The reason the car was taken of the road in the first place was a dead clutch (the release mechanism no longer did, for reasons unknown at the time), so even without any other work, this was going to need to be done, and in order to get the engine and gearbox out, both the driveshafts and the propshaft need to be disconnected.

  The diagram on the left shows the position of the components in the car. If this was just a two-wheel-drive Panda, I wouldn't have to worry about a propshaft - but it isn't, and so I do. This is easier to remove than the driveshafts, so I'll cover it first.

  The propshaft on the Panda is in three parts - one from the gearbox, with a constant velocity (cv) joint at either end, a centre section running on bearings attached to a central bashplate/mount, and a third linking this to the rear axle differential with a of universal joint (uj) at each end.

  First off, I unbolted the front cv joint from the gearbox output flange. It's held in place with six allen-headed M8 bolts (6mm hex key), and these screw into the flange directly - there's no nuts on the other side. They weren't seized, and a quick spray with some penetrating oil saw them come out with a minimum of fuss. There were three shims, one for every two bolts, that both acted as washers and stopped the bolts vibrating loose, which came away with the bolts. Even with the bolts removed, the cv joint remained in place relative to the flange, mainly due to the slight lip on the flange face. With socket-head (allen key) fasteners, it's vital to use a good quality hex key, and to make sure the socket is clean, otherwise you increase the risk of slipping and rounding off the head.

  Next, I removed the four bolts fastening the rearmost uj to the rear diff. Again, they were M8s, but this time regular 13mm hex headed bolts with Nyloc nuts. There wasn't enough room to get a socket, or even a ring spanner, on them, so I had to use open spanners. I hate doing this on tight fasteners, as they're much more likely to slip and round off, but once again a good dose of the trusty Plusgas had them off. The uj dropped cleanly away from the diff flange, leaving only the centre section of the prop still attached to the car.

  The easiest way to remove this is to drop the entire bashplate with the prop attached, so the first step was to stick a jack under it for support while I released the fasteners. The assembly is held on by eight semi-captive M8 fittings, with standard 13mm nuts and spring washers. Although the threads protrude quite a way from the nuts, my socket was just long enough to get on them. I still had the exhaust on the car at this point, and this meant I needed to use a ring spanner on a couple of the nuts due to clearance issues, but nothing major. With the nuts off, the prop could be lowered down on the jack and removed - the front cv joint didn't want to come away from the gearbox flange, but a quick tap with a mallet soon shifted it. The prop really isn't that heavy, and I had no problems carrying it singlehandedly. The semi-captive fasteners just slid out of their retaining brackets to be bagged and tagged with their nuts and washers.

  Next step was to pull out the driveshafts. Both sides use the same design, only really differing on the length of the shaft and the gearbox mounting (more on that later), with cv joints at the wheel ends, and tripod-type "plunge" joints at the differential. First step is to grab a drainage tray and a 12mm hex key, and drain out the transmission oil. I was pleased to notice that in the six months since I'd refilled the gearbox the level had stayed pretty static, so the 'box doesn't have any great leakage problems. Evidence, though, that it's near-empty state when I acquired the car was most likely down to never being checked. Ah well.

  Anyway, with the old oil out (and put in the used oil disposal at my local dump like a good boy), I could now remove the driveshafts without accidentally flooding the garage. First step was to find somewhere to jack the car up - luckily, being a 4x4, there are some good meaty sumpguard mounts on the front suspension brackets, so I used those, with a couple of axle stands in place to stop me dropping the car on my head. I'm going to go through the removal of the driver's side (long) driveshaft, but they're both much the same.

  With the hub nut cover removed (if you unscrew a wheel bolt it just slides out the way), step one was to undo the 30mm hex nut holding the driveshaft into the hub - after drifting out the folded-in locktab that prevents it coming loose. I was expecting this to be pretty tight, so used an 18-inch breaker bar for leverage, but it really wasn't too bad, and just the weight of the car on the wheel gave enough resistance to get it off - sometimes you need to get a helper to stomp on the footbrake for you while you do it, but both sides here were fine.

  With the car jacked up and the wheel off, there's pretty good access to the suspension bolts I needed to undo. First up was where the tie rod is bolted to the bottom suspension arm, with an M12 (19mm head) bolt and nyloc nut. There's also an M8 (13mm head) bolt to undo, but all that's for is to hold in place the anti-loosening plate for the main fastener. With the nut off, the bolt can't be pushed up through the joint because the head clobbers the cv joint - not an issue, as you'll see.

  Next, I undid the M10 (17mm head) bolt attaching the bottom arm to the bodyshell. There's a thick washer/spacer underneath the nut to look out for, too. The bolt was a little sticky, but a light tap freed it off, and the bottom arm could now be pivoted down on it's wheel-end ball joint - pulling it off the tie rod attachment bolt in the process, y'see? Anyway, with the joints free, the entire strut assembly could be swung out a few degrees, pivoting from it's top mount. Putting the steering on full left lock gave a bit of extra room (because I was doing the right side - it'd be right lock for the left side), and there was just enough slack in the brake hose to swing the strut out far enough to push the cv joint spline out of the hub (if I'd needed a bit more clearance, I could have undone the brake hose retaining clip). That's the hard bit sorted - the driveshaft is no longer attached to the hub, and just needs to be seperated from the gearbox.

  At the gearbox end, it was simply a case of undoing the three M6 (10mm head) fasteners that held the joint cover in place, and the driveshaft was off. On the passenger side, the cover mount was made from aluminium rather than steel, and was held in place by four M8 allen-headed fasteners. The male/female sides of the joint were also reversed compared to the driver's side - I assume all these factors are intended to make it impossible for the shafts to be put on the incorrect side, as they don't affect the operation of the parts.

  With the shaft out, I reassembled the suspension, and lowered the car back down. There was no point in using new fasteners on the suspension at this point, as it'll be coming apart again when the time comes to refit the driveshafts.

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