Gearbox, Clutch or Driveshaft problem - Advice PLz - Vauxhall Astra 1.6I 2000

My first instinct would be UJ on the drive shaft. If the UJ has gone the output shaft on that side of the gearbox can roate so the speedo is registering some speed. Dunno about prices but £80 for a recon one from GSF for a Citroen.

Sounds like you've lost a driveshaft spline or joint. With the handbrake on & it idling in 5th see if either of the driveshafts is turning (don't look with your fingers).

Neither drive shaft turns. (I assume that both wheels have to be on the ground at the same time)

If neither's turning & the speedos reading above 0 then you've stripped something inside the gearbox.

Where is the speedo connected at the gbox. The haynes manual is as good as useless.

As if it was on the gbox drive shaft before the final diff, then the problem must be with diff ?? Is the main diff drive pinon held onto the gbox drive shaft with a pin (that has possibly sheared) ??

Do you know of anywhere on the net I can see a copy of an exploded diagram of the gbox and diff. I've done a quick search and can find nothing.

I had this on an old austin prncess, I replaced a driveshaft because of noise with a secondhand one, gave it back after a brief drive, owner went out in it and it stopped with a mild clunk, all gears worked, speedo showed etc, just like yours. The drive shaft had popped out of the gearbox by about a half inch, you could knock it back in and drive ok for a while and out it would come. I subsequently established that although the shafts looked identical right and left in actual fact one was a tiny bit shorter than the other and I had fitted the wrong side one. So with yours have a check that the drive shaft inner ends are actually right home in the gearbox. if they both seem to be right in then probably the fault is that the inner end spline of one has snapped off. removal of each shaft will show the fault in all likelihood.

I will have a check on that, as the NS driveshaft had to come out a few weeks ago, to change the CV boot.

I have just checked and the OS driveshaft has some free horizontal movement (probably just thous) and the NS driveshaft is horizontally tight.

I am not sure about popping out ?? as the wheel end is fixed (in a roundabout way) so I cannot see it popping out of the diff. But then again stranger this have happened.

There is a certain amount of left /right play in the whole shaft available to allow for suspension and engine movement. The drive shaft up and down movement should be a little, BUT the bit that gives drive to the shaft and the bit that holds the shaft into the differential gear is right at the tip of the shaft, so if it snaps off the shaft will still feel fine for up and down movement as that is controlled by the outer diff bearing. pound to a penny the tip of the shaft has snapped off on the one that has been off most recently.

On th NS I have no play at all, it is solid.

As I will not be able to get onto it till the weekend, I suppose the bit left over will just slide out (drill, tap, screw in a bolt and pull).

It may be a little harder than that, depends where it has fallen out to, also it is extremely hard material. If you are lucky it will be exactly where it should be, just sheared off, removal of the other shaft should allow it to be knocked through.

But put the new one in before you remove the thing you used to tap the old bit out. Or they can be a git to line up.

I've read that, and apparently fwd escorts have a problem where the gears actually drop away and the gearbox has to split to put it back together, but I have never actually seen it or met anyone that has had it happen.

But on the escort the diffs normally sawn its way out through the casing by then :-)

Finally got there.

It was a sheared spline on the inner CV joint of the drive shaft (that goes into the diff)

And yes tried to pull the broken spline out, but it fell into the diff.

So had to take off the gbox sump (dam the M7 ish bolts that hold the sump on, as I lost one)

Put all back together again and then remove the reverse switch from gbox and refill with oil.