Broke down about a mile from Wattnall Test Centre today. Drove from Lincoln to Watnall. Car ran perfectly until a loud clunking from the rear. Then no drive. Happily or unhappily I was being followed by a Riot Van full of plain clothes coppers who pushed me off the road. Then we had the 'why no reg plate' conversation and they toddled off waving.

Inspecting the car revealed a rear drive shaft had come off. I am sure I did all the bolts up to the correct torque. The shaft had come off the wheel end and the flailing shaft has damaged the rear upper suspension arm. I will have to get it straightened and then strengthened.

Bit of a sad end but its not all bad. The car ran perfectly until the shaft came off.

Got picked up by the RAC.


Description

[Edited on 4/9/15 by Irony]

If they are the bolt on Lobos they have a habit of coming undone. You can keep retorqing till they settle down, Apparently they will eventually though I used thread lock on mine to stop it once and for all. A mate with the same problem bought some new bolts with some fancy locking mechanism.

Make sure you have the special u shaped washers as well

Gutting not to have made it tho :-(

feel for you, at least, as you say it wasn't a worse incident.

hows the v8 sounding ?

That's bad luck that mate. What rear axle are you using .

Ford diff with the bolt on shafts. I thought the diff was LSD but I couldn't get any drive at all. I have all the weird u shaped washers and I did think about loctiting them. However the threads were so dirty I didn't think it would work. I just hope the wish bone is repairable.

You can hear very little of the v8 with the wind noise. Besides it's running a bit rich I think. I have not had it above 2500rpm yet. New engine etc etc

^^ have a look at these:

http://www.nord-lock.com/nord-lock/wedge-locking/washers/introduction/

I'm thinking about using them in place of the weird shaped ford washers

That's bad luck! Mine did that too. I was just about to do a quarter mile when someone else(!) noticed most of the bolts were loose. I took them out, degreased the bolts and threads and stuck them in with some threadlock. They haven't come out since and that was about four years ago

I failed to get to my first SVA inspection - I had to drive 40-odd miles down the A12 in the early morning rush hour, but had the oil light come up every time the engine revs went down. Stopped at a garage, couldn't sort it out, so had to admit defeat. Later on I found out that the oil pump pressure relief valve had stuck open, and that a swift thump on the pump may well have freed it. I could have taken the pump off and freed it within 10 minutes.

Still, a learning experience... expensive though.

Sorry to hear your news , I had trouble with my car on the way to SVA with the carb icing up but managed to get there on time. For degreasing small or hard to get at items I use a pump up brake cleaner spray , the pressure helps loosen any crud

Bad luck! The drive to and from my retest last year! was about the only reliability I've had!
For degreasing small holes/ blind holes I spry degreaser in the rough area and use cotton wool buds to get down the hole!
Good luck for the next one,
Mark.

What an absolute pisser
FWIW, on the driveshafts, I used new 12.9 bolts, loctited, but with normal washers. I've checked them at 1000 and 2000 miles and they're fine.

Got to confess, I had the same to.....luckily it was in a car park.....

I had the same too. The bolts kept working loose in my mnr

Sorry to hear mate.

David

That's unlucky, but probably better than it happening on the rollers during the retest. Hopefully they didn't charge you as you didn't get there. I seem to recall that the Nottingham centre are quite flexible about retests, especially if only a few things need looking at like yours.

My alternator stopped working on the way to my retest. Luckily, I live a couple of miles away and I managed to get through the test and back home before the battery went flat.

Let me know if you need a helping hand when you book it in again.