Barry's propshaft

The propshaft sends power to the rear wheels, and is often taken for granted on a Lancia Delta, this shaft is a strong and durable component,

mainly trouble free. Unusual for an Integrale!

Barry's Propshaft

The Delta's plastic fuel tank wraps over the car's prop shaft, so if the fuel tank needs removal, the propshaft must come off first. Barry shares his recent experience of this job with us.

The front end of the propshaft is connected to the final drive with a cv joint similar to the front wheel drive shafts, secured with 6 Allan bolts and 13mm Nylock nuts. The propshaft has two standard universal joints and two rubber supports, then a strong torque tube runs to the rear diff, with the propshaft inside it. This is secured to the car's floor at the rear shaft support, and stops the turning reaction of the differential body

when power is applied.

Front end of propshaft attached to the

final drive flange, here removing Allan bolts.

As said before, make sure the key is

fully in the hole.

Rear differential propshaft mounting.

5 bolt torque tube mounting point shown,

internal propshaft fits onto central spline.

Removing the propshaft is a bit of a chore, you must lift all 4 wheels off the ground and leave plenty of room

to get under the car. The car must be held up very securely, with axle stands and wooden blocks.

You'll be busy under there so the car must be lifted up safely.

Remove the front propshaft cv joint bolts, support the centre bearing with your jack and remove the 2 nuts on the propshaft support bracket, lower it down and the front joint will separate. Then support the torque tube with the jack and undo the 5 nuts on the tube connection to the diff, also undo the rear support at the front of the tube.

Lower the jack until the support bracket clears its bolts, pull the tube off the diff, then gently lower the unit down.

Use the jack to help pull the unit from under the car. On removing the front joint, liquid oil may appear, this probably isn't the pinion seal leaking, but old cv joint grease turned liquid.

This is the pinion for the propshaft at the gearbox end. You can see the paper gasket which requires careful replacement, they are supplied with an adhesive side, which needs the cover film removing first.

You'll also notice how nice and clean it is under Barry's Delta!

Good friend of this site, Barry, recently did this job to renew a split boot on the front cv joint. The shaft had also been rumbling a bit, so with the shaft split apart Barry spun the rear section and heard quite a noise from the shaft to torque tube bearing, exaggerated by the tube echoing. The front cv joint was good, just needing a new boot.

Barry says removal of the bearing was straightforward, split the UJs and break the shaft into its 3 sections. The 2 UJs were quite good, but the rubbers had split and any grease left was 30 years old, so the circlips were eased off, Barry fashioned a bit of steel tube just less than the diameter of the joint bearings then knocked the bearings out. He knocked the shaft out from the diff end of the tube, then with the shaft in a vice, knocked the bearing off.

Replacement is of course, the opposite.

Barry gave the inside of the UJ holes a rub down with emery cloth, and cleaned out the circlip grooves to ensure the new bearings and clips fitted properly, replacement bearings were fitted and the shaft reassembled. The propshaft was then rubbed down and a nice coat of black enamel was applied. It really is as good as new.

Here's one of the universal joints, one of the 4 circlips can just be seen at the top, these hold in the four way yolk with needle roller bearings at each end. Also shown is Barry's tube tool to drive the yolk out.

These are a very efficient power transfer mechanism, allowing flexing while transmitting full torque values.

These are the yolks, Barry has split a

bearing cap to show the needles,

and the small rubber seals

are also shown.

When planning this job, Barry decided to get value for money,

without paying the 'Integrale tax' charged by our regular suppliers.

Barry says the results were interesting, he found the torque tube bearing was a standard SKF item, 62206-2RS1 was stamped on the bearing in the tube. These are £35 + postage at the usual outlets, Barry found the part on Ebay for £19 with free postage.

Barry also says the 2 UJ bearings which cost £30 or so from the usual sources, are the same as a Fiat 130, and many other cars. These are available for £13 each, again with free postage. Barry bought the shaft components at a good discount, which I say is a small but important victory!

Barry's repainted propshaft looks lovely, and when the paint is hardened it can be refitted and forgotten about for a good while.

Prop to torque tube bearing

Universal joint yolks and bearings.

A common component in older rear wheel drive cars. Still widely used in commercial vehicles.

Croisillions de Cardans

translating as Braces for Gimbals.

There is one important item which as Barry reports seems to be unique to our Deltas, this is the paper gasket between the front cv joint and the drive pinion. It's important to remove the old gasket and replace

with the new paper one.

Barry also did remove his fuel tank while the shaft was down,

and replaced various pipework on the tank.

We thank Barry for his info, it's interesting to find parts on our Deltas which are used on other cars too, which can be obtained at a good discount.

If you know of any more equivalents please let us know and we'll start a data base of some kind.

Torque tube bush bearing

SKF 62206-2RS1

UJ bearings

Quinton Hazell QL 16103

Thank you for interesting information Barry, your lawn looks lovely too!