Following a semi-paced drive got clunk, clunk, clunk underload.
Stop, looked, lots of grease on spring and surrounding area - grrr
Wheel off…but the boot is dry. We will have a better look but where can the grease be coming from?!
It is vented (circa 1mm dia hole), but surely that’s not enough to lose loads of it?
Not funny when it costs nearly £150 for the sexy grease!
Hoping it’s like before and not the CV too.
Thoughts appreciated.
You absolutely 100% sure that there’s not a hole in the boot. Last time mine had ballooned and split on one of the ribs.
I am not sure (happened to me before too)…but you’d expect to see reasonable evidence on the boot of it coming out but it was ‘dry’.
Was a split in the boot.
Is the CV alright and can it be sorted for Thurs though??
Has anyone ever tried some sort of rubber softening fluid on the boots? You know the stuff you can buy for your tyres to soften them. Spliting boots sound like the rubber is too hard for what it is doing…
Does that lower the melting point though?
The boots simply aren’t designed for the angles that they constantly run at.
Same can be said for the joints
I guess there’s a potential myriad of reasons why my driver-side outer is making a habit of going though, verses more powerful variants of the same thing. 
I think the effectiveness of a softner will depend on the composition of the “rubber” that the boot is made from - and that is maybe the key point.
Due to the angle they run at the bellows are rubbing together like the FWD car is steering all the time so you need to limit that when you install - Gav is on the money that a softer more compliant boot is probably better but you dont want it eating itself when it revolving.
Also be sure its not just touching the subrame at any point
I don’t imagine the lotus use case of sitting for weeks on end in one static position also helps
Hmm, good point
Can’t see that myself, perhaps if it were laid up for 2-3 years of going though winter/summer/winter/summer etc but not in a couple of months…
I always thought it was the shorter n/s shaft that was the main problem on the Honda conversions?
Shorter = less heat dissipation?
I was always thought it was due to loading on that side of the car due to clockwise circuits and therefore typically more fast sustained right handers - Donny and Anglesey for example…
If the gear box outlet port for the driveshaft and the hub input port are out of alignment, the shorter the shaft is, the steeper the angle to each other is going to be. Not a lot you can do about the n/side as it’s pretty much fixed as the drive shaft runs directly to the hub. The o/side however is a double jointed shaft which has a bearing carrier to support it. The distance from the bearing carrier to the hub will dtermine the angle it runs at.
Is it not possible to get a custom bearing carrier and driveshaft made that moves the carrier further over towards the gearbox thus extending the length of the shaft form the carrier to the hub and resulting in a less severe angle?
N/S to O/S the shafts are within 10mm of each other.
It’s mainly because the diff centre line is just too far forward, angles are too steep, and this means more heat is generated per articulation of the joint. Chassis legs and subframe being the limiting factor in how far back you can get the drivetrain.
I’m going to look at fabricating some alloy scoops that bolt to the bottom of the lower rear wishbones to funnel some of the air under the car up and into the rear hub assembly. Lowering the temps all around that area can only help.
Like these, but metal:
We had to do something similar in the past. Depending on what sort of space you have and what undertray you have, there may be enough space to fit a NACA duct on top of the undertray and run some pipework along the rear wishbone arm, out to the C/V’s/wheel bearings/brakes. Much less chance of tearing them off or flattening them, than a duct poking out the bottom.
Will see if I can find a picture or two.
yeah some photos would be cool, cheers john
some air back there can’t hurt
yeah so had a look tonight, and while you could cut a NACA into the tray and duct along a lower wishbone it’d be a pain when you dropped the trays
A naca to feed the inners would be a decent idea though