A new task for us to carry out, on a car we currently have in the drive shaft has an oddly distorted boot. We know this came off a car which had an "incident" some time ago at the back end and required a replacement swing arm. As far as we are aware this is the original drive shaft, but of course it could have been replaced with the swing arm. Whilst we had no reason to believe that it was damaged, and no reports of any noises or problems by the owner - it was decided to pull it apart and use a BMW OEM rebuild kit and carry out an inspection "just in case".
Whilst this is an M drive shaft, the principle is exactly the same for all Z3's.
This is about a 30 minute job once you've figured out what's what, this took about an hour and we really weren't rushing it.
RealOEM image, parts 6 & 7 for both ends of the drive shaft. The total cost for the 2 kits was around £130 from BMW, so this isn't really the sort of thing you do unless really necessary. Of course you can always buy a cheap eBay copy at your own risk.
The twisted boot which is on the differential end of the shaft (the metal retaining bands have already been removed).
First off is the removal of the end cap (circled in red) which is made of a very thin pressed metal.
Inside the end cap which is unsurprisingly full of grease, good news as whatever happened hadn't compromised the grease packing.
More grease!
A small circlip holds the bearing assembly on to the drive shaft.
Much less grease after a wipe down. You can see the bearing assembly nicely in this pic.
Bearing assembly completely removed from the shaft.
The shaft and splines once the assembly has been removed.
Now the rubber boot can be removed from the wheel end, this is done by sliding it back over the differential end. You can see the bearing assembly in the centre of this pic. Whilst rather mucky on this end, the bearing again is still fully packed with grease, intact and fully functional.
Now in true Haynes Manual installation is pretty much the reverse of disassembly. The BMW kit includes 3 large packs of bearing grease, so once we'd cleaned everything up with was copious amounts of grease applied, and the new rubber boots installed and the metal bands fitted in place to keep them tightly in place.
And finally the metal end cap was fitted.
All back together and ready for refitting to the car.
In summary: The deformation in the rubber boot on the differential seems to have been initially caused by the shaft being pushed outside of it's usual operation at the differential end. We could see a clear a dent in the pressed metal assembly the rubber boot is attached to (see red square below). Whether this was the impact which caused the shaft to go heavily out of alignment and cause the damage, or perhaps further damage when the swing arm was replaced. Either way, there appears to be no actual damage other than to this part (which again is worth stressing that it's a relatively flimsy pressed metal part).
Whilst this is an M drive shaft, the principle is exactly the same for all Z3's.
This is about a 30 minute job once you've figured out what's what, this took about an hour and we really weren't rushing it.
RealOEM image, parts 6 & 7 for both ends of the drive shaft. The total cost for the 2 kits was around £130 from BMW, so this isn't really the sort of thing you do unless really necessary. Of course you can always buy a cheap eBay copy at your own risk.
The twisted boot which is on the differential end of the shaft (the metal retaining bands have already been removed).
First off is the removal of the end cap (circled in red) which is made of a very thin pressed metal.
Inside the end cap which is unsurprisingly full of grease, good news as whatever happened hadn't compromised the grease packing.
More grease!
A small circlip holds the bearing assembly on to the drive shaft.
Much less grease after a wipe down. You can see the bearing assembly nicely in this pic.
Bearing assembly completely removed from the shaft.
The shaft and splines once the assembly has been removed.
Now the rubber boot can be removed from the wheel end, this is done by sliding it back over the differential end. You can see the bearing assembly in the centre of this pic. Whilst rather mucky on this end, the bearing again is still fully packed with grease, intact and fully functional.
Now in true Haynes Manual installation is pretty much the reverse of disassembly. The BMW kit includes 3 large packs of bearing grease, so once we'd cleaned everything up with was copious amounts of grease applied, and the new rubber boots installed and the metal bands fitted in place to keep them tightly in place.
And finally the metal end cap was fitted.
All back together and ready for refitting to the car.
In summary: The deformation in the rubber boot on the differential seems to have been initially caused by the shaft being pushed outside of it's usual operation at the differential end. We could see a clear a dent in the pressed metal assembly the rubber boot is attached to (see red square below). Whether this was the impact which caused the shaft to go heavily out of alignment and cause the damage, or perhaps further damage when the swing arm was replaced. Either way, there appears to be no actual damage other than to this part (which again is worth stressing that it's a relatively flimsy pressed metal part).
