307 vibration on lift off - urgent, I'm in France !

[tmead]

Help ! We've got a dramatic vibration through the steering on lift off, when declutching to change gear etc.

I've just had both front wheels off and can't find any play in track rod ends or bottom ball joints. Are the wishbone bushes a likely candidate ?
I can't find any play, and it's odd that the vibration only starts without power. Push the accelerator a bit and it goes away.

All suggestions appreciated !

Tim

[spider]

It *could* be a driveshaft (inner joint at a guess) or possibly the DM flywheel , its difficult to say without seeing it but those are my quick immediate thoughts.

Driveshaft may also vibrate at higher speeds / hard acceleration too, as well as deceleration, which is one 'test'.

[tmead]

Thanks Andy,

I'm hoping it's not anything like the DM flywheel, as that was replaced only 10k ago.

I'll take another look later at the driveshafts. Couldnt feel play earlier, but do you know a good way to test them ?

Vibration is bad under no load, almost nothing under load, even acceleration and little with over-run. It's bad rolling along in neutral and there is almost a feeling of a bad lump in the tyre when rolling to a stop after it's been bad. It is more noticeable at speed.

Tim

[Peter.N.]

Hi Tim

If the vibration is at road speed it will be drive shaft/tyre related, if its at engine speed could be DMF. What happens if you knock it out of gear? does the vibration change frequency with engine speed? A lot of vibration problems are caused by out of round tyres due to ply seperation.

Peter

[tmead]

Thanks Peter, it's definitely road speed related I just checked by popping it out of gear at around 50 and running up to 2.5k or so. No change in vibration.
I've swapped the spare onto the drivers side and it made no difference. I'll switch round to put it on the pass side tonight. It's a pain, as with luggage in there's not enough room under the back to pull the wheel out, and no way to get to the jack without lifting the back somehow. I'll find a nice convenient kerb later.

Tim

[Peter.N.]

Hi Tim

If it is a tyre problem which at least 90% are, if you jack the wheel up with the tyre just clear of the road and rotate it you can often see the run out.

Peter

[tmead]

Thanks. They don't look bad, so I suspect a driveshaft. I swapped the spare on a hundred miles ago, and it made no difference. I've put it on the other side now, and we will see how things are in the morning.
Fingers crossed it will all be fine, but I'm planning on needing to find a garage to do the driveshaft. I have a basic toolkit, but no decent jack or stands, and no balljoint splitter. Can't see the missis being delighted by me spending a much time grovelling under the car on the campsite either!

Hope for the best.

Tim

[CitroenLover]

I'd just keep driving it until you get home and hope for the best, but that is just me

[Peter.N.]

I have never had a drive shaft cause a bad vibration - but there's always a first time

[DickieG]

I have never had a drive shaft cause a bad vibration - but there's always a first time

I had it on my previous estate and solved it by changing the driveshafts.

[Peter.N.]

As I said, there is always a first time. The only experience of that I have had was on a CX DTR Turbo Safari and that only on a long journey when the transmission was well heated, the inner joints had worn but didn't give a problem until the grease melted, even then it wasn't all that bad and it had done about 250.000 miles!

Peter

[tmead]

Thanks for the suggestions!

We'll see how it goes today with the tyres swapped round.

It does seem worse with temperature, and this is the first long trip while towing. If it doesn't get worse we may live with it until we get back.

Tim

[tmead]

well its no worse, and definitely not tyre related !

That's a relief, and gives me less concerns about a blowout etc.

I'll delve into it further when I get back.

Tim

[tmead]

OK, here's the summary - looks like the previous owner must have jetwashed under the wheelarches, as there was no grease there. However, the n/s CV boot was well split, and the joint was very dry. That can't have helped.

Now for the fun part - the 136 6spd HDi uses quite different driveshafts. They are larger diameter shafts, and the gearbox joint has 37 splines, rather than the 5 speed 24 (25?). The database that all motorfactors use is wrong, and will point out the wrong shaft. The correct shaft is pretty rare and not available from anywhere I tried other than peugeot, for around 160 quid. Pug don't offer CV joints seperately, and I was reluctant to head off down that route again, having already sunk 20 quid into shipping incorrect parts, and stripped and rebuilt the n/s corner once to before identifying the the wrong parts.

J and R CV joints were very responsive at sending me a driveshaft that they confirmed on the phone was the one for the car, but were completely unwilling to offer anything other than the cost of the part (60 quid all in) as a refund if I returned it. That's the minimum that they committed to do in the terms, and they were not willing to offer any goodwill towards postage at all, blaming the data supplied to them by another company.
Overall i was disappointed by the crap customer service from JandRCVJoints.co.uk, when it came to dealing with a problem, although the guy on the phone did have a very lively imagination, describing all sorts of rebuild possibilities for my car, and completely ignoring the information I offered from Peugeot that they only ever put one part number of driveshaft into the 136 6 spd pug 307. Can't fault them for efficiency with delivering originally, but they are obviously unable to deal with anything other than the most straightforward, common and simple parts.

however - no vibration is evident now, and the clicking that started on the drive back from holiday is also banished !

Thanks for all the pointers on here, and good luck to anyoen else trying to source parts for the 136Hp HDi !

Tim

[jgra1]

glad all is well again Tim

shame on the company really.. a little kindness goes a long way at moments like these..

John