Hello, I'm hoping you can help. As the titles says, the right side outer CV joint broke.

We took the car to a garage where they said they could only get a part from a Ford main dealer for £230 but it was on back order and could take weeks.

Better order the part yourself they said. So we did...giving the reg and all the details we could get from the garage. We used J&R CV joints who were lovely on the phone. The part came. It didn't fit. The shape of the splines was wrong. We had the right number of splines but wrong shape. This was a huge surprise to J&R who hadn't come across that before.

So we were advised to get the whole assembly ie the cv drive shaft. From J&R again. It arrived. It was "two inches too short" the mechanics said.

I'm not criticising J&R. Something odd is happening.

Has anyone else come across this issue. Does anyone know anything about the Ford part?

I am a car novice and I am overwhelmed.

Thank you

 

Has the car got the original engine and gearbox fitted or has it been changed at some point in the past ?

I'm so sorry for the slow reply. I didn't realise you'd answered. As far as we know it's the original gear box and engine but the car is a couple of hours away from us and the garage won't look for any numbers!

 

I'm so sorry for the slow reply. I didn't realise you'd answered. As far as we know it's the original gear box and engine but the car is a couple of hours away from us and the garage won't look for any numbers!

Here is an email exchange and some photos that might help.

 

Hello, we required the right hand front outer CV joint for ford focus ET11 PDY - engine code JQDB1L (on the V5C)

We have ordered JR537 CV Joint and the inside diameter is incorrect, it is aprox 25mm there as the original outside diameter is 26mm (they are both 24 splines).

We then ordered the whole drive shaft DS618 to try to overcome the problem, only the joint and supporting bearing position is approximately 65mm further inboard (towards the gearbox) than the original.

So if just a correct CV joint cannot be sourced then could a whole shaft be sourced of the correct dimensions? Obviously you can contact me for exact dimensions but the shaft is approximately 380mm from the inboard shoulder of the bearing surface (not including the splined portion) to the centre of the large support bearing. The overall length of the shaft from tip to tip is approximately 1020mm (with the centre boot holding the joint in approximately the middle).

Is there a way you could identify this joint/shaft as the car has now been out of action for over 2 weeks - the joint disintegrated with no warning.

Is there any possibility that one of the boxes we were sent had the wrong part in the box or the box was incorrectly labelled? Do you have the technical dimensions of all your parts that we can check against?

I am attaching so photos to demonstrate the situation and hopefully help you.

 

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Dear customer ,

Thank you for your email,

We are sorry these are the only options we have for your vehicle,

Please can you confirm when the items was purchased,

 

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Hello Stacey,

 

JR537 on 01/09/21 & DS618 on 02/09/21.

But this hasn’t answered the questions that I have asked. I realise that those are the parts that you have listed for this car, but clearly this is a different version, either something has been replaced as non standard (gearbox or engine???) or it is an early configuration that you don’t have listed (Ford Focus’s changed from Mk2 to Mk3 in 2011 maybe they introduced an improvement early on in the Mk3s production).

So is there a way to determine from the number of splines and the outside diameter of the shaft, a CV joint that would fit? Are there any other dimensions on the original parts that I can supply to you that could identify a suitable replacement?

 

Is it not possible to order the CV joint or complete drive shaft from a Ford main dealer ? It may be more expensive but after 2 weeks if they can supply one that fits it would at least get you your car back.