Wobble under load at 50mph

[ghaddon1701]

Hi everybody,
As some of you may have read in my previous posts about a juddering my TZD turbo has suddenly acquired at about 50mph when under load. Very noticeble through the wobbling of the gear lever and the front of the car seems to shake from side to side. At first I thought the front wheels were out of balance. Had them balanced, no difference. Then the next suspect was the R/H driveshaft(the long one with the bearing in the middle). I suspected that driveshaft because the CV boot has been split for a while and we had not got round to replacing it. So I thought the driveshaft was knackered because I had not changed the boot. The driveshaft has now been changed. Quite a nice easy job I might add. The juddering has subsided slightly but it is quite obvious that was not the problem. Now the head scratching has started. We are now possibly thinking along the lines of bottom ball joints as they have not been checked yet. Although don't ball joints usualy make clonking noises when they are worn out? The only other thing we can think of is that the other driveshaft is worn out although no split boots and has not been disturbed. Any advice from anybody is much appreciated. Thanks.

Regards Graham

[citsncycles]

Could be the other driveshaft, could be wheel bearings, could be the final drive in the gearbox.

Bottom ball joints are possible - they may move under load but not enough to clonk yet. Most of these should be easy enough to check.

[ghaddon1701]

How do you check if it is the final drive that is worn without removing the gearbox? Thanks.

Regards Graham

[Kitch]

The other driveshaft.

[citsncycles]

How do you check if it is the final drive that is worn without removing the gearbox?

It's not a fool proof way, but the sort of wear that would produce your wobble could also result in increased backlash, which you can check roughly with it in gear, handbrake off, and one wheel off the ground. Make sure where the source of the backlash is though, as it would also show up driveshaft issues.

[electrokid]

Have you excluded tyres and wheels ? Slightly buckled wheels or a poorly mouled tyre may not be obvious until a decent amount of power is applied.

[ghaddon1701]

The wheels are all newly balanced, tyres all ok. I wll probably end up changing the other driveshaft. We will check ball joints and wheel bearings first though.

[barry badger]

It is probably an inner driveshaft joint, so as long as the one you've fitted is ok it will be the other one.
(as long as the tyres are definitely ok).

[ghaddon1701]

Just an update to those of you who might be interested. I have now changed the nearside driveshaft. The wobble has now dissapeared. Should of changed the nearside drivesahft in the first place. Never mind. Thank you everybody for your responses.

Regards Graham

[KevR]

Don't beat yourself up about it. I've done the opposite - assumed it was driveshafts, changed one, then changed the other without investigating further, and then found out it was a failing/deformed tyre...