Inner driveshaft

[sasquartch]

Have been looking at the description of how to change the inner driveshaft in the technical area and see that this is not a part that is widely available.

I see ECP have this : http://www.eurocarparts.com/ecp/c/Ford_Galaxy_1.9_2004/p/car-parts/car-transmission/transmission-parts/driveshaft/?654598610&1&20de979f667ebea67a70712117506a2e44bf5c58&000113

Also a Q Drive part which I would never go for based on experience with their outer driveshafts

Has anyone got any experience of these ?

I don't have an issue at the moment although driving the car last night (it is mainly used by my wife who is oblivious to any mechanical defects as long as the car moves under its own power and is not obviously on fire) I thought the drive train felt a bit sloppy.

Of course it might be engine mounts or something else but thought it'd be a good idea to research all the possibles first so I can check it out once the weather improves.

The car is a 2005 TDI 115 with 94k miles

Also the picture in the above link shows a bolt sticking out of the end, I'm guessing this is actually installed the other way round ? Just trying to visualise it all.

Actually seems a really easy fix, is it really just undo the 6 outer driveshaft bolts and the 2 bolts on the bracket ? I guess the undertray has to come off first ??

Any advice welcome as always

[insanitybeard]

The bolt in that picture I believe is the bolt that passes through the stubshaft and locks it into the diff side gear, like you say it's the wrong way round in that photo.

If you're concerned about wear of the intermediate shaft splines then my recommendation would be to raise the offside front wheel off the ground, remove the engine undertray if fitted and inspect the stubshaft to intermediate shaft joint for the dreaded red dust (fretting corrosion of the shaft splines) and play- if you gently rotate the wheel very slightly back and forth you should be able to see how much rotational play there is between the intermediate shaft & stub shaft, my Galaxy has covered a similar mileage to yours and when I checked last year there was about 1-1.5mm play in my estimation at that joint, which had some wear present but was still in decent condition (it had been greased previously). If you find much more play than this then it's not a good sign, especially if the red dust is present!

I would avoid a cheap part such as you have already mentioned if it requires replacement, the quality is likely to be inferior!

[sasquartch]

OK, thanks for the reply

So are we saying that it's EITHER dealer or Motormax ?

Dealer looks like Ã,£300+ but at least you'd probably be able to get it all same day - Poland cheaper but harder to resolve if issues and of course at least a few days shipping time.

It's one of those things where it's difficult to make a call - I'll probably only have the car another few years anyway (I bought it brand new) - then again I want to be sure I do the job only once :-)

What have other people done ?

[insanitybeard]

Several other recent threads discussing this topic and the problem with cheap shafts- see here and here.

There are a few other options for aftermarket shafts that should be decent, there are links to them in those threads I just linked. But before going too far, inspect the joint to determine if you actually have an issue.

[sasquartch]

Will do - thanks for the advice

Just want to be forewarned with all the knowledge before I delve deeper. There may well be nothing wrong with it.

I guess none of this is visible without the undertray on ?

Thanks again