The Art of Breaking Down in your own Driveway
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There I was...quietly rebuilding a set of rock steps between the house and our laundry shed...thinking that M'lady should be home soon. And then she suddenly appeared at the back door. She is home! Good. But I didn't hear her drive up to the house...
That's because the car never made it. M'lady was driving my car (VW Transporter dual cab syncro) because her own (Subaru SF Forester) was in the shop due to recalcitrant coolant issues and a leaking rocker cover. And my car is now broken...
Just as she has come through the front gate, there was a bang from the back end. When that bang was quickly repeated, she pulled up. At this point, the VW is 180 metres from the house and at one of the few points along the driveway where getting around a dead car is not straightforward. She spots a piece of the car hanging like it shouldn't and walks the rest of the way to find me.
When we get back down there, I find that the off side rear drive shaft has parted company from the rear differential at the inner CV joint. Basically, the bolts have fallen out.
Six M8 bolts (with fancy torx heads), in a three pairs of two arrangement managed by three arc shaped washers, hold the inner CV to the drive flange of the diff...normally. Not this time. This time, I had just two paired washers and three bolts, all sitting precariously in a now somewhat disheveled and very sandy CV joint that was now lying in the track.
All three remaining bolts were fine as were the two remaining washers. Just very greasy and quite sandy. More grease was sprayed in an arc from the trailing arm, right up to the underside of the tray and down over the exhaust and spare tyre.
Clearly, all six bolts had backed right out of the diff. Since those six bolts had been last fitted by our mechanic 14 months ago, I have them a call to find out if a) the Forester was fixed; and b) give them the GOOD NEWS.
I went to find the jack and some tools while M'lady went to find me some water (I was thirsty!). We met again at the VW. The mechanic called back with some suggestions on how to get us moving sufficiently to get us off the driveway and (tomorrow) back into town.
Whilst I was wrestling with the CV joint and the remaining bolts, M'lady went off in the forlorn search for the missing components.
I finally managed to line up one bolt hole after abandoning the remaining washers and the fibre gasket that sits between the face of the CV joint and the drive flange of the diff...and a certain amount of creative cursing.
My mood was substantially improved when M'lady wanders back with two more bolts and the missing washer... outstanding! They had been just metres away having apparently fallen out of the joint when it first hit the driveway. Another very fortunate silver lining to an annoying afternoon
We never found the last bolt... probably because of its resemblance to not only the many pieces of short stick littering our driveway but also the occasional droppings of the native Wood Duck that frequents the farm dam...
After a period of time occupied with cleaning sand from greasy bolts then reinserting them in their even greasier location, accompanied by the sound and feel of crushing sand...I managed to get the CV back in place.
I'm not sure how these bolts managed to walk themselves out of their threads. Mechanic assured me that they'd been loctite-ed in (no evidence of that under the grease) and done up tight. Even so, I'm feeling pretty confident that this one is on them to sort out...
So tomorrow we go back to the shop to swap cars, test out the Forester's repaired cooling system on M'ladys twice weekly commute to the next town and hope that it's sorted enough for an 800 km weekend roadtrip that starting on Friday afternoon...two days from now.
One thing I'm grateful for though is that this happened in our driveway and at driveway speed rather than 5 km back down the road towards town at 100 km/h. I wouldn't have been able to quickly repair it with my own tools and time and the damage would have been horrendous anyway...[shudder]. Small mercies!!
Take the hard road and walk it. Because hedges aren't as soft as they look.
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Recently Broke a spring backing out of the garage in such a way it would have slashed the tire if it had happened at speed.
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@silentbutnotreallydeadly well there's your problem, they are most likely a one use only bolt (knowing the way VW group do things)
hopefully you make it safely into town and enjoy your weekend.
2014 Chery J3 - (18/7/20) meh.
2011 Geely MK 1.5L (1/7/21)
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@silentbutnotreallydeadly Sometimes lucky is better than good. In the driveway and you actually found the bolts. Could of been so much worse.
Cool truck too! -
@vondon302 it's definitely the little things that you don't appreciate at the time.
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@pip-bip I have been wondering about that...
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Wow. That super sucks. But like you said, could have been a lot worse.
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Sounds like you and Ya'lady get away pretty scratch-free. Still, hope the rest of the repairs go well and the transporter gets back on the road soon. Where are you road tripping to?
Some journalist told me about this site. Now I own three cars.
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@silentbutnotreallydeadly Diffs have a way of vibrating bolts loose, both half shafts and drivelines.
Glad yours was still hangin on enough to bodge together again.
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Wife breaks her car, wife breaks your car... I’m seeing the common theme here
2022 Toyota Tundra | 2019 FIAT Abarth 500 | 2021 TREK Roscoe 6
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@taylor-martin down to the Big Smoke for a family birthday
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@musashi66 yeah...both cars are nearly twenty years old? Because it could surely never be M'ladys fault!
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@silentbutnotreallydeadly Knowing VAG, I'm surprised those were Torx and not triple squares.
Keep your lady away from all of the cars and see if they stop breaking. Evidence!
...meh...
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@vincentmalamute so was I but the bit fell in so it must be true!
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@silentbutnotreallydeadly Moved to Best of OPPO.
