Hi all how's things.

I'm needing a bit of advice on something, so here's where the story starts....

Today I was driving along the road and hit the kerb with force this resulting in the lower rear suspension arm shearing the ball joint off and all loss of drive just slight movement then a lot of metal on metal noise, recovery truck called

After a half day sourcing the part and replacing it I think we'll done you and give myself a big pat on the back!

Time for a test drive..........

Off I go out the drive turn left....all good....end of street 30 feet turn left.....all good.....40 feet along turn slightly right......all not good lots of the metal on metal noise and all loss of drive, you can feel slight movement just before the noise

Gets car back to the drive and I investigate on the left side of the gearbox the driveshaft is loose inside the rubber gaitor.

My chain of thoughts is

1) driveshaft broken ... No... Can't be it just drove 50 feet
2) gearbox broken ... No... Same again just drove
3) has driveshaft splines came away from the U/J....possibly...A) gaitor not torn B) shaft loose where both components meet. C) some movement at times which would suggest splines are locking for a bit then when I turn right they slip loose again. D) when carrying out the 1st repair there was scuff marks on the wheel arch this indicating the wheel moved a great distance which loosened the splines.

Hope your following this

Next question is why is there no drive from the other wheel? Both wheels turn when lifted off the ground and 1 wheel turned. So can't see a gearbox problem.

HELP!!!!



Many thanks in advance

Chris

 

Audi uses all open diffs. If you lose traction on one tire and the break cannot "simulate" traction (transfering torque to the other wheels), you arnt going anywhere..

Sounds to me like the spline where the Axel meets the wheel hub.. You may need a new hub or Axel assembly or both..

The easiest way to check that is to pull the Axel. Check the teeth on the Axel and then look behind the hub to see if the teeth are OK inside the hub..

 

yesterday I stripped out the offending drive shaft.

turns out all the noise was caused by the bearing cage which was smashed into 8 pieces, also the front plate on the cv joint was buckled and distorted.

just need to get the front plate for the cv joint and the cage needs replaced but can I find just a cage! looks like scrap yard is the way ahead!!


cheers for the reply too