CAUTION! AWD Front Drive Shaft Removal --Drifts in park. | Page 4 | Ford Explorer Forums - Serious Explorations

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CAUTION! AWD Front Drive Shaft Removal --Drifts in park.

If I know anything about differentials is that a free spinning wheel on a side will cause total loss of traction on the other wheel - UNLESS you block somehow that differential.
Now - we have two axles instead of two wheels. One of them is spinning freely (with the shaft removed it is almost no friction there). The other would NOT get any motor torque unless the differential is LOCKED.
So... if your truck is moving with the front shaft removed it is because the VC is LOCKED inside the center differential. Locked by heat that is.
 



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if that were true.... then by a couple months time.... we would hear some awful noise if it indeed heats up and eventually gets too hot and starts to boil away at the fluid.. and i believe your looking at this the wrong way.... the awd transfercase is not a differential. sure it can adjust a little to compensate for turns. but like some are thinking and i am too... small mass that is floating there aint gonna cause everything to burn out...
 






It is a differential. Look at the pics of what it has inside.
And - how in the world would NOT be a differential if it is engaged all the time? On asphalt it would eat away the tires in no time.
Small or big mass has NOTHING to do with how a differential works - what matters is only the RESISTANT torque on each of the two output shafts. Put a regular car on a jack to lift a wheel see what happens.

You won't hear any noises (why would you?), fluid doesn't "boil", it just thickens till it engages both output shafts with the same RPM's (front one has an extra de-multiplier right before exits the case). Till you put back the front shaft (and this only if VC is fried - nave no idea how log will take for that) you won't know the difference.
 






For sake of argument, I suppose you could call it a differential... Though not your typical rear end style diff obviously. The VC has alternating plates on the input and output shaft with slots in them. The fluid inside trying to force its way through the small openings is what transmits some of the torque to the front shaft. Resistance to shear is the technical lingo. The senior tech at my dealership still owns a Explorer his wife had bought from a couple that moved up from Florida. Never had a front driveshaft in it for four years after the CV joint portion seized up from a wrecked boot. He got a shaft from a trade in Mounty that was going to auction, put it in and the AWD still worked normally, no binding in turns, etc. People on this site, in this very post have done it. It can be done, theres no real advantage in terms of fuel economy, it's mainly done when the front prop shaft is in need of service. And the transmission output shaft is connected ultimately by a chain to the rear driveshaft (with numerous parts in between), so regardless of whats happening up front, you'll still have rear wheel drive. But in the end, a Ford engineer could come on here and reiterate this and people would still belive what they want to believe. So in conclusion... happy fourth of July! :usa:
 






But in the end, a Ford engineer could come on here and reiterate this and people would still belive what they want to believe. So in conclusion... happy fourth of July! :usa:

You mean a BorgWarner engineer? :)
Or you can take a look here if you are technically inclined: BW4404
"Planet", "Sun gear" - ring a bell?

:usa: Happy 4th of July! :usa:
 
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BW engineer? Good luck trying to get one of them. Hell, it takes over a month for a Ford engineer to come out. I have all the schematics in my Ford service manuals, as well as via the Ford PTS site. Though I must admit you're reference to the sun gears and planetary of the TC are lost on me. I'm very well aware of what's inside this transfer case. I have one in my truck and two in my shop... though one of them is a 4410 from an 02. If it's in reference to the differentials comment, I'd say referencing sun and planetary gears would be a better reference to automatic tranny's, where they're actually used. In any case, this convo is drifting off topic in regards to the original post so.... back to web surfing for me.
 






Hello, I just bought an 04 Mountaineer. It's got a mis-matched set of tires on it and it's binding up. I was planning on removing the front drive shaft to save my front dif and TC until I can afford a new set of tires. Is the AWD tc in my 04 Mountaineer the same as the TC in in the earlier explorers which are in question in this thread. If so, I should be good to go, if not; what, if anything, should I know before removing it?

Thanks in advance
Jason
 






As far as the differential argument goes, I don't believe the differential in the Transfer case operates in quite the manner that the standard differential on a drive axle works. Consider that the torque split without any slippage is 65 rear-35 front. In this case, the rear end is actually pushing the front end, and the front output would be running completely unloaded.

I removed my front drive shaft today, and took a 130 mile round trip drive this afternoon to pick up my father at the airport. I'm not sure why people are reporting no increase in gas mileage, I went from around 17-18mpg highway before removal to averaging 21mpg highway on my trip today.
 






hello I'm needing some help finding a front drive shaft for my 01 explorer V-8 AWD. can any one help me
 












the fron drive shaft was removed from my 98' ford explorer awd xlt before i bought it... mine also will slowly move when parked on a hill... thinking about gettin a new front driveshaft and puttin it on... im scared it was causing problems or they were just to cheap to buy a new one...
 






1998 ford explorer awd front drive shaft removel

how do you remove front drive shaft i took the front bolts out how to i get it off the transfer case
 






there are 6 small bolts that are on the cv bulb end of the drive shaft.
 






Mountaineer that goes KA-CHONK

My 97 Mountaineer makes a very loud and noticeable clunk. I bought this truck and , unkown to me, the previous owner had removed the front driveshaft. I discovered this after work, finding it resting against a coworker's car. I got a junkyard driveshaft, figuring that the viscous coupler was locked up being the reason for removal. I put it in to see if would at least be driveable for winter. Jacked completely off the ground it spun all four wheels under power but it makes this clonk sound, seemingly from the transfer case. When driven it idles along fine but when you attempt to accelerate the sound gets worse and repeats. My first thought was the chain, or possibly the 226k mile junkyard driveshaft. Any thoughts before I start replacing things?
 






wow... that sucks.... i know my ex makes a clunk and the front end will lurch up and down if i put my driveline back in since i tore some teeth off somewhere in the front diff but as far as the transfer case... i dont know what it could be since i havent taken a transfer case apart yet to think of what might make that noise. hope you find your answer soon. (all that left for me to do for a transfer case swap is the wiring harness.... y cant i get a job now to get money....)
 






Well I have had my front driveshaft out for a year and a half now and havent had any problems. Other than it too will creep downhill if I dont set the parking brake. I also gained around 4-6mpg. I removed it cause I had a noise coming from the front, like a cluning or banging that got faster as I accelerated. I thought it sounded louder on the drivers side than the passengers.
 






i have not had any drifting in park with my ex. since i pulled the front drive shaft 2 months ago. i parked on every kinda hill or embankment i could think of to see if it would move. and it never moved and i dont have the parking brake on my truck anymore. so that isnt why.
 






i have not had any drifting in park with my ex. since i pulled the front drive shaft 2 months ago. i parked on every kinda hill or embankment i could think of to see if it would move. and it never moved and i dont have the parking brake on my truck anymore. so that isnt why.

Since you have the 4.0L sohc you do not have AWD. Which means your transfer case is different from the one being discussed in this thread.
 






Im just going to throw my two cents in. I had to remove my mountys driveshaft due to it going bad. so far I have driven about 3000 miles with no problems, and im not easy on my vehicles. My twin turbo Z has the VC rear diff and it doesn't have any different fluid than the normal rear diff. Same applies to the fluid inside the AWD t-case its just ATF just like any other tcase around that time. Now if the front output was locked in place it would burn up the ATF really fast if it where not able to turn. I feel the impact of removing the front drive-shaft for any period of time is trivial. Just make sure the Tcase is topped off with good clean fluid and there should be no problems
 



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Im just going to throw my two cents in. I had to remove my mountys driveshaft due to it going bad. so far I have driven about 3000 miles with no problems, and im not easy on my vehicles. My twin turbo Z has the VC rear diff and it doesn't have any different fluid than the normal rear diff. Same applies to the fluid inside the AWD t-case its just ATF just like any other tcase around that time. Now if the front output was locked in place it would burn up the ATF really fast if it where not able to turn. I feel the impact of removing the front drive-shaft for any period of time is trivial. Just make sure the Tcase is topped off with good clean fluid and there should be no problems

I agree 100%
 






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