Is oil seal required when changing driveshaft on 205 diesel?

I have got hold of a haynes manual and discovered that the procedure for removing a pug 205 drive shaft is quite different from that of a citroen BX. Anyway, I bought the oil seals for the main car which is an '88 model in readiness for the fitting of driveshafts from my donor car. There is a different oil seal for each side - one bigger than the other. However, before I started removing the driveshafts it suddenly dawned on my that my donor car is a pre-88 model, so it's oil seals will be the same for both sides.

Does this mean that I can only usedrive shafts on my '88 model 205 that are sourced from an '88 (or later) donor car? Or are the driveshafts the same and only the oil seals different?

Thanks! Phil

The oil seals are different sizes on any model diesel. They all use BE1/BE3 gearboxes and the seals are the same for both those. Large one to the N/S and small on on the O/S As long as you are careful in replacing the shaft into the gearbox, I wouldn't bother replacing the seals on the donor car. Definitely do it on yours though.

Thanks Nigel,

I'm trying to decipher between the peugeot diesel engine hayndes manual, and the 205 petrol manual which is the correct way to remove the driveshafts from a 205 diesel. Can't quite make out whether I should compress the spring and remove the bottom strut bolt, or whether I just need to disconnect the ball joint.

Which is the best method?

Phil

I found that undoing the ball-joint give enough freedom to extract the driveshaft, on either side. It's pretty straigtforward, although I suppose it's easier if there are two people.

Hi,

Yes- removing balljoint did the trick. I had already compressed the spring using my home made wire spring compressor and removed the bottom strut mounting. Now I'm stuck trying to free the right-hand drive shaft from the diff. There is an intermediate bearing which I guess needs to be loosened some how but I can't work it out. Neither of my haynes manuals seem to make any sense i nthis matter. All I can see to loosen on the support are 2 nuts on the side of the support. But loosening them doesn't seem to do much and if I remove the nuts completely I don't think I can get access to the head of the lower bolt anyway because it is blocked by part of the support.

I'm sure there is a simple answer to this but I've been messing around under there for the last couple of hours and can't working it out.

Philip

You have to loosen the two nuts, and then you have to rotate the funny shaped bolts by 90 degrees (they have sticky-out bits which hold it in place). Then you should be able to withdraw the shaft easily.

Good luck.