one of those situations where that suspension design that should relieve load on the driveshaft was not set up correctly - and had the opposite effect??

[E Paul]

A good driveshaft shop should be able to save that yoke. It looks like the cup fell out and the driveshaft then just disassembled itself. It must have been clunking a bit before total failure. I would say the cup was not properly retained on last rebuild, but who knows. Was there a roll pin installed on the transmission side? How did the driveshaft end up on the ground if there was?
Anyway, this should not be too bad to sort out. Glad you did not wreck.

[BDA]

Bad luck invjbo! Glad it wasn't worse as it could have been if you weren't so observant!

E Paul, he has a twin link rear suspension so I don't think he really needs the roll pin. I have a similar setup but I use the roll pin anyway (I don't bother with shims) - sort of a belt and suspenders idea. I also figure it takes a lot of stress of the splines. I might seem smarter than I really am after this story!

[jbcollier]

With the Twin Link set up, you do not fit the roll pin.  There is a small change in the distance between the stub axle and the transaxle output shaft as the suspension flexes and fitting the pin will cause the driveshaft and suspension to be put under stress.

[BDA]

Right! I should have noticed. I have a CV joint and a U-joint rather than two U-joints.

[invjbo]

With the Twin Link set up, you do not fit the roll pin.  There is a small change in the distance between the stub axle and the transaxle output shaft as the suspension flexes and fitting the pin will cause the driveshaft and suspension to be put under stress.

Thats correct, i dont have roll pins mounted as this would stress the whole setup when the suspension is flexing up/down.

I also suspect that a cup retainer fell off and leading to the failure. I can confirm that there was a bit of clonking. I am so glad this didn´t occur on the highway at high speeds as that could have led to a total wreckage.