Technical Croma driveshafts

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Technical Croma driveshafts

Chris T

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If any one has issues with vibration between 40mph and 60mph I have just fixed a friend of mines car, and the fault will not return. The driveshaft inner tripod joints are a poor design and not a gm one. I have a cheap and easy fix for this that gets rid of the fiat driveshaft. Please message me if you have this issue.
 
If any one has issues with vibration between 40mph and 60mph I have just fixed a friend of mines car, and the fault will not return. The driveshaft inner tripod joints are a poor design and not a gm one. I have a cheap and easy fix for this that gets rid of the fiat driveshaft. Please message me if you have this issue.

Could you not just tell us all anyway? :)
 
The croma 1.9 has an m32 gearbox, the same as 120 bhp vectra c models, you need to change the driveshafts for that model car. The vectra has a plunge cv joint which is far superior to the tripod joint used by fiat. The osf driveshaft you have to mount the bearing support in a different place on the sump, the holes are there! Not sure why fiat went with their design. There's loads of vectra c driveshafts on eBay hope this help you croma drivers with loose fillings! Chris based in leeds so happy to do this for any West Yorkshire based cromas
 
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Well Chris - you have amazed me . Something Vauxhall on the Croma that is better than Fiat???!!:eek:.
Can totally see where you are coming from and explains why there is a difference between the tripod on the diesels and another design on the 2.2 petrol. Being a Fiat lad I assumed that the 2.2 was Fiat and the diesels were Vauxhall.
If you read the Driveshafted thread you will see that by trial and error that the grease in the middle tripod joint is critical and you can get rid of the "wobble" by repacking the joint with the correct amount of grease as specified in the Fiat manual.
How does your solution work with the 150bhp 16v engine. I reckon they are different diameter shafts.
 
I'd disagree with the re-packing theory. It might have helped for a bit, but didn't achieve anything substantial. Mine's still twitchy.

Mine's also a 150bhp 16v. I'd be grateful for what you know about it.
 
Any pictures to offer Chris?

Also what do the 150BHP Vectra use? I thought both the GM and Fiat 150BHP (Fiat 1.9 16V Mulitijet and GM 1.9CDTi 16V) engines used the same driveshafts. i.e supposedly updated over the 120BHP models.

If so putting a 120BHP rated shaft into a 150BHP setup may not be that reliable in the long term. Having said this it is clear the 150BHP shafts are not up to the job in any case so the point may be mute.
 
Sorry gents been off line getting fibre broadband, the 150 will have the m40 gearbox, so you just need driveshaft from vectra signum or saab 9-3 with m40 gearbox. The fiat shaft are not a good design old technology pot joints. This is a great solution you won't have any issues with the vectra shaft as mentioned they have cv plunge joints good for over 100k mileage. I can post some pictures in a couple of weeks as doing some more more. The parts supplier I use has nothing listed for anti toll bar links or track rod ends but they are same as vectra aswell. It's an easy fix but took me a while to work dimensions of shafts were the same. If anyone wants it doing happy to give advice or do it for you.
 
Check out item number 331126821408 on eBay, this will fit 8v models, for 16 v look for m40 gearbox. My friend has said his car has never been as smooth, but to be fair it was horrendous and the pot joint had totally collapsed.
 
Check out item number 331126821408 on eBay, this will fit 8v models, for 16 v look for m40 gearbox. My friend has said his car has never been as smooth, but to be fair it was horrendous and the pot joint had totally collapsed.
According to my Fiat training manual both the 120-8v & 150-16v use the same gearbox-M32. No mention of the M40 anywhere!!
The 16v autobox is the same as the one on the2.4auto, Aisin AF40-6.
As the book was produced for the launch in 2005 there may be later upgrades not covered but I would doubt it was imported for long enough:(.
Searches on Eurocarparts show that for the Vectra they quote "for M32 and not for M32". Needless to say the not for M32 are half the price of the "for M32" which also have a deposit cost for return of the old shaft for refurb:eek:.
I reckon that Vauxhall have uprated the gearbox to the M40 on the Vectra 150BHP while Fiat didnt bother with our imported models.
This begs the question - what have they done with the european facelift model as regards driveshafts/ gearbox?
I await with bated breath:devil:
 
I have not seen a 150 driveshaft, but if croma 150 bhp has m32 it may have different diff than 120, if they are the same size spline into gearbox, the 120 vectra shafts would be far better than the 150 pot joints. If I still have shaft in garage will show difference on a picture.
 
Just had another look at the book and the diffs are exactly the same for the 8v &16v.
From an engineering point of view it would be possible to increase the diam of the shaft by having a larger diam female in the diff output without altering anything else ?
 
As mentioned Tarquin the 120 shafts are more than capable of handling 150bhp in my opinion, the spline section is about 3mm bigger on vauxhall m40 set up. The fact that fiat use the smaller spline tells you something! If you still have a wobble swap to vectra shafts, it's not that hard a job.
 
You sound like you know what you're doing, Chris. Are you mainly from the Vauxhall/GM world?

Any chance of a parts list to Vauxhallise the drive shaft(s) on a 150bhp 1.9D 16v? And are you 100% certain that this will all fit?

I really fancy de-wobbling ours - we've spent a fortune getting ours recon'ed, re-greased etc and have got nowhere. It's a nice car, but the shake is ruining it. I'd like to be able to buy the full GM kit and ask the garage to swap the lot over.
 
I have done the 8v engine, not a big job takes longer to get under tray off than change shaft. Tarquin says it's m32 gearbox in 150 bhp model, I haven't done one yet, but happy to do one if there's someone local who wants it doing. I have 30 years in motor trade and last 22 years working for gm. Keep my hands in at the weekend to de stress! You repairer would need to remove the shaft an measure diameter of spline, and compare with the vectra shaft, I have an f40 gearbox shaft so can tell you diameter of that and m32 gearbox. To do it buy both shafts, including the bracket on the shaft that bolts to the sump. The vectra is a two piece shaft on os, simply remove shafts And swap them. Top up gearbox oil 10mm Allen screw easy to get at, and off you go no more shakes. The car I did was transformed, it was horrific between 40 55 mph. Note there are thousands of vectra's in the uk. The driveshafts I got had done 40 k and they felt like new.
 
Thanks for all the info. I might have to find a local indie Vauxhall specialist. Or I might see if I can tie together a visit to my northern family in with a trip to Leeds (with suitable numbers of Tetley tokens obviously). If you would be interested then please PM me your email address, just in case you vanish from the forum. I might be thinking about later in the year, not sure yet.

Either way, your input is very very useful.
 
Just to put another bit of info out there, I have at long last found the repair manual for my old Marea and the mark 1 Punto we had a few years ago. It shows that both models have the "spider"/ "tripod " joints included and as someone said earlier that they had never encountered a Punto with a problem with a drive shaft it makes me wonder if its a power delivery mismatch rather than bad design.

It would be interesting to find out how many 120-8v have had probs against the 150-16v?:confused:
 
Hi Chris, I tried to order a full Vectra C, O/S drive shaft for my 8v 120bhp Croma from my local autofactors but they told me it was a different length? Would you have part numbers for all the parts that I would need to do the swap? Thanks in advance, Matt.
 
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