After a few short test drives along the front drive last autumn Agnetha suddenly dumped her oil on the garage floor. I eventually found out it had leaked from both driveshafts and not from the gear selector as I first thought (although that probably leaks as well – why wouldn’t it?). Both inner CV joints would quite happily rattle around if pulled by hand, and apparently they really shouldn’t do that. If they rattle it’s a sign that the bronze bushings they sit inside have worn too far so oil is able to rush past and overwhelm the rubber oil seals, which are more than likely worn out as well.
So the driveshafts had to come out. Unsurprisingly for a car that hasn’t moved in 34 years all 4 of the CV boots were perforated which already implied I’d soon be ordering new joints all round. Getting the shafts out of the differential was fairly straightforward once I’d got a set of driveshaft removal forks. These aren’t the same as the recommended tool, but worked fine with a bit of grease and aiming carefully not to take chunks out of the diff cover (more on that later).
The discs took some encouragement to separate because of a build-up of rust but only required a bit of Flammenwerfer action, a calculated amount of violence and some more action with the shaft removal forks. After removing the boots from the inner CVs it was clear they had worn a fair bit, and given the amount of effort I’ve been putting into this car, it seemed pretty obvious that all 4 CV joints should be replaced – they’re the same as on the classic Mini so there’s no issue getting spares.
Removing the outer joints was straightforward once I’d got a decent puller; these are available everywhere online for very little money. The Haynes Book of Lies says a few taps of a hammer against a drift on back of the CV joint will free it, but I think that no longer applies to cars that have sat for decades! The puller made light work of it. Just a few turns of the hub nut against the puller freed the outer joints. The inner joints, however, were a different story.
The problem there was that the inner CV rings had become more-or-less fused to the driveshafts and no amount of hammering or pulling was going to free them. I ended up spending many, many hours painstakingly grinding the inner CV rings until they could be chiselled off in segments. Luckily I was able to do that on both inner joints without damaging the shafts. Although it was a very tedious and painful process I did manage to make a video out of it for the channel:
What a pain in the hole that was, but rewarding to have done it without breaking anything!
So at last it was now possible to remove the diff covers and see the state of those bushes and the oil seals. The covers came off quite easily with a few taps from a rubber mallet but I wasn’t prepared for what I saw when I finally saw the bushes. In fact I literally laughed out loud. Here’s what I saw:
See the problem? The driveshaft needs to be lubricated against the bushing otherwise it’s just going to make a screeching noise and wear out after a very short time, and you’re back to square one with leaking driveshafts. For the lubrication to work, there’s a hole in the side of the bushing. This has to be aligned with a hole in the diff cover that lets the oil in. And guess what…of course whoever did this, long ago presumably, hadn’t given it any thought at all. The lubrication channels are completely misaligned. So you can imagine old Benny or Bjorn’s face when their Allegro started leaking oil again just days after it being repaired – can’t blame Longbridge for that! Judging by the state of the diff cover they must have also used a chisel or screwdriver to pull the shafts out as they are quite mangled. Sometimes I feels like every time I remove or overhaul something on Agnetha it just uncovers another historical bodge or some kind of balls-up from long ago. Fascinating really, but also incredibly annoying.
But not to worry. New CV joints and – no expense spared – new diff covers with new bushes pressed in and reamed are on order from Mini Spares. Soon I’ll be able to reassemble those shafts as the Gods intended and get that long-suffered A-series filled with oil again.
In other news
I’ve overhauled the steering rack. It’ll surprise no one that I drained about 100ml of used engine oil from it. I wonder if that was the same mechanic that “repaired” the bushings? At least it doesn’t seem too upset by the ordeal. New boots and track-rod ends are ready to go, but the rack itself won’t be reinstalled for a while yet as there is still a lot of work to do while it’s out of the way.
Brake master cylinder. Pain in the hole. Need to get an expert Brakeversteher on it.
Fuel tank. Has lots of holes in it. But I have a cunning plan. The weather needs to warm up a bit first though. Definitely going to do a video about that.
Despite the grumbling, as I start to put things back together getting the old girl tested and registered this year seems more and more do-able! #optimism
Projekt Agnetha 