C25 / CX Nearside (short) driveshaft removal.

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fastandfurryous
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C25 / CX Nearside (short) driveshaft removal.

Post by fastandfurryous »

I'm at a loss on this one.

I have the 2.5D engine and box out of a Talbot express on my garage floor. Its all-but identical to the Citroen C25D, and more importantly, the CX engine/box arrangement.

In order to get the unit out, I've simply split the inner tri-axe joint, leaving the tulip in the differential, and the tri-axe in the boot, on the shaft. Now comes the fun part of trying to remove the tulip from the diff.

Now, I know that there's a snap-ring towards the end of the drive-splines, and that you have to use a hammering action to remove the shaft end. The utterly crap Russek manual I have advocates inserting a cold-chisel between the back of the tulip and the diff housing, and then beating the chisel handle sideways, to shock the joint out. This hasn't worked (and I've hit it bloody hard)

I've also made clamp, and fitted a long bar to the tulip, with a bit of metal welded on to be able to hit with a hammer. This is hammering the shaft perfectly in line, but has also failed.

So far I've managed to move the tulip, and splines about 1mm, which I'm guessing is the slack of the snap-ring in it's groove. It's very stiff to do this, and has to be hammered (not too hard) both ways. I'm thinking that the splines are rather stiff.

Any ideas? I'm hoping that some part of the diff casing can be removed to gain access, and either hit the shaft from the other end (the inside of the diff) or simply gain access to remove the snap-ring. The russek manual is typically useless about this, and the CX haynes isn't much better.

Thanks in advance,

David.
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Post by AndersDK »

What Russek and Haynes manuals dont tell you is, that you have to hammer more than bloody hard :evil:
Honestly I believe they both ignored it as they must have thought they did it the wrong way.

Blimme :shock:
The diff housing may split when that little devil of a snap-ring finally decides to let go the TRIjoint cup and stub axle.
I had success using 2 crowbars placed opposite and then pressing to the point until I thought anything else would split on that gearbox.
It is impossible to do it with the box/engine in-situ - there is no room for such violent task.
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Post by fastandfurryous »

I had a feeling this was going to be a bit of a battle.

So far I've been using a 3kg clubhammer (a big one) and I've bent the cold-chisel I was using. The puller I welded up has broken in a number of places, and I've managed to miss it on one or two occasions, and there is a hammer shaped mark in the wall!

I shall try the 2-crowbar method. Failing that, it's going to be a differential stripdown.
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Post by fastandfurryous »

Now I have some real problems.

Tried the two-crowbar method, even pre-loading them with ratchet straps, and then hitting both at the same time. No joy.

So, Un-bolted, and removed the side-plate on the short side, and all the bolts/nuts holding the differential in, and have the diff out on the bench. As expected, there's no access to the other end of the driveshaft splines.

So, mounted the tulip of the joint in a makeshift clamp, suspending the rest of the differential from it, and was able to use 2 clubhammers to hit the differential ring downwards. All this has suceeded in doing is damaging the crownwheel, and the tulip is still stuck fast in the side of the differential.

The splines will still very stiffly move about 1mm in and out of the diff, but no further at all. What on earth can I try next!!?!?!

David.
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Post by AndersDK »

Take precautions against personal injury. When the cup came out it was like an explosion. The axle TRIjoint cup went trhu the outer wall of a nearby storage box - and me myself was flying backwards into my workshop mess - trying to avoid the crowbars hitting me or any nearby matter :oops: :roll:

BTW the snapring was split in bits - and I decided to fit a homemade one made by steelwire which is soft. Never had a problem with the joint popping out - and never had a problem removing the axle again later for boots replacement.

The problem is in fact not the snapring - but the recess on the stub axle being sharp edged :evil:
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Post by fastandfurryous »

Blimey!

I take it that the snap ring comes out on the end of the splines, rather than remaining in the differential.

I'm giving up for tonight, as I need to stop bleeding from previous efforts.

Arse. :evil:
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Post by AndersDK »

fastandfurryous wrote:.. I take it that the snap ring comes out on the end of the splines, rather than remaining in the differential .. :evil:
happily it can go nowhere else 8)
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WOOOOOHOOOOO

Post by fastandfurryous »

WooHoo!

Success... but most definitely the hard way.

Having realised that I could probably hammer this joint yoke until I split it, a slighty more drastic measure was required.

*anyone reading from here on will need to know about the CX/C25 gearbox. it's a rather odd design, the driveshaft ends can be removed without loosing all the gear oil.

Having removed the differential assembly, and split it completely, there's access to the steel plug in the end of the splines, thus:

Image

The steel plug was beaten out, to gain access to the other end of the shaft. What presented me was not good news. My digital camera is rather rubbish, but you can clearly see the corrosion under the steel plug:

Image

Not good news. Thus, a half-gallon of plusgas (wd40 by any other name) was used, and an hour or so of working the shaft forward and backward to rinse the rust out from under the snap-ring:

Image

Eventually, after a damn good belting with the rather large hammer visible in the picture above, it moved past the snap-ring limit. Several clouts later, and it FINALLY came out. I can see why it was so reluctant:

Image

There is no way that whoever last had this driveshaft out put any grease on these splines at all. If I ever find the twunt who did this, the big hammer will be put back into use!

Anyway.. Thanks Anders, for your advice, and restoration of my belief that it would actually be possible somehow!

David.
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Post by citronut »

usualy any prob removing shaft is due to previouse person in there misshaping the snap ring,has that box been laying around outside in all the weather,may be the seal is sorry was damaged and let water in
regards malcolm
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Post by fastandfurryous »

Having now cleared out the rusty mess that was once the snap ring, I'm considering leaving the snap-ring out, and putting a weak spring in the driveshaft cup, to press on the centre of the tri-axe joint, thus keeping the joint in the differential.

This is of course exactly how the short driveshaft in a BE gearbox works. I can't see any reason why this would cause any problems, and would mean I woudn't have to go through the ridiculous process of beating seven bells out of the driveshaft tulip next time round.

Does anyone think I've missed a good reason why not to do this mod?
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Re: WOOOOOHOOOOO

Post by Dragonblue24 »

fastandfurryous wrote: 12 Oct 2005, 22:34 WooHoo!

Success... but most definitely the hard way.

Having realised that I could probably hammer this joint yoke until I split it, a slighty more drastic measure was required.

*anyone reading from here on will need to know about the CX/C25 gearbox. it's a rather odd design, the driveshaft ends can be removed without loosing all the gear oil.

Having removed the differential assembly, and split it completely, there's access to the steel plug in the end of the splines, thus:

Image

The steel plug was beaten out, to gain access to the other end of the shaft. What presented me was not good news. My digital camera is rather rubbish, but you can clearly see the corrosion under the steel plug:

Image

Not good news. Thus, a half-gallon of plusgas (wd40 by any other name) was used, and an hour or so of working the shaft forward and backward to rinse the rust out from under the snap-ring:

Image

Eventually, after a damn good belting with the rather large hammer visible in the picture above, it moved past the snap-ring limit. Several clouts later, and it FINALLY came out. I can see why it was so reluctant:

Image

There is no way that whoever last had this driveshaft out put any grease on these splines at all. If I ever find the twunt who did this, the big hammer will be put back into use!

Anyway.. Thanks Anders, for your advice, and restoration of my belief that it would actually be possible somehow!

David.
Thanks for this post, I have this problem on both of my CX. Passenger side came out without any issue, driver side impossible.
At least after reading your post I now know that I'm not crazy and/or forgetting to remove some retainer or something.
I guess I'm going to split the shaft and remove the motor with the tulip attached and then try to get it out similar to what you did.
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Re: C25 / CX Nearside (short) driveshaft removal.

Post by CitroJim »

I've had similar on a ZF 4HP20 autobox... They can put up a massive fight... Good luck with yours Dragonblue :)
Jim

Runner, cyclist, time triallist, duathlete, Citroen AX fan and the CCC Citroenian 'From A to Z' Columnist...
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