well after getting a really horrid noise from under the saph on the bypass i finally managed to get under it to see what was wrong today and it appears that one side of the universal joint has on the front prop has let go! guess its a bit of garage time but think ive been lucky considering the speed i was doing. DOH!!!

 

i remember when 'Sarge' blew his front prop, horrible mess

 

guzzler i dont know how u didnt blow ur escort diff up the way u used to launch it lol

 

quite common mate
changed loads and loads
think yourself lucky you didn't do any other damage
seen them wreck gearbox's, front diffs?, sumps
even an engine when it went thru sump and lost its oil
all due to the uni-joint blowing up like yours
so you got lucky there mate

 

i defintely appear to have been lucky its worn a small hole in the side of the gearbox bell housing so no big issue really but not sure if its damaged the front diff just yet was doin about some more mph than legal limit too when it let go in 3rd.

 

usualy wreck the flange on the front diff, or blow hole thru it
if it looks ok chances are it'll be ok

 

Lucky escape mate..

 

well it looked ok this morning but there was a small amount of oil/fluid under there but will know more monday when its on the ramps but luckily i have a couple of good friends that carry spares of everything lol.is there anyway of preventing this kind of failure?

 

major mongy question here,but will this happen on 4x4 cars? rear wheelers dont have front props do they?

 

mine is a 4x4 mate its the small prop between the front diff and gearbox iirc i would imagine that its unlikely to occur on a 2wd and you correct they dont have a front prop.

 

nice 1 pal

 

couple rally cars i've worked on have uprated uni-joints
but seen these fail as well,
its usualy hard launches etc that kill them
if checked regularly, they can usualy be caught early enough
you can get a small metallic jingly noise and slight play in them before
they blow up(usualy not always)

 

how strange i have had a magic jingley noise for about 3 days before it let go thought it was an exhaust clamp that had come loose!

 

did it look like this


this was off my old xr4x4 it dident make any funny noises tho i was lucky it dident let go lol

 

thats what mine looked like on my old xr. when goin slow made an loud knocking noise but put your foot down and it went silent must just be the tension that makes it go quiet.

 

yes think it looks just like that will try to get some pics up when its removed.

 

I managed to blow the front prop on an XR4x4 on the A64 coming back from sunny Scarborugh - horrible vibration and before I had time to slow it exploded ripping the doff out of the sump (sump was in about 4 bits ), snapped the gearbox case pretty much in half aswell and then the prop dug into the road and ripped under the car and squahed the downpipe on that side of the engine

A right fine mess it was

 

the failure of the front prop uj is due to lubrication failure
simply fitting a grease nipple and greasing every service from new will cure the problem
the uj is cooked by the exhaust

 

Very lucky

My Front prop exploded on my landrover.

Was doing 60 (honest) on the A1 just out side edingbrough towing a mk1 escort on a trailer.

Truck is 2.5 ton and the trailer and mk1 prob meant I was around 4 tons

Prop uj failed and lifted the whole truck almost completly off the ground

dented my reinforced chassis and made a total mash up of the floor, my ankle hurt for a good week after.

luckily it was about 3am, id hate to think what would have happened if it was rush hour. or indeed a motorbike was passing.

I still to this day never saw where the 2 foot long 6" round glowing metal bar went, it left the carrige way im guessing


Are sapp props and uj's servicable. ie have a grease nipple?

Or are they "lifetime" like my old mk1 escy and the aston martin?

 

you are very lucky mate as when my escort cosworth front prop went it done 4.5k damage it distroyed my gearbox flywheel front diff drive sharts and then snapped the lugs off the block that the box bolts to so and beat up my floor pan so i lost intrest when it happened and fixed it and sold it but now ive got another hope it dont happen again

 

sounds like fair comment to me how do you go about getting nipples fitted#? and do you have any pics of a prop with the converstion?

 

mine has a nipple in it, but i never fitted it, and it was a std car when i got it,

maybe the late saffs "k" had them fitted as std?

 

any car serviced by us would have had one fitted
remove original grub screw, replace with grease nipple, push on the grease gun and pump

 

ahh, makes sence i suppose!