WOAH! This scared the life out of me! Rear driveshaft

[WidowmakerS2]

As I drove through a empty street from the shops today I heard a weird whirly metal sound. I stopped, and the sound stopped. Put it in reverse, let it roll back a few meters before I heard another more distinct "chirp".

So I was out of the car, on my back looking to see where the sound could come from..
Initially it sounded like it was from the front, but when the light from my cell hit the rear diff . It was covered in oil or grease (or both, but im hoping just grease).
-Three or four of the allen-head screws for the left side driveshaft had come loose and were just held on by the rubber of the boot. I managed to screw them back in before parking the car (upon parking i saw the engine temp was 110 C, but thats another story).

Scared to think I'd just been late for work this morning and pretty much hammered it the whole way there..

I won't have a chance to look at it again before Thursday. Not sure what I'll find, but I guess the inner joint is knackered.

On the other hand, this COULD very much likely be the culprit of the feeling that the car was running on pentagon shaped wheels, am I right? I had that down to being a misaligned prop or prop bearing.

[sidrick]

I hope you don't live up to your name. It sounds like that car needs some work before being 'hammered' on public roads.

[WidowmakerS2]

That would be the cars name..
'Hammered' is not driving the car to its limit in this case. Breaking the speed limit is.

Any constructive thoughts?

[Monkeymagic]

They havent been tightened and worked loose. Refit with new bolts job done..

[newsh]

This would certainly cause vibration, possibly the CV is broken and passed the vibration to the bolts thereby loosening them, or someone didn't do the bolts up tight last time.

Do you know the history of the car? Did you do the conversion?

I think I would have that car up on a ramp and check every bolt underneath. It's unusual in my experience for half shaft bolts to come loose on their own, normally they are quite difficult!

[Monkeymagic]

Ive known them work loose after work being done.

[WidowmakerS2]

This would certainly cause vibration, possibly the CV is broken and passed the vibration to the bolts thereby loosening them, or someone didn't do the bolts up tight last time.

Do you know the history of the car? Did you do the conversion?

I think I would have that car up on a ramp and check every bolt underneath. It's unusual in my experience for half shaft bolts to come loose on their own, normally they are quite difficult!

I have no one to blame but myself I'm afraid. I'm 99% sure i used the correct torque specified when tightening the bolts. I remember re-using the old inner joints because they looked alright and didn't have too many miles on them according to the previous owner.

Yes, I did the conversion. Project thread is in here somewhere.
The car is going on a ramp tommorrow. I'll take some pictures for the laughs.

My thoughts on the vibration-"wobble" at first was that the wheels actually had a flat spot from car not being used much this winter. Then I leaned more to propshaft, just because I fitted a bmw center bearing instead of the original 100 miles ago and everything else have been changed.

Anyways, fixed the fan problem today. Changed the rad temp sensor, everything ok.