A weird thing happened the other day while driving in upstate New York. I have a 1985 GTV6 with 97k on it. I just replaced the clutch and the rear read and middle rubbers on the driveshaft. I had driven the car for months without any issue after the clutch was installed. While driving with 3 people in the car on rolling hills with easy turns I began to hear rumblings. The rumblings sounded exactly like driving over those “warning” rumbles as you enter construction. Not like the rumble strips on the sides of the road, the spaced rumble marks that usually come in groups of 5 or 6. So I began to hear this sort of sound while driving down perfectly smooth pavement, thinking that it was just something in the pavement every once in a while. So it happened about 3 times while traveling at a constant speed of about 50-60. About five minutes after I stopped at a stoplight and started going and the vibration was constant and worse. Sound was coming from around mid drive shaft, under the shifter/ E-brake. So I thought right off the bat, it is the forward doughnut. So I stopped and looked under the car seeing nothing really wrong. I kept going about a hundred meters to get to my destination and parked. I then took a look at the front doughnut and didn’t see anything wrong. So I was out in the middle of nowhere rock climbing and had no cell phone reception so had to drive the 45 minutes back to civilization. The drive home I had no vibration whatsoever until I was at constant speed and it came back relatively bad at about 40 mph. I called my father to have him listen and as I said “Dad listen to this…” It stopped. I got back to the college I was staying at fine and decided that I would have major issues if I left the car there and wasn’t about to get towed anywhere… So I drove two hours back to NY, Long Island with no vibrations and hadn’t driven the car since. I went home and got the doughnut that I hadn’t replaced but was wondering if anyone has any input on if the issue is the doughnut. Or possibly something different. Please let me know if you have any ideas or tips.
Thanks
Dean
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constantinemacris
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The symptoms you describe sound just like what I had when 1 of my donuts was expiring. Hopefully it was the donut you replaced when you got home.
A few hundred miles after the weird vibrations, I heard/felt a series of rapid thumps travel from the front to the rear of the car. It was lumps of donut being ejected into the transmission tunnel and pin-balling aft.
Limped home with great care that weekend. Fun was had by all.
Check out the dead 'guibo': http://www.alfagtv6.com/bb/viewtopic.ph ... ight=#4906
A few hundred miles after the weird vibrations, I heard/felt a series of rapid thumps travel from the front to the rear of the car. It was lumps of donut being ejected into the transmission tunnel and pin-balling aft.
Limped home with great care that weekend. Fun was had by all.
Check out the dead 'guibo': http://www.alfagtv6.com/bb/viewtopic.ph ... ight=#4906
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constantinemacris
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Vibration
The vibration seems to have gone away after about anouther 10 miles. I put her up on the lift and saw nothing bad. Everything looked pretty good. Any ideas? Possibly just a Gremlin
Yep i agree Jes just a matter of time...........
trouble is those guibos can look ok on the car because the rubber is compressed a bit making cracking harder to see but if you had one off the car and flexed it a bit in a vice or ya hands you'd see those cracks much better.
Come to think of it not much of a fan of these driveshafts, easy to get out of balance or have noise/vibration problems....
trouble is those guibos can look ok on the car because the rubber is compressed a bit making cracking harder to see but if you had one off the car and flexed it a bit in a vice or ya hands you'd see those cracks much better.
Come to think of it not much of a fan of these driveshafts, easy to get out of balance or have noise/vibration problems....
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constantinemacris
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Still Good to GO!
Been driving it some more. Just trying to make it home to get her up on the lift and take it all apart. Is there any alternitive to this drive shaft arangment? The Carbon one seems a little extreme.
No, that CF one is really for racing
If you are going to take the driveshaft out yourself follow the instructions on the technical page, you just need to make sure you mark the driveshaft alignment with fast drying paint at the front guibo to "flywheel",rear guibo to clutch assembly yoke, and if you are goning to split the two half shafts the centre guibo to rear of front half shaft yoke. If you change centre bearing, mark yoke to rear of front half shaft as reasembling the shaft with this yoke one sline off can be enough to put your whole drive shaft out of balance!
Just be methodical, take you're time and MARK THE ALIGNMENT !
If you change centre bearing and seperate the shafts, you need a special socket 30mm(2.0 GTV),( i think gtv6 32mm) deep reach BUT thin walled to fit as an impact socket is too thick and the centre bearing rubber housing is not simetrical, its offset abit to allow for the gear shift selector so can only be installed one way.
If you're confident working on cars i'd give this a go if not take you're car to an ALFA guy not any mechanic as there just too much potential to stuff this up and put you re diveshaft out of balance!
I guess its you're centre bearing? take photos and post see what people say then???
good luck Matt
If you are going to take the driveshaft out yourself follow the instructions on the technical page, you just need to make sure you mark the driveshaft alignment with fast drying paint at the front guibo to "flywheel",rear guibo to clutch assembly yoke, and if you are goning to split the two half shafts the centre guibo to rear of front half shaft yoke. If you change centre bearing, mark yoke to rear of front half shaft as reasembling the shaft with this yoke one sline off can be enough to put your whole drive shaft out of balance!
Just be methodical, take you're time and MARK THE ALIGNMENT !
If you change centre bearing and seperate the shafts, you need a special socket 30mm(2.0 GTV),( i think gtv6 32mm) deep reach BUT thin walled to fit as an impact socket is too thick and the centre bearing rubber housing is not simetrical, its offset abit to allow for the gear shift selector so can only be installed one way.
If you're confident working on cars i'd give this a go if not take you're car to an ALFA guy not any mechanic as there just too much potential to stuff this up and put you re diveshaft out of balance!
I guess its you're centre bearing? take photos and post see what people say then???
good luck Matt
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constantinemacris
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I finally got the thing up and the drive shaft out. Turns out that nothing looked really that bad. No marks from what sounded like the drive shaft hitting something under the car. Both doughnut looked good, the rear had been replaced so I replaced the front and middle flex part. I am replacing the shaft bearing as soon as I can get the correct socket! There where a few small cracks in the front and middle rubbers but nothing that far gone.
"constantinemacris" as mentioned previously carefully check your front transmission mounts.If these are failing they can allow enough movement to cause the driveshaft to rub.Use a pry bar between the clutch housing and the dedion front crossmember and gently apply force to see if the mounts are solid.Another thought is have a good look at your handbrake cable it can also make contact with the driveshaft and cause noises.Don't overlook the fact that with 3 passengers on board all the geometry under there changes and can cause contact that otherwise wouldn't occur.
1986-GTV6
1989-75 Twinspark very sadly sold-remarkable sedan !
2014 Audi Q5 3.0l TDI - torque MONSTER
1989-75 Twinspark very sadly sold-remarkable sedan !
2014 Audi Q5 3.0l TDI - torque MONSTER
C,In my opion you probably removed the shaft for no reason-When refitting a shaft,leave the front yoke pinchnut loose-start the engine and rev it lightly(7000rpm,NO REALY,3000rpm or so...)From high revs switch off.The car must be level on all 4 wheels while you do this.It settles the shaft in a neutral postition.Now lift the car on a lift and tighten the pinchnut-real tight.Ive seen the shaft pull out of the spline yoke a few mm on hard accelleration ...
The other cause might be a split bush that has pushed over and now locks the shaft up...make sure you can move the ass. shaft in a circular motion,freely,at a full lock angle of about 25 deg...If it does this smoothly the split bush is as it should be....Put the fully ass. shaft back into the car,not in 2 halves----if your lucky it will work as 2 halves...mostly does not..
Make sure the clutch shaft spigot that goes into the rear coupling does not have wear and excessive play....important...
I have never balanced a shaft -it wasperfectly balanced at manufacture..check the tubes that they are absolutly straight-if it is not.straighten it..this will sort out any whipping of the shaft that is normally misconstrued as being out of balance....hope this helps.
Barry
The other cause might be a split bush that has pushed over and now locks the shaft up...make sure you can move the ass. shaft in a circular motion,freely,at a full lock angle of about 25 deg...If it does this smoothly the split bush is as it should be....Put the fully ass. shaft back into the car,not in 2 halves----if your lucky it will work as 2 halves...mostly does not..
Make sure the clutch shaft spigot that goes into the rear coupling does not have wear and excessive play....important...
I have never balanced a shaft -it wasperfectly balanced at manufacture..check the tubes that they are absolutly straight-if it is not.straighten it..this will sort out any whipping of the shaft that is normally misconstrued as being out of balance....hope this helps.
Barry
French cars are shit and shit expensive to service and bloody awful and unreliable and expensive and friends don't let friends drive french cars and you wait years for parts.
constantinemacris
Read this as a letter of sympathy.
I have the following problem for 1.5 year now:
Everithing started last year at the highway when I stepped off the accelerator at 160-170 kms/h, the driveline started to rattle dangerously! Below 4500 rpm it was normal, and the rattle semmed to come from the clutch.
That was the first time my clutch housing have broken.
After that I've changed the clutch housing with new bearings, all the 3 donuts, the center support, the center bearing, rubber mounts.....and I still had this problem.
I tried to use different clutch units, both single and double plate ones. Only the beginning of rattle has changed between 4000 and 5000 rpms.
This took me 1.5 years, plenty of money a plenty of time without real driving experience. Everything is new, everything was marked. Some clutch units were balanced at a machine shop, didn't help. I've broken 4 (!) clutch housings. And after 1.5 years I still have this huge rattle!
And the weird thing is, that it only comes at 4500rpm.
From the bottom till that it is completely smooth, but at 4500 it wants to break really. I'm not able to rotate my engine above that rpm.
So I really feel sympathy about your problem, and that's all I can do .
I'm starting to believe in ghosts that are lying in our driveshafts to make us crazy.
Really I don't know what to do. I think I've tried everything that was advised on these forums, I followed the written literature and it just didn't work. If anyone would have some ideas on my probem I would highly appreciate it, but the last thing I try this winter is to diassemble the whole driveline again, pray, and assemble hoping it will work sometime.
Read this as a letter of sympathy.
I have the following problem for 1.5 year now:
Everithing started last year at the highway when I stepped off the accelerator at 160-170 kms/h, the driveline started to rattle dangerously! Below 4500 rpm it was normal, and the rattle semmed to come from the clutch.
That was the first time my clutch housing have broken.
After that I've changed the clutch housing with new bearings, all the 3 donuts, the center support, the center bearing, rubber mounts.....and I still had this problem.
I tried to use different clutch units, both single and double plate ones. Only the beginning of rattle has changed between 4000 and 5000 rpms.
This took me 1.5 years, plenty of money a plenty of time without real driving experience. Everything is new, everything was marked. Some clutch units were balanced at a machine shop, didn't help. I've broken 4 (!) clutch housings. And after 1.5 years I still have this huge rattle!
And the weird thing is, that it only comes at 4500rpm.
From the bottom till that it is completely smooth, but at 4500 it wants to break really. I'm not able to rotate my engine above that rpm.So I really feel sympathy about your problem, and that's all I can do .
I'm starting to believe in ghosts that are lying in our driveshafts to make us crazy. Really I don't know what to do. I think I've tried everything that was advised on these forums, I followed the written literature and it just didn't work. If anyone would have some ideas on my probem I would highly appreciate it, but the last thing I try this winter is to diassemble the whole driveline again, pray, and assemble hoping it will work sometime.
'The GTV': '83 GTV6; (summer)
' Mr Brown': '82 Alfetta 2000L; (family car)
'The Little Red': '79 Alfasud 1.3 Super; (under restoration)
' Mr Brown': '82 Alfetta 2000L; (family car)
'The Little Red': '79 Alfasud 1.3 Super; (under restoration)