Something to give you bad dreams

Off on our jolly hols last week, until 50 miles down the road we heard a ping above the usual noise at 60mph. Nothing seemed wrong, until I slowed down at a roundabout. A nasty vibration started at 40 mph. Moving away from the other side of the roundabout, it started again at 25mph. I stopped and lay in a muddy puddle underneath but couldn't spot anything. Back home after changing a front wheel in case the balance weights had been lost. A mile from the house, the classic "UJ gone" squeaking started. Here's what I found:
This is the rear prop, at the gearbox end. Note the circlip is still in place. Here's what the bearing cup looked like, compared to one of the others:

Doesn't it look like the bottom of the cup was a separate piece of metal pressed in? Nasty. Hopefully I'll get a set of GKNs in tomorrow.

I should add that the prop was new 15k ago, and I grease it regularly.

zeaphod said:

I should add that the prop was new 15k ago, and I grease it regularly.

Click to expand...

So, are you going to tell us what you fitted originally?

Cheers

I bought a new prop, which came in a box with a blue label. I thought at the time - "I can always change the UJs if they are crap" - and so it has come to pass. I didn't think I would ever see a UJ fail like this though. Thank god it didn't happen later in the trip, it was over 250 miles to the hotel - we chucked everything into the car and left the landy at home for the week. I'd been thinking about it all week, at least the old girl got us home and it wasn't anything more serious.

Strange thing is,

These have the grease nipple, so were they sold as HD UJ's rather than the std ones?
Having said that, the Grease nipple looks painted, does it actually pass grease?

Cheers

Yes, it has been passing grease, and the spider grease channels were full of grease.

Then you did done broke it .

I hope the yokes are OK.
Just get a couple of proper UJ's and job done.


Cheers

I was under the impression that gkn made the props for britpart?

The GKN ujs I fitted earlier are quite different to the one that failed. Close inspections of the yokes reveal poor machining too, I hope a GKN one would be better made. There were also only 2 of the little plastic grease spreaders (instead of 4) fitted to the old ujs.