Guibo Bolts

[omw41]

86 325 ES: I'm trying to replace a guibo that is in pieces. My problem is that there are six fasteners where the guibo attaches to the drive shaft. The nuts came off easily, but the bolts won't budge. what i mean is I have them loose enough to turn with my fingers, but they just won't come out...I turn them with my fingers and they just turn. I even tried to work a tire iron inbetween the guibo to maybe "pop" the bolts off, but no luck. what am I doing wrong?

 

[omw41]

looks like it's the shaft seal that's holding me up. How do I get the shaft seal off?

 

[epj3]

I'm not sure if you're looking at it correctly... the way it is setup is there are 6 bolts, and 6 nuts. 3 bolts (pointed towards the front of the car) go through the driveshaft flange and through the guibo, and has a nut on that end. The other 3 bolts (pointed towards the rear) go from the transmission output flange, through the guibo, with a bolt on the end.

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You only need to remove 3 bolts while the driveshaft is still under the car, and that is the bolts that hold the guibo to the transmission output shaft. The other 3, IIRC, can't be removed whilst still installed under the car.
See here:

To get the driveshaft away from the transmission, you first must loosen (what I believe is called) the expansion joint. Look below, it's the threaded part directly left of the center bearing

Use a large wrench (waterpump wrench worked for me) to loosen it quite a bit, and then with some coaxing, you can push the front half of the driveshaft - guibo still connected - towards the rear of the car, you can then pull the driveshaft out. I used my feet to hold the rear driveshaft half so i could pull forward on the front half.

This is a pic of the rear half of the driveshaft - on the tip of it, you can see the threads that the large retainer nut you loosened above screws onto.

Make sure you clean the driveshaft (especially the splines where the two halves go together), and make sure you put fresh moly-based grease on them.

You'll love how quiet and smooth the power delivery is with a new guibo!

 

[omw41]

Thanks so much. I will study the pictures and let you know how it all turned out. I have a Bentley's, but you know how that goes. Only a moron couldn't get it after all you've offered. I'll study it and hit it tomorrow noon. we're expecting morning rain here in CT, but you know how weathermen are.

 

[omw41]

Yeah man. I can see by the pictures. Believe it or not, I just haven't eyeballed up front far enough. can you imagine that I've spent hours under the car looking at it...and I never thought to look just a little further up front. Live and learn. thanks for stopping my tire iron prgress!

 

[epj3]

Yeah man. I can see by the pictures. Believe it or not, I just haven't eyeballed up front far enough. can you imagine that I've spent hours under the car looking at it...and I never thought to look just a little further up front. Live and learn. thanks for stopping my tire iron prgress!

Yes I can believe it!I did this and a few other things at once during the summer I had my e30, was without a car for almost 2 full weeks! It's not an easy repair, the exhaust was 3/4 the battle for me.

 

[echothreezero]

And if you pull your driveshaft in half like epj3 mark the two halves first so that you put it back on the same way. The propshaft is balanced from factory as a single unit - if you put it back together wrong you may get driveline vibration - also, it is import to phase the u-joints correctly. there is only two correct alignments to get them in phase so if you already pulled it apart, put it back together in phase - if you get vibration pull it apart and put them the other way (180 degrees different).

 

[echothreezero]

Also while you have the shaft off, consider replacing the knuckle bush where the shift linkage attaches to the trans. By replacing this relatively inexpensive part you will remove all of the slop in your gear lever and it is only accessible with the driveshaft off. also inspect your rubber trans mounts and check your trans seals for leaks.

 

[epj3]

Good advice echothreezero - I completely forgot about making the mark, even though you can see it in my picture!

 

[echothreezero]

Yep - saw your mark. Oh and while I'm spending your money omw41, you should inspect the centre hanger bearing too. They cost about the same as the guibo and are easy to replace while the shaft is out of the car.

I'll be going through all of this very soon with a manual conversion imminent for my new 325. Fun, fun, fun!