Anglin's Road Car Projects and History

[DPDISXR4Ti]

Ya know, 10+ years of owning these cars, I've never had a clue how the CSB was replaced. I'll probably never need to change one, but just in case....

[Mike McCreight]

NOW you've done it, Brad.
Another great post, Chris!
Say, is that isolator available anywhere?

[Ed Lijewski]

Uh, what part in those piccies shows what's worn out?

YMMV

[anglin]

Say, is that isolator available anywhere?

From what I'm seeing, most (all?) CSB's that are sold include the rubber isolator and the roller bearing (but some don't include the bracket/housing).

Inland Empire shows the housing but says it isn't included (but also lists the PN for the one with the bracket):
http://www.iedls.com/page11.html

Power Train Industries gives you the option:
http://www.driveshaft.com/search.htm?se ... rch_by=all (without)
http://www.driveshaft.com/search.htm?se ... rch_by=all (with)

Phil apparently includes the bracket/housing with his:
http://www.opmd.com/main.cfm?tpl=product.cfm&pid=748

Surprisingly, I can't find one on Rock Auto anywhere. BAT lists the CSB but doesn't indicate whether it includes the housing or not. (For the price, I hope it does.)

[anglin]

Called all the places I needed to call yesterday for pricing info on the CSB. Both Inland Empire and Power Train Industries have the CSB available with the bracket/housing. The PNs are as follows:

1480-80 - CSB; rubber isolator and roller bearing only
1480-90 - CSB; complete with bracket/housing, rubber isolator and roller bearing

Inland Empire had some trouble finding the part number they use on their own web page. Not sure what the guy had to do to find it, but it took him a minute or two. Probably the only thing that kept him from giving up on it was the fact that I was insisting that I was using their PN. He also recommended that I simply switch over to an aluminum 1-piece driveshaft instead of replacing the CSB. (Uh, what?) When he did find the PN, he called his vendor and quoted a price of $125 plus shipping for the 1480-90 (complete with bracket).

Power Train Industries didn't have the same problem as Inland Empire finding the part. He had a quote for me on both PNs quickly. The -80 part (rubber and bearing) was listed at $54.24 and the -90 part (complete) was listed at $84.90.

Who did I buy from? Phil at OPMD.com. I needed the guibo and the CSB and Phil had both in stock. I'll take the combo of shipping from one place and supporting a Merkur specific vendor any day. There are a few other goodies I wanted to try out from Phil anyway, so I figured I'll roll it all up into one package and get all of the items shipped from one place.

[anglin]

The stuff came in from Phil at OPMD.com the other day so it's time for the installation pics. I'll start with the guibo stuff.

Let me start off by saying I'm not a fan of the Fiat guibo. The guibo I received is the Fiat guibo. It has the same bolt circle as the XR4Ti and BMW guibos but it's a little smaller in cross section (still working to confirm the cross sectional size of the BMW guibo) and has annoying tabs growing from it which make it nearly impossible to properly install without modification.

XR4Ti guibo (left) and Fiat guibo (right)


The PN molded into the side of the Fiat guibo is 4516801. A quick search for the PN seems to indicate that this may not be the most common PN for the application, but nonetheless, if you want to buy 500 of them you can for the princely sum of about $5 each. Check this link (it'll probably expire):

http://www.alibaba.com/product-gs/20814 ... _FIAT.html

Here's the PN in the guibo


The BMW PN is 26111107832. I'm considering picking one up for comparison purposes, since I wasn't paying attention back in 2000 when I replaced the last one on the beater I had at the time.

The guibo comes with a steel band around the outside. The band compresses the guibo slightly so the diameter of the bolt circle is a little bit smaller. This is supposed to allow for easiler installation. You are supposed to leave it on until the guibo is installed on the driveshaft and yoke.

steel band


Oh noes!!!1!1!!1 The band came off! What do I do now?


Yes, I purposely removed the band. (Note that I restrained it with pliers while breaking the tab. Steel bands under tension can cause injury when they snap loose.) I've found that a large hose clamp can compress the guibo properly but it has the added benefit of allowing adjustment to the bolt circle diameter. This allows for easy assembly.

big hose clamp


hose clamp installed on guibo


hose clamp size (3-3/8 to 6-1/4), made by Breeze


I've got a handful of spare hose clamps of a variety of sizes laying around


Now, back to the problem with the Fiat guibo - the tabs.

[anglin]

The Fiat guibo has six tabs; three per side. I'm not completely sure if they are intended to center the guibo or act as a anti-rotational tab for the bolt head. It doesn't matter though, because they prevent proper installation on our application.

tabs on Fiat guibo (right), also note the square cross section of the XR4Ti guibo (left) compared to the Fiat guibo's round cross section.


tabs again


The two installation options are:
- tabs can be lined up on the ears of the driveshaft and yoke
- tabs can be oriented so they are where the nuts and washers go

If you put the tabs on the ears of the driveshaft it deforms the guibo slightly and makes it incredibly difficult to put the bolts through the holes, even with the hose clamp adjusting the diameter. The tabs have a smaller diameter than the ears do, so the holes end up at an angle to the bolts. This is a lot easier to see in person than describe in words. You can probably make it work, but I don't know why you would put the effort into it.

tabs on ears; I could only get one bolt through, and that one is the easy one!


If you put the tabs where the nuts/washers go, the installation of the bolts goes as it should. The problem lies when you try to put the washers on. The tabs interfere with the washers. You could cut notches in the washers, but that is ridiculous and you can only still only tighten the nuts with a wrench since a socket couldn't go over the nut with the tab in the way.

tabs blocking nuts/washers


So, there's one option left - removing the tabs. I used an angle grinder and took my time and worked a little bit on each one and moved to the next in an effort to keep the heat at a minimum in the rubber. The metal sleeve through the guibo never got too hot to touch (I kept a finger on it while I was grinding the tab, just to keep an eye on the temperature). It took me well over an hour to remove the tabs. I'm confident that I had no impact on the condition of the rubber around the sleeve.

Fiat guibo with tabs removed


Installation with the hose clamp used to adjust tension is easy enough that, when adjusted properly, you can push the bolts through with your finger.

demonstrating ease of bolt installation (picture taken before tabs were ground off)


The transmission slip yoke that bolts to the front half of the guibo as a needle roller bearing in it. Since there is some small rotational movement between the yoke and the driveshaft itself, cleaned and relubed the bearing with synthetic bearing grease.

greased slip yoke bearing


When installing the guibo, the correct orientation of bolts, yokes, driveshafts, nuts and washers is important. The bolt heads go against the flanges (ears) and the washers and nuts go against the sleeve in the guibo. When torquing, be sure to tighten the nut and hold the bolt head fixed. This will give the proper torque value.

proper bolt/nut arrangement and tool use (shown as: wrench on bolt head, torque wrench on nut)


The nuts get torqued to 66 lb ft.

The next write up is the installation of the center support bearing.

[Ray]

proper bolt/nut arrangement and tool use (shown as: wrench on bolt head, torque wrench on nut)

This right here is important for people to take notice of. Not just for the guibo.

[BeefFajitas]

What's the bearing for? The yoke should be static relative to the rest of the shaft.

[pacwest]

Amazing that the CSB is available from multiple vendors in an intact assembly.....but that people cannot locate a windshield. I've had 4 windshields in 16 years. Never had to replace a CSB yet. But at $85, it might be wise to have a spare.

[anglin]

What's the bearing for? The yoke should be static relative to the rest of the shaft.

I was wondering that myself. The guibo compresses when the car is accelerating. (In fact, there's probably a [logarithmically] decaying sinusoidal relative motion between the slip yoke and the driveshaft from each gear shift/clutch engagement.) It probably sees way more motion than we think, it's just small.

Amazing that the CSB is available from multiple vendors in an intact assembly.....but that people cannot locate a windshield.

I agree. What's more amazing is that this CSB is specific to the Scorpio/XR. It doesn't apply to any other vehicle out there (based on PN cross referencing).

[anglin]

And now for the CSB replacement post.

The CSB came as a complete assembly as anticipated. The original CSB housing was in poor shape. I thought about sandblasting and repainting or powder coating it, but decided against the effort and expense, especially since a new CSB housing can be purchased.

CSB and its box


new CSB and old CSB housing


The old CSB housing had less metal underneath the mounting ears and the new CSB had a thick piece of metal spot welded in place in addition to the top and bottom half of the housing. I'm not sure if I'll need the extra room for the driveshaft alignment when I do that. I'll report back after the driveshaft alignment is complete.

CSB mounting ears


In order to properly press the new roller bearing on the driveshaft I removed the roller bearing from the rubber isolator.

roller bearing out of isolator


There are some small differences between the old bearing and the new on. The new bearing has a steel external retainer/seal whereas the original had a flexible seal.

new roller bearing with its pressed in steel seal


new roller bearing and old roller bearing


The new roller bearing came with new zinc-plated casing halves. These were firmly installed with an interference fit but not overly tight. They can be moved around with a small punch and a hammer, which is important, as you'll see later.

casing halves on the roller bearing


I needed a way to press the new roller bearing onto the driveshaft. I don't have a press in my garage, so I had to improvise using the bolt that holds the CSB assembly onto the driveshaft. I first modified a large, thick washer to slip over the driveshaft's CSB mounting splindes on my small mill. The spline outside diameter was about 0.99 inch so the hole in the middle of the washer had to be made slightly larger

enlarging washer center hole to about 1.00 inch


The outside diameter of the washer I chose was much larger than the hole it needed to fit into, so instead of working for excessively long on the mill, I ground the OD of the washer with an angle grinder.

finished washer


This work allowed the washer to fit down through the casing half and press on the center of the bearing itself. You might be wondering why I didn't just remove the casing half and not modify the outside of the washer and then just push the casing half back on. I was worried I wouldn't be able to remove and reinstall the casing half without deforming it. It has a tight fit with the driveshaft on either side of it and I didn't want rubbing contact. More on this later.

washer on roller bearing inside casing half, ready to press roller bearing in place


The washer was cut to have an inside diameter of 1.00 inch and an outside diameter of 1.60 inch.

[anglin]

I also used an aluminum tube that I cut to the same ID as the washer (1.00 inch) and had an outside diameter of 1.25 inch.

You'll notice in the picture below that it is shorter than it needs to be to complete the job. I made it that way because the overall travel of the bolt is less than the distance I have to push the bearing. Since I am using the bolt to push the bearing on, I had to push the bearing on in two phases. For the first phase I just used the alumium spacer and in the second phase I put the old bearing between the washer under the bolt head and the spacer. This allowed enough travel to fully seat the new roller bearing.

roller bearing installation "tool"


Now, here's why I mentioned earlier not wanting to remove the casing half. The fit between the driveshaft and the casing half is tight. During the removal of the old bearing I slightly deformed the ring that fits snugly around the bearing casing half. As a result, the new roller bearing casing half was contacting the driveshaft in a small portion of its rotation.

Notice the small dark mark I put on the casing half to show where the contact


You can see the deformation in this picture; see the spot on the driveshaft that is slightly flattened (at about 10 o'clock)? That is why you should use a press to remove the bearing and not a hammer and a drift punch


I used a small hammer and a screwdriver to bend the rim on the driveshaft back slightly and adjusted the casing half a little bit and the contact went away.

After the roller bearing was pressed down onto the driveshaft, it was a very simple process to push the housing and isolator back onto the roller bearing. It may be helpful to use a small screwdriver on the inside to get things started.

CSB assembled on driveshaft


I checked the backside of the assemble to be sure it seated properly as well.

isolator properly seated on the roller bearing


The next thing to note about the assembly process is that the splines on the driveshaft have one blind spline. This should go without saying, but in an effort toward completeness... It won't go together if you don't line them up.

male blind spline


female blind spline


During the removal process I had to flatten a thin washer that was used to lock the CSB bolt in place. This damaged a small nipple that locked it into the U-shaped washer. Using a small drift punch and the U-shaped washer as a mandrel, I recreated the small nipple.

[anglin]

This nipple is also present on the backside of the U-shaped washer as seen in the disassembly post. This nipple prevents the U-shaped washer from sliding out of the driveshaft allowing the two halves to separate.

nipple locked into splines


Finally, I put the bolt and thin washer back in, mating the two driveshaft halves together. I used a drift punch to tighten the bolt and a wrench to do the last bit of snugging-up of the bolt. You don't have much room to move the bolt with a wrench, so it takes some creative work.

bolt and washers holding the driveshaft together


Finally, I had to bend the thin washer up onto the side of the bolt to prevent the bolt from rotating out.

bent washer


With the unbending, flattening, re-nippling, and rebending, the washer got a little bit work hardened so it tore slightly during reassembly. It looks like I'm going to have to get another washer if I want to replace the CSB in another 180,000 miles. Darn it.

close up of damaged washer


Finally, the semi-new driveshaft is ready to be reinstalled.





It's semi-nicer than the original condition it was in.





Now I get to go install the new driveshaft assembly in the car. However, before I do that, I have to replace the motor mounts and transmission mount. Those will be the next project pictures you see.

I hope these pictures showed you very clearly how to perform a task you will probably never do.

[anglin]

I started the driveshaft replacement job today but didn't finish it. The task resulted in several other failures that need to be remedied. The flange that holds the catalytic converter was rusty until I removed the first bolt. Then it went from rusty to a pile of rust on the cement. I broke the second bolt that holds the catalytic converter to the downpipe. The bolt that holds the transmission mount to the transmission is too rusty to be reused. Additionally, I discovered that I have a dry CV joint with substantial wear which will certainly require replacement. Oh, the Rapido transmission mount uses SAE/inch-sized bolts, not metric like stock, which I didn't have. Yay. Oh#2, I discovered that two of the driveshaft bolts were loose; not even finger tight. Loose! Doubleyoutee Eff?!

I did successfully replace the motor mounts and the transmission mount, both with Rapido parts. I'll get into all the details of the motor mount replacement, along with pictures, later when I reduce the list of problems preventing me from driving my car. Suffice to say, the hard side to replace is the driver side; at least with the Rapido mounts which don't install the same as OEM mounts. The passenger side motor mount replacement is easier (without the AC compressor and mount).