FTO AUSTRALIA

The mechanic whos doing my gearbox conversion just called me and said that after topping up the gearbox oil it all leaked out as a result of the driveshaft being too short from the manual? Is this possible? He said that it looked like someone had cut and welded the driveshaft and it was in total an inch too short.

Any help appreciated. Have been missing the car for 2 weeks now

is the engine and gearbox seated properly.
When I did my turbo conversion for the wagon, the whole engine was an inch over on the drivers side.
Had one shaft squished, and the other stretched.

I will ask him that. He says that the teeth on the driveshaft dont fully connect so thats why there is a leak. How else can you tell whether the engine and gearbox are seated properly?

Well, I could tell by the way the rubber covers were sitting.
One was all bunched up, the other was stretched out.
Should be pretty obvious.

I know there is a difference with the auto to manual shafts.. something about the number of teeth, dont know if you could still 'insert' the shaft, but it simply wont stay in...

The end of the shaft that goes into the box isnt missing the little spring clip is it?
If so, then yeah, oil will piss out, as nothing is actually keeping the shaft in place apart from placement.

No the spring clip is there.

An update on where I am. The mechanic has just contacted me after going around to a few wreckers looking for a manual driveshaft. He could not find any mivec manual driveshafts so it leads me onto a question:

Do Mivec and non mivecs have the same driveshaft (manual)?

And since theres no easy way to make the driveshaft fit, like a temporary fix(engine and gearbox are supposedly set right) I need a manual Mivec driveshaft.

Dwayne do you have one of these?

I was under the impression that for an auto manual conversion you didnt need the manual driveshaft, just a matter of removing auto, drive plate, put in the clutch, flywheel etc and the drivehsft goes back in. But apparently the autos and manuals have different ones?[/b]

*Facepalms*

Get him to empty the oil & pull both the driveshafts. Perhaps he should have checked that both gearbox end couplings were the same before he went & assembled it & then charged you a fortune while they f*ck around...

That said I dont see how teeth difference, or length difference has anything to do with an oil leak. There is a seal that goes around the gearbox end coupling area. If the shafts are properly inserted with surrounding seals, there will be no leak. If they get both ends into the box, then find one end is too short to reach the hub, then they need to get one of the auto shafts, split the gearbox coupling end of it, and attach it to the manual coupling. The auto & manual driveshafts are identical in length. The only difference is the grearbox coupling end - which can be seperated from the shaft.

Get some pics!

Seriously, these muppets need to get a clue. If they don't know what they are doing they should not be taking on the work!

All it takes is a bit of research

the manual has 27 teeth
the tip has 25 teeth

if you use the wrong driveshaft, it will leak and make grinding noises (happened to me)

you never finished you diy write jono!

Anyway here are some pics I took



This is the end that goes into the hub


This is the end that is short by 10mm. I dont know why there are indent marks on the shaft but meh, opinions welcome.





This image causes me the most grief. Notice the massive gap where the shaft end goes into the gearbox. This pic is with the wheels and everything on. Thats why its leaking oil.

Waiting for expert opinions.

What I can do is source a longer shaft head (looks at dwayne) or the other alternative is to get a machinist to fabricate a small section to extend the shaft head and get this attached to the current one.

your not pushing it in hard enough...

I would be putting the shaft into the gearbox then putting the shaft into the hub not the other way round. I agree with jono i dont think they have pushed it in far enough

oh by the way... the black coupling / cv joint has cogs on it which means that driveshaft is for a fto with ABS, so that might be your issue!

My fto has abs but in any case can you explain how the abs cogs matter?

Mechanic showed my how it was put it. Gearbox end went in first, then hub end went in. while attaching hub end, gearbox end pops out. Even measured the differences with a vernier. 10mm short.

dude this happened to me... twist and kick it in

i think i have a similar problem, but i werent there to see the leak, but friends say its my gearbox leak, so right now its at the mechanic. Heard its just the welding and need to be weld again.

Before they tighten the main nut on the end of the driveshaft & lock in the whole assembly, have they bolted the hub back onto the strut?

ABS is just those cogs running round the outside of the outer CV - you can use ABS or not ABS CV's it doesn't matter. I used an ABS CV on Kaz's car which doesn't have ABS & it fit fine.

bushido wrote:



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Still havent resolved the issue so Im thinking of just re cutting the groove to lock it in.

SO guys you see the groove where the lock ring goes, is it safe to cut another groove further up but still on the teeth?

My mechanic says that this one has been messed with too much so he wants to get another drivehshaft. Im so over getting part over part that dont fit/work. I dont see why this one cant be cut.

Opinions?

mate were that groove is on the same part as the teeth should have a clip inside of it mine does and u need to slam the drive shafts in pretty damn hard to get them to go in correctly mate.

Yeh thats exactly what I did and there is a clip. But once you slam it in it comes back out. SO in effect it doesnt look in properly