That should be Disintegrating 'driveshaft' joint. Bloody swear filter!

The car's not happy. The short story is that yesterday while driving the car suddenly filled with smoke, I jumped out like you do, and found an inner 'driveshaft' joint boot had split and thrown it's grease all over the exhaust. Now that was a minor inconvenience, but cars run fine like that so I carried on.

200 or so miles later it(presumably the joint) was making all sorts of nasty noises, especially when braking, and I could feel it through the brake pedal and the steering wheel, it was enough to make me think it might fall apart any minute. It was very hot, presumably from the brakes, and was looking dry, so I smeared a load more grease onto it through the split gaiter and that seems to have quietened it down a lot. This morning I did another 100 miles with it and although I can still hear it, it doesn't sound like it's about to fall apart.

What I'm wondering is if I should chance another 250 miles tomorrow until I get home and can swap the inner shaft? Is it likely to let go in a big way at any point? It still seems relatively quiet at the moment.

I'd get the AA to meet you at Dover, just in case

Where are you headed Joolz?

I'm in south London at the moment, hope to be heading for Wales tomorrow. FJ's breakdown service are tried and recommended, but I'd rather drive it if possible. I just don't want to risk it letting go at any speed, I suspect it would do some damage.

If you wanted to go off your route to west Sussex you can have another shaft from the pile here.

Giz a shout on 07969 802353 if you want to swing by.

Thanks Russ but I think I'll play it by ear, if I can keep it relatively quite with repeated applications of grease, then I'll keep driving. As I said it behaved itself from dover to london, I'm wondering if the lack of brake temp due to motorway driving helped it, I'll try doing the same tomorrow.

Well feck me it made it, I'm really surprised considering the noises it was making 350 miles ago. I'll give you the full story later sometime.

I'm not familiar with the construction of the 2CV driveshaft, but is there any risk of it detaching in use...?

Impossible unless someone leaves most of the bolts out and then it would make an horrendous noise which should alert you in quick time.

Phew.

Chust a bit worried about Joolz doing these mileages with a clearly unhappy UJ