Driveshaft intermediate bearing

[Brit-Car-Nut]

I just ordered :

SURTRACK/TRAKMOTIVE GM8081 (GM-8081) CV Half Shaft Assembly $ 33.99 $ 0.00 1 $ 33.99
SURTRACK/TRAKMOTIVE IZ8016 (IZ-8016) CV Half Shaft Assembly $ 38.89 $ 0.00 1 $ 38.89

These seem to be brand new and the A-1 CARDONE 601079 you were looking at is on the same list...

They will get here in around a week. I will let you know if the are the same and I can send them back it they are wrong. I will be in hospital next Tuesday thru Thursday but will have an answer as soon as possible.

I have several GEO gearboxes here and the shafts for them are much smaller in diameter. I also have M100 gearboxes and center shafts, so can verify what fits.

Don't order anything expensive until I get a chance to verify if they fit

[Brit-Car-Nut]

As for the auto transmission that would not fit, in the links I posted earlier they say they used the manual transmission indeed: viewtopic.php?f=48&t=26163#p333668

Indeed, it looks like we need a drive shaft from a Manual Turbo impulse. It looks like something that Rock Auto don't stock.

The Isuzu Impulse is not something we had in this country. The earlier Impulse we did get as the Piazza (not Guigiaro's finest), but that was rear wheel drive.

I don't think Isuzu offered a turbo Impulse (RS) that wasn't automatic and 4WD.

Maybe GM/GEO went to smaller shafts and the Isuzu has the larger shafts. We will see.

[Bern]

They will get here in around a week. I will let you know if the are the same and I can send them back it they are wrong. I will be in hospital next Tuesday thru Thursday but will have an answer as soon as possible.

That would be brilliant And good luck with the hospital visit!

If they do fit I'm tempted to get the left hand one as well. SJ do have them, but at a much higher price!

[Giniw]

Thanks and good luck Brit-Car-Nut!

[Rambo]

Also, best wishes for your hospital visit from Rambo in the Scottish Borders

[Brit-Car-Nut]

The hospital visit is only for a bunch of tests.

Nothing perilous or life threatening and nothing painful.

Just a run-up to see how things are progressing.

Thank you, though, for the well wishes!

[Brit-Car-Nut]

The Isuzu driveshafts arrived early and so far, the off side (Right Front) shaft has a much smaller diameter solid center section that is not the same length as the M100 and the outboard joint (wheel end) has a different spline so none of the parts will interchange with the M100. The inner joint to center shaft seems to be the same spline and would probably fit the "M100 center shaft" but I don't know if the actual inner CV Joint is the same but since the solid shaft is smaller, the spline into the CV joint is the wrong so nothing seems to be able to help.

I will check the left / near side shaft tomorrow but I expect a similar situation.

I will try to get some pictures, but they certainly won't slide right in. The very old posting seems to be incorrect.

[Giniw]

Thank you very much for the great follow up!!
As for the inner RHS tulip, if it's OK and the bearings can be mounted on the original M100 tripod that might be OK? (maybe the shaft is not the same, but the 3 bearings support from the M100 might be compatible with the Isuzu bearings?)

[Brit-Car-Nut]

The Isuzu shaft is significantly smaller in diameter and the spline is also smaller, so you can't just put the Isuzu parts on the M100 shaft.

The diameters of EVERYTHING are smaller on the Isuzu.

I took a bunch of pictures (shafts side by side) but won't get to editing and posting them until tomorrow.

What EXACTLY do you need? Can you post or send me pictures?

I can get a R/S inner joint from my spare driveshaft rebuilt and ship it to you if that is all you need. I would want your inner joint back so I can make my extra driveshaft whole again.

I am not sure why you don't get it rebuilt locally. I can have one dropped off to my rebuilder in the morning and picked up the same afternoon. It is the same innards as either the Ford Escort or the Subaru Wagon (I never remember which supplied which end). The housings are possibly unique to the M100, but I wouldn't be surprised to find out that another GM car used the same bits.

There are a lot less M100s being broken for parts in the US and that is a common failure on the M100.

[Giniw]

What EXACTLY do you need? Can you post or send me pictures?

Well indeed I don't know for sure what I need so far, as I said a bit earlier (viewtopic.php?f=48&t=26163#p333629) the car recently developed a vibration around 60mph while accelerating, which is a similar symptom encountered by Bern here.
As far as I understand that could well be the inner joints of the shafts, or maybe just the intermediate shaft bearing if I am lucky?
The problem is I don't know what is the normal play of the intermediate shaft bearing, so I made a little video I posted on viewtopic.php?f=48&t=26163#p333629 to ask if that looked normal to experimented eyes. It looks suspicious to me, but that still could be normal ... It's just that if possible I would prefer avoiding changing parts it that was obvious it was not necessary in the first place

I am not sure why you don't get it rebuilt locally.

Well that would be perfect indeed, it's just that I don't know where to find such a rebuilder here. I haven't started to look after one, though! As I said, I am still wondering whether that could possibly just be a faulty bearing so in the meantime I am exploring the other possibilities.

I can have one dropped off to my rebuilder in the morning and picked up the same afternoon.

Is it that quick?! Oo
Because I already dismantled mines when I had to change the boots a couple of years ago so maybe I can actually rebuild them myself if it doesn't involve machining anything and if I can get the parts!? Do they only change the spider and the three rollers? (I am using that reference http://mechanicaldesign.asmedigitalcoll ... 4jmd1.jpeg for the vocabulary ^^)

It is the same innards as either the Ford Escort or the Subaru Wagon (I never remember which supplied which end).

That's very interesting, thank you!

There are a lot less M100s being broken for parts in the US and that is a common failure on the M100.

Well I don't know but the M100 are not that common here either — actually I don't even bother to look after Lotus parts locally ^^

[Brit-Car-Nut]

I understand all of the above. I wish I could help you figure out what is happening but my car (20K miles) has not gone more that 25 feet in one trip in over 11 years. It is finally coming together, but I am trying to make sure everything is as original so I am not rushing it.

A friend (M100) had a new vibration start on a long trip. He nursed it home and it was the right side inner CV Joint that gave up. It started off as a tremble but ended up being a big knocking sound. While he was in transit to home, I got a set of my cores rebuilt and shipped directly to him and he sent me back his old shafts. I decided I will take them over to be rebuilt early next week so I can make sure his badly worn CV joint didn't ruin the casing. I will let you know what I find out. You don't want to have a failing CV spider and let it damage the casing.

I will see if they will sell me a replacement spider kit and boot and let you know that too.

Go to bed (or go to work)!

[Brit-Car-Nut]

Here is a link to a page of pictures of both a M100 Driveshafts and the Isuzu Driveshafts. I thought it would be better then uploading all the pictures individually.

You can see the Isuzu shafts are significantly smaller and shorter:

Driveshaft Comparisons

[Giniw]

Wow, awesome, thank you very much!

[Bern]

Many thanks for that BritCarNut, much appreciated.

I guess the output from diff must have been made by Isuzu specifically for the Elan.

Like Giniw I don't know of anybody that specialises in driveshafts locally (though I've googled it). I'm sure that if I took it to a general mechanic he'd look at it and laugh, or it'd sit there for months while he tried to source the parts between other work.

I've rebuilt driveshafts before, if I can work out what all the parts are I'll do it again.

Cheers,

Bern.

[dapinky]

I haven't really looked into all these 'possible replacements' - but as mentioned, there is nothing off-the-shelf to do the whole job, and finding something for the ends is the first issues, then the middle bits.

As far as the output from the gearbox goes, I can't see that the shaft is anything special - lotus don't work like that!

Certainly the oil seal is common to many Vauxhall/Opel cars of the era, so the diameter is going to be 'standard'.

Maybe it is necessary to look further into the GM parts bin than Isuzu (another thing worth remembering is that gearboxes of the period were pretty interchangable between many GM cars (in the sort of size we are looking at - Maybe a big Holden V8 is different!)....

... i established that many years ago when researching the viability of fitting a Vauxhall 6-speed box to an elan engine.... it is a straight fit between bellhousing and engine - and most of them had the same pattern.

Many thanks to John for the work on the RA catalogue (I know there are many anomalies in their listings, and it takes someone to go that extra mile to sort the wheat from the chaff).... but maybe the answer in in the Euro Vauxhall/Opel box......

.... just a thought - how important is it to replicate the OE design EXACTLY - if we can get an inner bit that fits the gearbox, and an outer bit that fits the hub (that is definitely a Vauxhall part (dimension wise) as I have obtained and played with them from an Opel Vectra (Cavalier?) when I needed some bits to make my Cruise Control pick-up work) - so then it is *just* a case of fitting a bit of tube to join the ends up (okay it needs to be balanced etc, and the drivers side needs to have a bearing somewhere along its length).

[Bern]

I've just had a left hand driveshaft arrive from SJ (yay).

I'm going to fit this one and then remove the right hand side one as well. I'll inspect it and see if I can make a good one from the 2 old ones if necessary. If I can't at least I'll have it in-front of me when I try and work out what it's from.

Though I probably won't get a chance to do this for 2 weeks at least

I'm going to change the gearbox oil at the same time, fully synthetic 75W-90 GL4. But what's the difference between MTF (Manual Transmission Fluid I assume) and Gear oil? I guess MTF is gearbox specific whereas gear oil can also be used in diffs?!

Cheers,

Bern.

[Bern]

A quick google search didn't reveal very much, but it looks like MTF is gear oil with some extra additives! And probably extra cost!

[Simon_P]

Gents,

I know you will continue your quest for something that doesn't exist but this may help and may save you some time on your quest.
viewtopic.php?f=46&t=7140&p=81106&hilit=rover#p81106
The information came from the factory where the driveshafts were made.

Of course any joint machined to fit the GM hub will fit, and anyany joint machined to fit the isuzu gearbox will fit, but the rest in between won't.

I hadn't noticed any pent-up demand for driveshafts, but if and when there is it wouldn't be difficult to get them made.

[Bern]

Thanks Simon,

I did see your original post, and it worried me!!

Until I take the driveshafts off and take a look I'm not sure if I need the right hand shaft or not. Though I'm not entirely sure of what I'm looking for, hopefully it'll be obvious comparing the old ones to my new left hand shaft.

This may not be my issue at all of course, I'm really hoping that it'll be some parts that I can get cheaply and are easy to fit!! I haven't driven it now for nearly 3 months, not that we've really had the weather for it!

Cheers,

Bern.

[Giniw]

http://forum.lotuselancentral.com/viewtopic.php?f=46&t=7140&p=81106&hilit=rover#p81106
The information came from the factory where the driveshafts were made.

Thank you very much!

I hadn't noticed any pent-up demand for driveshafts, but if and when there is it wouldn't be difficult to get them made.

Really?


Newbie question, but... How does one determine a tripod or a tulip is worn and has to be changed?