E30 Zone

Hi guys - question for everyone - I have just had a new fuel tank put into my '88 320i (old one had a crack) and while down there the garage replaced my propshaft centre bearing as the old one was shot!

Good news is this cured an annoying heavy clunk I was getting when accelerating or decelerating... however the car has now developed a vibration and grinding noise at slow speeds when accelerating. I'd say around 10-15mph up to about 40mph... it feels like it is coming from the centre of the car and back.

Can anyone shed some light on what this might be? I can imagine that before the bearing was replaced there was a lot of movement in the driveshaft... and perhaps now a new bearing has been put into place something is misaligned which is causing a vibration. Can this be fixed? Does it need to go back to the garage?

Also perhaps this work has now highlighted issues with other components such as the u-joints... cv axles etc

Anyway, other thoughts or suggestions would as always be greatly appreciated...

wilma84 wrote: ↑

Sun Apr 23, 2023 11:26 am

however the car has now developed a vibration and grinding noise at slow speeds when accelerating. I'd say around 10-15mph up to about 40mph... it feels like it is coming from the centre of the car and back.

It is possible if you try hard to put the centre bearing in back to front, also make sure it is the correct bearing, some of the cheap generic ones are rubbish. Might not be properly tensioned either.

Also your prop might be out of balance, either havong its weights knocked off or having a prop made up and not balanced but as it is a standard 320 I think that is unlikely. Common on swaps though.

I had an issue like this on my old e30, although the vibration was felt at around 60mph, it was a real headache. Did the garage only change the centre bearing?

As said above they may not have tensioned it correctly or even fitted it backwards, or not lined up the dots correctly. There is also a small centring bushing that goes inside the guibo and locates it on the output shaft of the gearbox. I would have changed these two parts also, its not as difficult as it may seem, the hardest part is the removal of the exhaust.

Thanks for the responses... just spoke to my local indie and he also said it sounds like they may have installed the CSB the wrong way around?! Which would be annoying to say the at least. Will get it into the garage and have a look, hopefully not too tricky to resolve...