Disconnect final drive

Hi guys,
First post here. Very pleased to join such a distinguished group of geeks .

Anyway, last weekend I broke my front final drive, waaaay out in the bush, and had to limp home. I took the front prop off to limit the load on it, but was stuck pondering if I could drive it without the drive flanges on to completely limit movement in the drive. I decided not to, because I was worried the drive shafts would move too much and maybe the CVs would not align right with the swivel. But is this an option?

Can you drive with the drive flanges off, but half-shafts still in place? (assuming the seals are not leaking and all that)

Oh, and related to this. Anyone has a tip for removing drive flanges that the previous owner glued in place with liquid gasket maker from hell?

Cheers

Landy_Thor said:

Hi guys,
First post here. Very pleased to join such a distinguished group of geeks . <snip>

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Oh no I feel a dissapointment coming ....

In the most basic sense of whether the vehicle will move under its own power, well yes it will provided the centre difflock is engaged and you only do it to one axle at a time. Whether it's worth doing is another question. Maybe if it seems like the diff mechanism or a CV joint is breaking up and might jam the wheels up at any moment it might be worth doing. For everyday wear and tear like worn splines that tend to jump rather than transmit torque, or even a broken halfshaft, it's probably not worth doing if you're just trundling home carefully.

I had a front axle jam up after a large bounce over a large rock coming down with the power still on [ diff and shaft fubar on later inspection ] To get home disconnected front drive and then removed the flange bolts but left flanges on. Some oil escaped but no problem getting home as nothing turning in axle.

tottot said:

I had a front axle jam up after a large bounce over a large rock coming down with the power still on [ diff and shaft fubar on later inspection ] To get home disconnected front drive and then removed the flange bolts but left flanges on. Some oil escaped but no problem getting home as nothing turning in axle.

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I never considered leaving the flanges on without the bolts. That could work I guess. Won't it wear the mating surface of the flanges a lot?

Brown said:

In the most basic sense of whether the vehicle will move under its own power, well yes it will provided the centre difflock is engaged and you only do it to one axle at a time. Whether it's worth doing is another question. Maybe if it seems like the diff mechanism or a CV joint is breaking up and might jam the wheels up at any moment it might be worth doing. For everyday wear and tear like worn splines that tend to jump rather than transmit torque, or even a broken halfshaft, it's probably not worth doing if you're just trundling home carefully.

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Hi Brown, I was worried about causing further damage to the diff. It was a very long drive back, and the diff sounded like it was eating metal the whole way.

But is it possible, to drive at speed without the flanges on?

There will be oil to lube flange faces. Stub axle tube keeps cv output shaft in place. As you drove home with busted diff turning there will be chewed up bits in the diff pan. Problem comes when bits in the diff pan jam between crown wheel and diff case, this can result in holes getting punched in the casing. Check before fitting replacement.

tottot said:

There will be oil to lube flange faces. Stub axle tube keeps cv output shaft in place. As you drove home with busted diff turning there will be chewed up bits in the diff pan. Problem comes when bits in the diff pan jam between crown wheel and diff case, this can result in holes getting punched in the casing. Check before fitting replacement.

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Thank you tottot. I will certainly check for that. I did drain the diff oil and filtered for metal bits before driving home (was forced to reuse the oil). Only small metal bits in there, so I'm thinking it is a busted bearing, but I don't know.