I was racing with the NSSCC at knockhill sharing the weekend with superlap Scotland and time attack
Had a very average qualifying on the reverse direction on Saturday as I kept getting the wrong gear at the hairpin as i'm still learning this dogbox and was in 3rd not 2nd doh!!
started 13th on a mixed grid of all classes and got a great start to make up around 5 places by the first corner, anyway halfway round the first lap a vibration started that felt like a wheel was falling off!!

struggled on to the end at cruising speed to get class points and tried in vain to find the cause, tugged at driveshafts wheel bearing etc and could only think it was a diff or gearbox issue so put the car on the trailer for the rest of the weekend..
Today with the car on my 2 poster the cause was obvious when I grabbed hold of the osf driveshaft, why it felt ok at the track Ill never know but one of the tripod joints has broken apart and all the needle rollers have fell out

annoyingly I had a spare shaft with me at knockhill

Anyway its all fixed now ready for Donington a week on sunday

one good thing from knockhill tho was being invited into the commentary box to
commentate on the NSSCC race, that was a great experience
me commentating



Me on lap 1 of the race just before the shaft failed







steve

 

Not having much luck Steve but at least your finding the faults early in the season and still having fun.

On a side note is it my old focus your mate with the rs200 rep has bought ?

 

Cheers mate
Yes my mate Jim has just bought a focus didn't know it was your old one!
it is a very high spec one from sitech with white carbon inside and bling under the bonnet the reg has 53 in it?

steve

 

Yip that's my old car I seen it on the SLS fb page. I fitted the cams and loba turbo to it, to try a new 500bhp package out with Sitech.

 

Nightmare Steve. I hope these spider joints will be up to the job and they wont keep on breaking.

 

Bad luck mate, had this happen to me aswell on the drivers side shaft, I've no idea where all the bits went as the boot was intact, still a mystery to this day!

Every cloud has a silver lining n'all that, not every day you get to be Murray Walker, mind you being at KH I'm sure that wasn't quite as glamorous....

 

Wasnt it the osf shaft that fooked up that time you took me in your sierra around croft a few years back.

 

thing is we found it easily once it was on the ramps mate , shame we couldnt see it at the weekend ;(,, on a brighter note ur racing now at donno ,and it was a cheap fix compared to what it could have been

 

Not 100% if it's the same on the Sierra but did you examine the cup that the tripod joint fits into? I had these breaking on me all the time in my Focus and i discovered that i'd worn a groove on the inside of the cup which was caused by the vibration - but that caused the replacement item to fail quicker because there was more play in it from the off.

Just a though, would hate to see you do all the work and have it fail again.

 

full replacement drive shaft gone in now ,so no dramas

 

yes deffo a cheap fix clive , just a shame I didn't see it whilst at knockhill, oh well soon be at donno!

I've, as clive said I've replaced the full shaft with a reconditioned one

Rog, I thought it was quite glamorous up there lol

steve