How much play should a front drive shaft have?

I have developed a knocking on the from drivers side, while cornering. Just taken the wheel off and looked at the wheel station, there is a small amount of play up and down in the driveshaft, engine side not wheel side. The other side doesn't have this play so I'm wondering if it's this that's knocking, but only one side of the car was jacked up so maybe the play was due to that.
Any ideas?

plenty of ideas

jamesmartin said:

plenty of ideas

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So!! how long is this piece of string I've got then.

there shouldnt be any play up/down in drive shafts especially drivers side half shaft as it has support brg

Inner joints usually cause a vibration under acceleration. knocking could well be worn anti roll bar links

jamesmartin said:

there shouldnt be any play up/down in drive shafts especially drivers side half shaft as it has support brg

Click to expand...

No it doesn't, comes straight out the IRD to the hub

yes you right still shouldnt be any play cant think what i was working on to get mixed up

Sorry to resurrect a slightly old thread.... but I have about 1mm of play up and down in both my front drive shafts at the joint to the IRD with about 4 - 5 degrees of radial play. Is this normal? Will new driveshafts affect this or is this play more likely from a worn IRD bearing?

Thanks in advance!

cv itself shouldnt have any play ,but there will be some rotational play were it enters box ,new shafts wouldnt help ,has it other symptoms like leaking oil from there

No oil leaks no, no metal filings in the oil from the IRD either. I'm trying to find the cause of my wobbly gearstick on acceleration. Also, I have what I consider to be premature failure of a diff front mount after just 4000 miles (although I think this was a Bripart bush so might be totally unrelated). I have changed the lower engine tie bar for a genuine one and it cured it for a while, but less than 1000 miles. People with similar symptoms seemd to have normally cured it with a new front o/s driveshaft (although I can see some others are still chasing it!)

What's the likely cause of the lateral play at the inner CV?

I tell a lie, I forgot that I have a slight oil leak from the IRD although I haven't investigated exactly where it's coming from though.

if you had play in the inner cv then changing it would be a good idea os cv directly goes into diff in ird so some movement is expected but outer bearing can wear youd have to see if play was in diffs support bearing or diff ,if support bar cured it once is it still good along with other mounts