Simon's new Xantia V6 and Leaf blog

[Hell Razor5543]

Far better to 'have and not need' than to 'need and not have'.

[NewcastleFalcon]

Looks good and stable. In supporting the motor/inverter/charger stack a bit of carpentry may be required to put your jack on a platform underneath the car. Sturdy pallet with a bit of thick ply and something to prevent the wheels of the jack rolling. The stack looks like it would have a tendency to rock back due to the angle of the car, and may have to be prevented from doing so with a bit of bracing at the rear maybe against the bulkhead. Not sure if with the motor you are left with a front and offside mounting to help mitigate against this.



Before the disassembly, is there a good opportunity to get a listening tube and if possible pinpoint the source of the noise if it can be recreated as per your first videos. I know fix is more important to you than diagnosis at the moment, but I am sure the better access now would be able to confirm your thoughts.

On the driveshaft extraction front with it nicely up in the air now off the wheels is a bit of an assistant standing on the brakes necessary to undo the hub nuts or are they already slackened?

Looking at a few videos, and my own recent experience of doing a coil spring, rather than disconnect the lower ball joint, undoing the 2 easily got at Strut mounting bolts from the hub carrier allows the hub to be swung out to remove the driveshaft from the hub. May be an easier route.

Following with interest

Regards Neil

[Mandrake]

Looks good and stable. In supporting the motor/inverter/charger stack a bit of carpentry may be required to put your jack on a platform underneath the car. Sturdy pallet with a bit of thick ply and something to prevent the wheels of the jack rolling. The stack looks like it would have a tendency to rock back due to the angle of the car, and may have to be prevented from doing so with a bit of bracing at the rear maybe against the bulkhead. Not sure if with the motor you are left with a front and offside mounting to help mitigate against this.

There are three "engine" mounts, only the front offside mount is attached to the motor, the rear middle mount and front left mount are both attached to the gearbox via removable cast alloy brackets. (Which I have removed in my pictures of the "new" gearbox)

So the stack will have to be supported only by the front offside engine mount together with a beam/stand or similar under the motor as close as possible to the edge of the motor to ensure the centre of gravity doesn't go too far past the support edge. (I think the front offside mount does have some support in both up and down directions to allow a small amount of cantilever support but not 100% sure...)

I could build my saw horse frame and wrap a chain around from the top to hold it with the chain lift, but I'm trying to avoid that as I'd be unable to close the bonnet if there were any showers. It's probably the way I would do it if the car was in the garage with a roof beam available above and no chance of rain indoors...

[mickthemaverick]

It may be an idea to put a gazebo over the front of the car to keep the rain away if it does turn on you Simon. Cheap enough to get hold of a canopy style on ebay or even in B&Q, and it will always be handy for BBQ cooking afterwards

[myglaren]

You could even have a car repair party under the gazebo.

[Mandrake]

Draining the gearbox before removing the driveshafts and found this on the drain plug. Yeah, not very healthy looking...

Multiple large curved sharp metal shards around 8mm long by 3mm diameter. That's not going to buff out with an oil change....

Looks like I made the right call on the gearbox. Now to see if I can get the driveshafts out.

[NewcastleFalcon]

Multiple large curved sharp metal shards around 8mm long by 3mm diameter. That's not going to buff out with an oil change....

Looks like I made the right call on the gearbox. Now to see if I can get the driveshafts out.

When you get round to giving the old gearbox a post-mortem, the cause should be easy enough to spot on that evidence

REgards Neil

[moizeau]

If you can see any numbers on the old seal go to a bearing supplier,or even with the old seal, all seals and bearings are off the shelf. I do this on my bikes, add 'Kawasaki' to the printed label and add many beer tokens.

[white exec]

Thank goodness for the plug magnet!
You absolutely made the right call, Simon.

[Mandrake]

Thank goodness for the plug magnet!
You absolutely made the right call, Simon.

Looks a lot like drilling swarf ??

[moizeau]

That must have stung on the way out!!

[Mandrake]

Well it’s taken me about 6 hours struggling in near 30C heat (mainly the lower ball joints were giving me grief) but I finally have both driveshafts out

I’ve just got an alert that the driveshaft seals coming from Latvia should be here on Monday.

So now I have a choice - continue work over the next few days to swap the gearbox then fit the seals in-situ before reinstalling the driveshafts, or take a break until the seals arrive and fit them to the gearbox on the bench…

I also need to get new bolts/nuts for the lower ball joint as the thread end of the bolt is well and truly mashed from having to hammer it out!

Might have to go to Nissan for that one as I don’t see them online…

[NewcastleFalcon]

(mainly the lower ball joints were giving me grief)
I also need to get new bolts/nuts for the lower ball joint as the thread end of the bolt is well and truly mashed from having to hammer it out! Might have to go to Nissan for that one as I don’t see them online…

... undoing the 2 easily got at Strut mounting bolts from the hub carrier allows the hub to be swung out to remove the driveshaft from the hub. May be an easier route.

One suggestion which fell on stony ground Its the Scotty Kilmer way too and may have proved easier than the ball joint route.

Did the driveshafts just pull out/pry easily, together with the snap ring intact and no sign of chewing up of the splines on the end of the driveshafts or the female end at the gearbox.

Regards Neil

[mickthemaverick]

Thank goodness for the plug magnet!
You absolutely made the right call, Simon.

Looks a lot like drilling swarf ??

I have to agree there Simon, it posts the question: Is that the result of the fault you are yet to identify or is it the cause? Could it possibly be a manufacturing cock-up which left the swarf in the bottom of the box from new and it has taken this amount of time to cause the actual failure you have still to identify? We look forward to looking inside!!

[Mandrake]

(mainly the lower ball joints were giving me grief)
I also need to get new bolts/nuts for the lower ball joint as the thread end of the bolt is well and truly mashed from having to hammer it out! Might have to go to Nissan for that one as I don’t see them online…

... undoing the 2 easily got at Strut mounting bolts from the hub carrier allows the hub to be swung out to remove the driveshaft from the hub. May be an easier route.

One suggestion which fell on stony ground Its the Scotty Kilmer way too and may have proved easier than the ball joint route.

No, I gave your suggestion due consideration but after looking at the bolts between the strut and hub - which have very long exposed rusty threads to wind the nut off I decided the ball joint would probably be less of a hassle. Maybe that wasn't the case in the final analysis but I did not like the look of trying to wind the nuts off a couple of inches of very rusty exposed thread on the strut bolts, nor affecting the camber when I bolted it back together.

Did the driveshafts just pull out/pry easily, together with the snap ring intact and no sign of chewing up of the splines on the end of the driveshafts or the female end at the gearbox.

The driveshafts came out easily once I had the hubs moved far enough out - I used the same method in the video Richard posted - just put a cold chisel between the driveshaft joint and the gearbox on the left hand side and give it a sideways tap at the bottom of the chisel to push it out.

Only the short left side driveshaft has a snap ring on the gearbox spline, the right side driveshaft has no snap ring and relies on the bracket for the intermediate bearing to locate the lateral location of the driveshaft in the gearbox. The intermediate bearing sits in the bracket and a small plate is bolted over it to keep it from pulling out. So after removing that plate you can literally just pull the spline out of the gearbox with no resistance.

The splines all look fine, intermediate bearing seems smooth, CV joint and hub mating faces seem fine (although not very well greased) and the joints also seem fine. So apart from the usual surface rust on the shaft everything seems fine there.