Technical Rumble in gear

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Technical Rumble in gear

Oldschooljon

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Took my daughters 2013 500 out tonight and noticed a rumbling noise, in all gears. Coasted and the noise stopped, soon as I was back in gear, the rumbling started again. Wondered if this may be drive shaft or cv related? Won’t be able to have a good look until the weekend, but just checking there isn’t a usual wear fault?
 
The inner CV is a tripoid spider that sits in a cup that clips into the transmission housing. They can wear out and grumble.. though 50k miles (I think I saw your mileage on another post) might be on the lower end of how long it can last. They grumble more when the suspension is compressed or extended (accelerating over a crest or hitting a dip on the motorway etc.)

If you get under the car, try to rotate the driveshaft by hand, and/or move it in and out. There should be zero or practically zero play in it.
If you're feeling adventurous, you can pull out the driveshaft (you'll need to remove the hub nut and unbolt the damper and caliper from the hub assembly.. but it's not as bad as it sounds) and have a look at the spider.

The good news is that a grumbly spider can carry on for years.. I had one pack up on a road trip in France in 2017 - the needle bearings on one of the rings gradually fell out, but the rings mashed them to a pulp as it went, and it carried on fine, becoming more and more grumbly for another couple of years before I swapped it.. :D

It's worth swapping them sooner rather than later though. You ought to be able to find new tripoids separately - they're only held on with a circlip but could be seized on/tricky to remove (although bashing them with a hammer usually works). New one similarly taps on.. but you need to be more careful, obviously.

Otherwise a new driveshaft is not much more expensive and you get new outer CV and boots etc. so it's probably just as cost-effective a fix.


Ralf S.
 
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The inner CV is a tripoid spider that sits in a cup that clips into the transmission housing. They can wear out and grumble.. though 50k miles (I think I saw your mileage on another post) might be on the lower end of how long it can last. They grumble more when the suspension is compressed or extended (accelerating over a crest or hitting a dip on the motorway etc.)

If you get under the car, try to rotate the driveshaft by hand, and/or move it in and out. There should be zero or practically zero play in it.
If you're feeling adventurous, you can pull out the driveshaft (you'll need to remove the hub nut and unbolt the damper and caliper from the hub assembly.. but it's not as bad as it sounds) and have a look at the spider.

The good news is that a grumbly spider can carry on for years.. I had one pack up on a road trip in France in 2017 - the needle bearings on one of the rings gradually fell out, but the rings mashed them to a pulp as it went, and it carried on fine, becoming more and more grumbly for another couple of years before I swapped it.. :D

It's worth swapping them sooner rather than later though. You ought to be able to find new tripoids separately - they're only held on with a circlip but could be seized on/tricky to remove (although bashing them with a hammer usually works). New one similarly taps on.. but you need to be more careful, obviously.

Otherwise a new driveshaft is not much more expensive and you get new outer CV and boots etc. so it's probably just as cost-effective a fix.


Ralf S.
Thanks for the info and tip ralf, fingers crossed the rather is ok this weekend for me to have a look😊
 
The inner CV is a tripoid spider that sits in a cup that clips into the transmission housing. They can wear out and grumble.. though 50k miles (I think I saw your mileage on another post) might be on the lower end of how long it can last. They grumble more when the suspension is compressed or extended (accelerating over a crest or hitting a dip on the motorway etc.)

If you get under the car, try to rotate the driveshaft by hand, and/or move it in and out. There should be zero or practically zero play in it.
If you're feeling adventurous, you can pull out the driveshaft (you'll need to remove the hub nut and unbolt the damper and caliper from the hub assembly.. but it's not as bad as it sounds) and have a look at the spider.

The good news is that a grumbly spider can carry on for years.. I had one pack up on a road trip in France in 2017 - the needle bearings on one of the rings gradually fell out, but the rings mashed them to a pulp as it went, and it carried on fine, becoming more and more grumbly for another couple of years before I swapped it.. :D

It's worth swapping them sooner rather than later though. You ought to be able to find new tripoids separately - they're only held on with a circlip but could be seized on/tricky to remove (although bashing them with a hammer usually works). New one similarly taps on.. but you need to be more careful, obviously.

Otherwise a new driveshaft is not much more expensive and you get new outer CV and boots etc. so it's probably just as cost-effective a fix.


Ralf S.
Didn’t seem to be any play in the shaft so put it in 1st and rotated the wheel back and forth. Does this sound like the spider gear?




 
The clonking you get when you rotate the drive shaft seems to be normal (at least, the Younger Mrs S' 500 is exactly the same.. although that also rumbles a bit, so it might have the same problems as yours). I'm not sure this "shunt" causes the rumbling.

The spider lives inside that metal cup with the CV boot over it, so if there's no movement between the shaft and the cup, then the spider is presumably alive and well. The only way to inspect it is to pull it out.

You need to start with a tub of CV grease, to replace any that you lose while you're investigating.

Remove the driveshaft from the hub and then undo the CV boot clip, then it simply slides out. The three spider rings are supported on stubs, via needle bearings. If yours are all greasy and the rings feel reasonably tight on the stubs (nb. there is always some "up and down" play) then the rings are okay. If they're dry or look rusty (they're usually packed in grease) or damaged/missing then that's the culprit.

In addition, the cup may get wear where the three rings act on it. Feel inside the cup (I hope you like CV grease..) and feel for grooves in the walls of each cup slot. Too much groove (wear) will cause rumbling.

The outer CV is more tricky to check, since all you can do is feel for play.

While you have the driveshaft out, you may have probably removed the caliper from the brake disc to pull the hub off the end of the driveshaft. Now is a good time to spin the disc without the pads on it. If you have moody wheel bearings, you might be able to detect it.. sticking, grinding, rumbling etc.

If everything looks good and you can't find anything wrong, then check the other side....

Rasputin has the same problems - though I have a bit of driveshaft rotational play, which might be the prime suspect... so I'm interested what you find.


Ralf S.
 
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Checked through my work on the car and realised I changed the spider when replacing the cv boot when she bought it. I’m veering towards the wheel bearings probably being worn, however the rumble has got worse and seems to come when just ticking over.
 
Checked through my work on the car and realised I changed the spider when replacing the cv boot when she bought it. I’m veering towards the wheel bearings probably being worn, however the rumble has got worse and seems to come when just ticking over.


That sounds similar to, although more "developed" than, the noise that's been bugging me in the Younger Mrs S' 500.... It also has echoes of my old Alfa 145 when the release bearing was working its way through the clutch plate fingers, and I've been coming to the conclusion that a new clutch (and possibly driveshaft) will be needed, in the summer.

How many miles has your clutch done and does the noise disappear/get quiet when the clutch is depressed?

If everything "external" is good, then it might be a gearbox-off job to explore what's going on in there... if you get a shift on and discover the actual cause that would be useful to know... :giggle:


Ralf S.
 
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