Hi again, I thought I would put this in so that any of you who are thinking of doing this on your own will have an idea of what is involved. Well, how do I put it... it was a bitch of a job! It should be really straight forward, but of course, being 13 years old, nothing came apart as it should. You really need to do both couplings at the same time, and the only way is remove the whole drive shaft. You will need 10/12/14mm sockets, 6inch socket extension, open/ring 12mm spanner. Jack up the car and put on axle stands. If you have a pit or ramp lucky you! First, remove the front protection panel which covers the underside at the front end...6 bolts, 10mm/12mm. The SHAFT is attached to the couplings with 3 12mm bolts/nuts either end (or 14mm depending on your year, mine is 96), and the couplings then attach to the DRIVE, engine end 3x 12mm bolts ONLY, and the DRIVEN anciliary end(front) again with 3 nuts/bolts each. You need to remove the horseshoe bracket supporting the front on the anciliary block (it straddles the shaft at the front) this takes 6 bolts, 2x12mm upper each side and 2 x 14mm lower. This will allow you to pull the REAR coupling free of the engine drive once you have removed the 3 bolts (the anciliary block swings forward slightly). The bushes within the coupling perish and break, but not all of them! All the bushes were broken on our rear (engine) end and it came apart easily, but only the bushes attached to the front driven flange were gone, the bushes attaching the coupling to the shaft at the front were all intact. This made removing the shaft extremely difficult, as the bushes are recessed into the shaft flange, AND WERE IN TIGHT and I could not therefore remove the coupling from the shaft. If I could have just removed the shaft with the coupling attached this would not have been a problem..... However, there are 2 brackets holding up the anciliary block at the front, (the two brackets onto which the horseshoe attaches). These brackets curve in towards the shaft, preventing removal of the shaft PLUS coupling. In the end, I had to contort myself under the car to be able to reach the bolts holding one of the brackets, REMOVE 2 of the bolts 12mm and LOOSEN the top one 12mm which allowed the bracket to swing upwards and out of the way, eventually allowing me to remove shaft plus front coupling. You will need a big cross point screwdriver to prise the bushes from either the drive/shaft/driven flange if they are (inevitably) stuck! If you are lucky, ALL the front bushes will have perished and broken, including the shaft ones and you will be able to pull the shaft free of the coupling. This will save you having to undo the bracket! The thing is, once its out, you just fit the new couplings to the shaft, tighten up the bolts, put some new grease in each end and put the whole lot back in! Re-attach the anciliary support bracket if you had to undo it (swear alot!) put in the rest of the bolts for the couplings to the drive/driven flanges and reattach the horseshoe bracket at the front! Note... if you were able to remove the shaft from the coupling at the front and did not need to undo the curved bracket, then you will have to fit the coupling to the driven flange FIRST and then offer up the shaft to the front coupling ..... if you fit the coupling to the shaft, you WILL NOT GET IT PAST THE BRACKET!!!!! (more swearing!) Start your engine! NO RATTLE!!!!! It took me (qualified helicopter technician) 4 1/2 hours..... thats 3 hours 45 mins to remove and 45 mins to refit. Now I know what to expect, I guess I could do it in under 2 hours (NOT that I am offering, mind you!) If you want to give it a go, then I would be happy to talk you through it. My advice if you are not mechanically minded..... get a mechanic to do it! All the best Paul
