turbo drive shaft tulip bearings, getting them back in (aka BALLACHE)

[adamh]

Having had one side of the drive shaft tulip pop out and all the balls go everywhere, it took me 2 hours to get the bug*er back into the housing,..
it happened a second time around with the other driveshaft.. so i thought id have a go at a planned approach, i found this way.. i could pop them back in in 5-10 minutes, with patients and calm.

first and foremost.. clean the joint of grease, its a nightmare to try and fit it back together with greasy hands. the balls will drop everywhere and pick up dirt / steel chips on the floor. clean the housing, the balls, and the cage.



then i found, to put a hole in the bottom of a cardboard box (driveshaft size hole, just poke it thru).. , and into a vice, hold the shaft, not the splines. Then remove the bottom retaining clip if you havent allready done so, and slide the rubber gator down until it holds the top of the houseing in-line with the bottom of the tulip



looking down from the top, line the housing & tulip up as follows...



Then put the ball cage around the tulip and put all the 'clean' balls into the holes through the cage, and rest the balls on the very top lip of the housing.. they are ready to go in, but just biting on the top lip of the housing. you should be abled to manage this with two hands



now, the tricky bit.. tease the ball cage down with one hand until the balls are just level with the bottom of the tulip.. and tease the housing up with the other, it helps to rotate your wrists a tiny bit, they should pop in ever so slightly..once in "a little" and still holding both ball cage and housing, bring the housing 'UP' and at the same time, the ball cage. you'll get the hang of it.



now remove the assembly from the vice carefully, lay it on its side, pack it with new grease and do the retaining clips back up.



The most effective part of the method is cleaning the balls/cage/housing, and using a cardboard box and a vice to catch the balls, before they run round the floor and pick up all the dirt.

[podge]

i did it twice too, hehehe welcome to the krypton factor mate :D

[Paul Woods]

ha ha ha! nearly fell off me chair! this happened to me way back on day 3 of my turbo swap,and i always use a cable tie threaded through the back of the joint now when im taking them off,stops the bearings coming out!

First time it happened took me 3.5hours to get them back in! :lol: but i discovered adams method above for putting the little barstewards back....and as adam says doing it this way takes 10 minutes.....best idea is to not let them fall out though,i think this should be part of every 1.5ers initiation!

Yeah krypton factor is pretty much spot on podge!

[adamh]

it's one of them NO NO things you dont do aint it.. "i wonder what happens if i move that just a little bit more.." always a sucker.
i was rollin about all over the floor, covered in grease, balls rollin about. the little fecke*'s.

cable tie splendid idea, i'm using that when i put in the drivers s/shaft. (new end gasket coming tomorow)..

no chances taken!

...masochists...

[David Sleith]

Did the same thing myself the other week. Took me 3 hours to get the bloody things back in

[Paul Woods]

:lol: i think im going to approach hoover about a revolutionary new particle pick up device,its basically a cage of grease covered ball bearings that you just let spew out all over your floor,guaranteed to pick up every single bit! :D

[Driftin_AW]

hahaha, I had the joyous fun of assembling the cv for my gt4 last weekend. Did it once and there was no movement at all in the joint due to the inner "bit" being installed in the wrong spot relative to the outer "bit". I redid it without cleaning them and actually found it easier, as the grease helped to hold the balls in place and allowed them to slide around a bit. the technique I used was to take the joint off the shaft and assembled it upside down, bringing the balls and cage up from underneath. Found it to be quite easy really, and it took all of about 4 minutes :)

[adamh]

upside down is the right way up round these parts :lol:

[Paul Woods]

:lol: pennys just dropped....poor malcolm takes a lot of stick being upside down.

mal theres a guy who just mailed me called craig smith from NZ,hes just starting his 1.5 swap....ive pointed him this way of course so he may well be in touch bud.

[Driftin_AW]

ah yes I've been giving him a bit of advice on clubaw. He's in two minds because he doesn't want to have to mount the engine...so we'll see how that pans out