Driveshaft centering sleeve

[JDUB]

I have heard from some experienced techs that they have never seem a driveshaft centering sleeve go bad. Well this guy has. I suspected that the sleeve was bad as there was some up and down movement in the drive shaft at the front flex disk. I purchased the parts but didn't get around to doing it until today. The car developed a bad vibration and I checked it out underneath, one of the flex disk bolts was completely gone. When I got the driveshaft out the centering sleeve was all bent out of shape and pulled out by hand. I finally got the job done. The exhaust system had to be dropped, to get the driveshaft out and on this car the is no way to get the flex disk out without dropping the exhaust ( you cant get to the clamping nut,it is under the catalytic converter)

[jeffsr]

If a flex disk or u-joint at either end of the drive shaft lets go, the inbalance produced will ultimately wreck the center support bearing or carrier. Sounds like you car went down that road..

[stevebfl]

I think that JDUB is refering to the device at each end of the shaft that centers the flex disc by sliding over the half inch diameter end of the trans output shaft or pinion shaft at the other end.

I don't know how often these sleeves fail, but I have seen every form of destruction from continued use of vibrating driveshafts. Probably the worse was one where the driveshaft got off the trans output shaft at 50mph. The driveshaft was then driven by the rear wheels until the car could be stopped. The driveshaft was destroyed (let alone the sleeve), the rear tailhousing was broken at the mount, and the crash profile sensor activated the airbag at 50mph. This was a 87 300e and the sensor is above the end of the trans on the tunnel inside the car.

It takes a special owner/operator to get into this situation.