Have u-joints, lacking courage and/or good shop in NC/SC

[Lilleyvanilli]

I know you are supposed to send off our shafts to one of a plethora of favored drive line specialists, But I found a tutorial a while back from a guy who did his own with success. Has anybody gone this DIY route with success? If you've ever done u-joints on other cars, you know, this is not rocket science.

I bought universal joints and have a custom shaft for my 5 spd. with which I have had no vibration issues in 15 years. Nervous about sending it off. If you've done this job yourself, please post? If you know of a reputable shop around Charlotte, Gastonia, Greensboro, Mooresville, Statesville, Concord NC... OR Rock Hill, Chester, Spartanburg or Greenville, SC, please post?

I will try to post that DIY U-joint article for all and see what you think.

[Tommy]

My advice - give it to pro.

They are very hard to disassemble and putting back together, well I don't know how you could get the alignment right. Then balancing...

In some cars they are made easy to replace, not BMW.

Tommy

[Lilleyvanilli]

I know, but I've already bought the parts and I'm genuinely curious. All drive shafts need to be balanced to run properly. But for some reason BMW shafts must be oh-so-much-more sensitive than the rest of the manufacturer's. Doesn't this strike you as odd? Volvo doesn't make a big deal about 'balancing' their two piece shafts. If you make your marks, keep your alignments, putting in a new u-joint should not going to affect balance of a daily driver, non-performance shaft (not on our underpowered vehicles).

Now not realigning things properly, including center bearing preload, upon installation most certainly will. Got sloppy goo eating away your tranny mounts (thus changing output shaft alignment over time)? You bet you better address it.

[Tommy]

I have taken the shafts apart. In theory it goes like your article says. In practice it was hell of a job in my case at least. I have shortened the shaft by myself but aligning the u-joints and balancing I left for shop.

I do everything I possibly can by myself to my cars. I can rebuild an engine or replace a quater panel but rebuilding drive shaft I leave for pros.

Others may disagree and it's ok for me :-)

Tommy

[Lilleyvanilli]

Oh, I'm listening to you, the article does seem too easy. I don't remember any drive shaft I've done to be a joy, frankly. Which leads me to believe the BMW's couldn't be any less 'pleasurable'. But sounds like you've gone this far and retreated, which is awesome.

Now I only wish I could find a shop semi-local to Charlotte, NC. With all the performance car industry stuff going on in the vacinity, somebody's got to be comfortable servicing a BMW 'non-serviceable' shaft. Darned if I can find them though.

[auggiemize]

Greg Lavalle may know someone or provide this service 336 323 1232 Greensboro...Or Billy Revis in GSO also; he used to have a shop also in Mooresville, but no more. I dont have his number, but Greg might... Or check out a local car/hot rod show. Find the nicest three custom cars that the owner actually built, and I'll bet you can find a local good ol boy that'll fix you up. I'm in Morganton, and its amazing what some the local guys and their dads have built. Usually its their labor of love, so what they can do, ain't necessarily what they WILL do, but sharing machine shop references/upholsterers/muffler fab'rs/etc they know is most often a pleasure. And less than top dollar. Most of the machine shops for the taxicab racers in the area are north of Lake Norman, of course. I'll keep an ear out locally. Dave V. in NC

[TobyB]

jeeze, yeah, considering Nascar spins a 50+"single piece to 10k+,

seems like there'd be no problem.

You could take them your flanges and have them build you a single

piece. I did that with the Nissan trans, and after a few missteps, I got

it working pretty well. That thing turned well over 8500...

Seriously, though, there are only 2 options with the stock setup-

cut it and reweld while hoping the stock joints are still good

(lots of us have done this, many successfully)

or remachining the ends and rebalancing the whole assembly.

Thing is, when the ends re remachined, being off only a few thou

makes a mess of the whole rotating assembly if it's not balanced.

So the cost is really for the whole enchilada. And the remachine

is horiffically labor intensive as a one- off, so it only makes fiscal sense

to send it to a shop that's tooled up to do it. And you have to realize that

they've got a real investment in the tooling to do the work, so you pay

for a bit of that, too.

If you have a shaft that everyone agrees is in good shape, a cut and

reweld of the front half really is a $100 proposition, maybe even with a

balance, depending on where you are.

It's not rocket science- but it spins a lot faster....

t

[Lilleyvanilli]

I'd be scared to go to a straight shaft. I've got some tranny mount 'engineering' (or lack of) that always makes alignment a treat. At least with the 2pc, I can 'cheat' a little without vibration issues.

I'm confused though, If all I need are universal joints installed and I can separate the two shafts at the big nut, why would I have someone cutting and welding on my shaft to save $$?

[Lilleyvanilli]

Morganton, eh? You've got a few good musicians up your way...Michael Reno Harrell and Dale, Kay and Patrick Crouch, too. Bet your the only 2002 in town! I'll give your guy a call. Yes, Billy closed down his Mooresville location, so I guess Greensboro is it now. We were safe driving instructors together. I need to give him a shout.

And good thoughts on the local artisans of all things automotive. Those are the guys I'd like to give my $ to, if I can find them.