[s-cars] Bad time to work on driveshaft

[Wayne Dohnal]

If you're thinking of working on your driveshaft you might want to put it 
off for a couple of months.  Every rebuilder I located (Powertrain 
Industries, Driveshaft Specialists, wholesaleimportparts.com) has no S-car 
driveshafts available, and cannot rebuild most Audi driveshafts because they 
used up their stock of CVs, and the replacements are backordered.  One of 
them guessed for me that it will be at least a month.  If they don't use the 
CVs from their own supplier, there's no driveshaft warranty.

The ordeal started when I decided to replace the center support and front CV 
on my driveshaft as others have done.  After doing this and reassembling the 
car, the driveshaft vibrated like crazy.  I pulled it back out and took it 
to a driveshaft place.  They were unable to balance the center and diagnosed 
the problem as a bad center u-joint (the non-replacable staked-in one). 
It's got end play.  I didn't realize that a u-joint would fail in this way. 
Now that I know what to look for, it's obvious.  My next step was a rebuilt 
driveshaft (not!), which after looking at the rebuilders' web sites one 
would think is readily available.

If I was able to start over, I'd order a rebuilt in the first place and not 
taken the car apart until I actually had it.  There's at least a suggestion 
here that the useful life of the center u-joint is 200k miles, which the car 
is very close to.  If anybody is looking for a deal on a driveshaft CV with 
about 5 miles on it, contact me.  I've also got the brand new center bearing 
but, alas, I don't think it can be pulled off without destroying it.  A 
couple of people have kindly offered to let me have or borrow a used 
driveshaft but I don't ever want to be having to do this job again.  I may 
very well leave the old gal in drydock until I can get the driveshaft fully 
rebuilt.

Wayne Dohnal
1994 S4