As for the current drive shaft fix, the best bet is to get another drive
shaft from an earlier car with double u joints, not a CV jointed one and
rebuild that. You may have to re-size it as there are different lengths,
depending upon which engine trans that you have. The problem with just
replacing the CV joint with a standard one on your shaft is that You need
some sort of sliding spline arrangement to take up the small amount of
travel that still exists even thought the engine and transmissions are
mounted securely (there is still a little bit of travel because of the
rubber mounts). This is accomplished by either a sliding joint in the
Driveshaft somewhere (In your case, the CV Joint) or in the earlier shafts,
by a strap arraignment on the Driveshafts (you need to see it to understand
how it works). Simply welding another u joint on the end of yours will not
allow for the small fore aft movement,and will put a large amount of stress
on the engine and transmission mounts, causing them to fail very quickly.
Thanks everyone! My suspicion was that it was "non user servicable".
At this point it is not causing any issues other than that occasional
clang and the fact that if I get under the car I can see that it has
a bit of play in it. But the car drives as smoothly as a Spitfire is
capable of driving.... I suspect that at my current ~600 mile per
annum usage rate it will last a good long time. I don't see that it
has any removable parts, but I wonder if I could get some grease in
it with a long needle tip on a grease gun? Can't imagine that would
hurt. It's an O/D car, or I would swap it for the two u-joint sliding
driveshaft I have from my parts car and call it a day. I guess I can
get that one shortened when the time comes.
-Kevin Rhodes
Westbrook, Maine
Soon to have four orphaned cars, seeing as I have Freddie and three
Saabs... :-(
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