BOOM! There goes the driveshaft

[Trap Star]

At the request of another member I'm posting my story. If you have any ideas as to what may have caused this or have had a driveshaft failure please post up. This could have been MUCH worse and I consider myself to be pretty lucky since I wasn't injured. The guys on motorcycles behind me were very lucky as well, a large chunk of the driveshaft came loose and nearly hit one of them. Hopefully with a little input from the community this situation can be prevented future.

Car Info
-97 S14, original 5 speed
-S13 SR20det, mostly stock
-J30 LSD
-Stock S14 driveshaft


What happened
I was driving north on I-95 a little south of St. Augustine, Florida. I was not beating on the car or anything, just cruising around 80-85mph on my way back to Atlanta. The whole thing happened pretty quickly. My car started to rumble quite badly but before I could do anything I heard a loud explosion. I immediately dropped the car into neutral. I then made my way across 3 lanes of traffic while being sprayed in the face with small metal shavings. There was a horrible grinding noise which turned out to be part of the driveshaft spinning and cutting through the transmission tunnel.

It was a stock s14 driveshaft and it came apart at the middle joint. The bolts at the differential were still tight and the input shaft was still in the transmission. The transmission wasn't damaged. It cut through on both sides of the trans tunnel right at the rear bolt for the front seats. I'm 6'4" so my seat position puts my hip right around that bolt. I truly believe that if I had not dropped the car into neutral it would have continued to cut through the car and then me. I'm really not sure what caused it but here's a few ideas I've come up with:

1) Improper install (I don't think this was the issue as the car had run without issue prior to this)

2) Faulty/weak driveshaft

3) Damage of some kind. The car sat VERY low and I had high-centered it on a couple speed bumps. Both high-centers had taken place at least 1 year prior to the failure.


Even though this seems to be an isolated incident I'm still running 1-piece driveshafts from now on (got the d/s for my S13 from Z1). At least that way if something happens it will tear up a part of the car that isn't so close to me. Again, please post if this has happened to you or you've witnessed a failure before. This was pretty scary and I hope it never happens to myself or anyone else ever again.

Here's some pictures of the damage:

Exhaust


Passenger side (sorry for the blurry pic)


Driver side

[OutlawLui]

No welded Diff? or anything happen to the internals on the diff? maybe it seized up..idk this is so crazy scary


edit. just saw the j30 lsd line

[Drift_86]

Do you have any pictures of the drive shaft or under your car. To me it seems like bad luck you probably hit something that might of damage the driveshaft. I also suspect the j30 diff adds more stress on the driveshaft specially if it's low in oil or something...

[NismoDriverS13]

That is pretty crazy...I get a clunk type noise from my driveshaft once I get on or off accelerator quickly. Sometimes I'd get vibrations too while pressing gas pedal lightly. Everything seems tight tho...maybe need to replace the driveshaft carrier bearing.

[LoSt180]

Do you have pics of the driveshaft or where it broke? What was the condition of the center support bearing? Is that what came apart?

It's possible there was damage from being so low. I'm also wondering if running a non-ABS drive shaft on an ABS differential put additional stress on that joint, causing pre-mature failure.

[Mr.Doback]

Originally Posted by LoSt180

Do you have pics of the driveshaft or where it broke? What was the condition of the center support bearing? Is that what came apart?

It's possible there was damage from being so low. I'm also wondering if running a non-ABS drive shaft on an ABS differential put additional stress on that joint, causing pre-mature failure.

I agree, we need pictures of the drive shaft and the center carrier bracket. Sounds like that bracket wasn't bolted down very tight or the joint broke?

Hard to say without seeing the actual shaft and where it broke.

[xoxide]

I developed horrible vibrations, looked under my car and this is what I found....




Had I drove it around another day or less I probably would've not had a leg any longer.

[ixfxi]

Originally Posted by Trap Star

At the request of another member I'm posting my story.

Thanks for posting this up.

From what I've seen, shafts can fail at the welds. I for one, was very curious if anyone else has had incidents with driveshaft failure... doesnt matter if its OEM or aftermarket (steel, alum, carbon) etc...

Just curious to hear stories. Feel free to post up.

[e1_griego]

I broke a u-joint this weekend on a single piece drvieshaft (local made, it looks like). Came with the shell that I put together.

We were launching on a brand new set of r-comps and it lasted 7 runs. I replaced it with an OEM.

[G5SR20240]

Drive shafts can and will fail and certain times, ujoints use needle bearings, over time like any bearing it will fail and when they do its not very fun. We typically will build a drive shaft loop for any car that is going to be pushing a good amount of power because it is common. You may of just been unfortunate and the u joint locked up on you and stopped allowing motion which snapped the shaft. You are lucky that the rear shaft didnt dig that hard into the ground while you were still moving. Stick a steel one piece in there with good joints and have better piece of mind

[KiLLeR2001]

Been riding with my 1-piece aluminum for 7 years now, no issues.

[Om1kron]

this actually happened to another member on the way home from a huge nissan meet back in 2008-2009 I believe. Too lazy to look for the post, but the meet was in so cal.

[Matej]

A friend's driveshaft exploded at the carrier bearing while drifting. It did not cause as much carnage as yours though. Just a very loud bang and the car stopped moving.

[Wookie384]

Sounds to me like your Center Support took a shit on you, either that or one of the U-joints rage quit on you. Either way, we can't confirm until we see pics of the driveshaft.

[Trap Star]

Originally Posted by Mr.Doback

I agree, we need pictures of the drive shaft and the center carrier bracket. Sounds like that bracket wasn't bolted down very tight or the joint broke?

Hard to say without seeing the actual shaft and where it broke.

That bracket was gone if I remember correctly. It was bolted in fine the last time I had checked it. I'll see if I can dig up some pictures of the driveshaft on my other pc.

Originally Posted by ixfxi

Thanks for posting this up.

From what I've seen, shafts can fail at the welds. I for one, was very curious if anyone else has had incidents with driveshaft failure... doesnt matter if its OEM or aftermarket (steel, alum, carbon) etc...

Just curious to hear stories. Feel free to post up.

No problem man.

Originally Posted by xoxide

I developed horrible vibrations, looked under my car and this is what I found....




Had I drove it around another day or less I probably would've not had a leg any longer.

That looks pretty nasty, any idea what caused the damage?



I should add that the differential was not damaged either. I'm currently running it on my S13 and haven't had any problems with it.

[Drift_86]

Originally Posted by Trap Star

That bracket was gone if I remember correctly. It was bolted in fine the last time I had checked it. I'll see if I can dig up some pictures of the driveshaft on my other pc.

that right there was your problem....
That bracket was meant to stabilize the drive shaft keep it from breaking you know.

[fullthrottle]

Originally Posted by Drift_86

that right there was your problem....
That bracket was meant to stabilize the drive shaft keep it from breaking you know.

This right here. Your carrier bearing support bracket probably fell off due to loose bolts. But considering the damage at the u joint i would say the bearings failed and seized up. Honestly its a 20 year old car, and this is doesnt happen very often on our cars at all even at high horsepower.

[Trap Star]

Originally Posted by Drift_86

that right there was your problem....
That bracket was meant to stabilize the drive shaft keep it from breaking you know.

Maybe I should have been more specific for you. I know the function of that piece which is why I made sure it was tightened properly when I installed the driveshaft. That said its not something I checked every day. I think it was missing after the failure, I'm not 100% on that since this happened a while ago.



FullThrottle: The picture of the driveshaft above is not mine.