halfshaft failure, how I fixed it

[Jason Garrett Young]

OK, as some of you saw yesterday (yes, I am trying to provide some decent
threads to keep the list alive) my red se-r decided not to work.

.....background

1. moron before me, slotted the struts to account for camber
2. I put a '98 motor in the car and the alignment was off
3. I was tired of trying to guess at it so I towed it to an alignment shop
for them to fix it
4. I pick it up, drive it on the trailer, bring it back to the shop
5. turn it on, and TRY to drive it off the trailer, it won't move, the
clutch is engaging, I can tell, but the car just sits

I can hear a funny rattle noise and see that the driver's shaft is moving at
the tranny but not anywhere else.  It turns out that the inner most (since
our driver's halves are comprised of 2 joints and 3 straights) joint,
somehow the C clip that holds the bearings on the spline has fallen off and
allowed the bearing bulge to come off the spline, but the shaft is still in
the boot.  Easy fix, just a dirty fix.

I still don't know how it happened or the sequence.  I might guess that the
shop the spindle fall out towards the ground and that let the half *pop* the
clip off.  It stayed there just enough for me to drive it on the trailer and
fell off during the journey.

JGY, not a big fan of Shiner Bock, as I had some in Hilton Head SC.  Was it
ok, yes, do I think it's worthy of such claims? no.  It's just like so many
other *sort of small* beer company beers.