Halfshaft Popped Out Of Diff, Anyone Had This Happen Before?

[bubba]

So I leave work yesterday and a few streets away I notice something strange.. car starts pulling to the left when I back off and pulling to the right when I accelerate. I was like hmm, that's dodgy.

Come to a set of lights and when I go to take off it just sits there spinning the passenger side wheel

Limped it to my mates workshop and threw it up on the hoist to discover the drivers side halfshaft has popped out of the diff..

Has anyone had this happen before? it was probably a good inch or so out of the diff

[axe s]

I havn't had it happen but i just put mine back together...

Might have lost the spring retainer on the halfshaft or in the actuall diff depending on the side...

[bubba]

Circlip was still there, there was no noise associated with it immediately before or after it came out.

I'm putting it down to the occaisional axle tramp I get (mainly when trying to take off in the wet without heaps of wheelspin) slowly working it out.

At least nothing was broken.. thought I'd snapped an axle for a little while there

[Duncan]

thats wierd, we don't run the circlip at all in the race cars and always have trouble remving them (need to remove the lower control arm from the hub to pull it out). you did well. I guess its an abovious question but are all your suspension links ok? and where they mount to the subframe or chasis? wheel has to move a fair way to get the half shaft out. or maybe some issue with the cv joint?

[bubba]

Suspension links are all fine but there was enough axial movement in the axle to install the diff centre easily..

Is there any form of locater on the outer end? (in the hub) It did seem odd that the whole axle could slide outwards a good inch or so...

[CEF11E]

hmmmm

never have seen hat.

as duncan said it sounds like you might have a lot of subframe movement.

I also don't run circlips in my diff as i lost them and i have never had a problem with it.

[Duncan]

when you say enough axial movement to install the diff......does the axle move relative to the hub? more than a mm or 2 is too much and suggests you might not have a nut on the axle lol that would do it.

[bubba]

Well thats the answer I was looking for, I'll have to have a look on the hub side and make sure there is a nut there lol.

Another conclusion I have come to is that it may be due to the diff flanges that came with my Nismo diff.. stockers were one long and one short.. new ones that came with the diff were the same length..

Meh, 2way has been in for about 6 months now, if it pops out again anytime soon I'll start looking at it more closely.. I'm just happy I didn't snap an axle

Also I'm pretty sure I don't have subframe movement as I think I would have noticed the back end doing funny things (like when my HICAS was fubar'd.. that was quite noticable!) but it's rather stable and predictable so I don't think there's anything amiss there.

Edited July 21, 2008 by bubba

[roba]

Did you find the reason for the half shaft poping out???

I have the same problem.

Suspension seams all good, cant really use the car as its loosing alot of oil...

[lilmissr32]

I had this problem - popped the r/h half shaft out and snapped both cv shafts in half all at once. Attempted to get the half back in whilst diff was still in the car but it just wouldn't go! Removed the l/h half shaft (which was extremely tight and difficult to remove) and diff out of the car, put it on its side and tried to get the shafts back in but still to no avail - the l/h shaft wouldn't go back in either. Had a squiz at both the shafts and they didn't 'appear' to be twisted. Got 2 new cv shafts and the wreckers sent me 2 half's as well so we tried them and they slipped straight in without any effort at all, just a light little tap or two. The c'clip on the r/h shaft was located inside the diff and the l/h clip was on the shaft for the record. So, my problem with this was that I had actually twisted both the half shafts and that's why they wouldn't go back in. My solution to this problem is to get a complete GTR rear cradle and bolt it in!! Or, spend big bucks and get custom shafts and stubs made...

[bubba]

Did you find the reason for the half shaft poping out???

I have the same problem.

Suspension seams all good, cant really use the car as its loosing alot of oil...

Mine was a lot further out than that! but no, still no idea why it happened and it's been fince since

lilmiss.. that's pretty fullon.. what sort of diff?

[lilmissr32]

It's got a Kaaz 2-way. So, team that with a twin-plate, RB25DET 'box with PAR gearset (1st - 4th gears), big 1-piece tailshaft with biggest uni's I could fit and 500-odd rwhp and you have major problems with standard shafts and cv's as there is no 'give' in the rest of the driveline. My r/h half shaft was longer than my l/h too...

I broke 2 x cv shafts @ Jamboree on MT street radials on the launch, put spare ones in, went out again with the street tyres on this time (18's) and snapped 2 more plus twisted the half shafts in 2nd gear (not even on the launch). Damn frustrating to say the least, didn't get to run my 10! I have to take it easy in it 'til the GTR cradle goes in and even then we're not sure how long the shafts are guna last with street tyres, let alone slicks! All fun and games...

[bubba]

Hmmm wow.. I guess I'm going to be going through the same sort of deal when the GT35R finally goes on

[lilmissr32]

yup.... considering that's the turbo I've got! And, assuming you're guna get similiar power plus similiar clutch/gearbox/tailshaft set-up to mine! Have fun with it!! Lol!

[bubba]

Yeah add 3L torque to that equation and it sounds like a recipe for snapping things lol

[lilmissr32]

um, yeah, it does!!! Trust me! Lol!

[Brockas]

Had this happen after busting a launch in the GT-R.

Remove and refit the circlip inside with a new circlip from Nissan. Fixed the problem in the GTR. Done 2 rallys on it since and now it's fine.

This also caused an ATTESSA error, as the speed sensor no longer works when the driveshaft pops out.

[bubba]

Cool bananas Brockas

[Flash89]

i had this happen to be today, test drove the car with the 26 in, in a school zone 40ks and all of a sudden no more drive. thought broke the diff, but shaft popped out, i thought the reason being is that the rear alignment was out cause just fitted a lock bar on. so has it popped out since yous put it back in???

[poobah]

i had this happen to me a few times while driving along the freeway, with my right shaft coming right out of the diff,i had to jack the car up and hammer the shaft back in on the side of the road.

its was a nismo 2way and the problem was with the shaft being the wrong size. i ended up randomly trying to fit the proper shafts in, and found that it was 2 of the shorter shafts. and it worked fine.

hope that makes sense.

Edited December 12, 2008 by poobah