CAUTION! AWD Front Drive Shaft Removal --Drifts in park. | Page 5 | Ford Explorer Forums - Serious Explorations

  • Register Today It's free!

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

Is NOT the ATF that will burn is the VC silicon. And that will seize for good the VC making impossible to drive again with AWD.
 



Join the Elite Explorers for $20 each year.
Elite Explorer members see no advertisements, no banner ads, no double underlined links,.
Add an avatar, upload photo attachments, and more!
.





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.

You didn't ever fix this issue? I have the same problem under acceleration, but I want to fix it. I have never ran my X without the front driveshaft...it just all the sudden started making this cracking noise when I accelerated. On the first start of the evening I would wish that someone could tell me what the noise was and what to replace to fix it.

If I take off the front drive shaft and music goes away...is it the U joint front or back on that driveshaft? Or is it going to be something in the TC at that point? I'm lost on this...mechanic stopped by...had no idea.
 






You didn't ever fix this issue? I have the same problem under acceleration, but I want to fix it. I have never ran my X without the front driveshaft...it just all the sudden started making this cracking noise when I accelerated. On the first start of the evening I would wish that someone could tell me what the noise was and what to replace to fix it.

If I take off the front drive shaft and music goes away...is it the U joint front or back on that driveshaft? Or is it going to be something in the TC at that point? I'm lost on this...mechanic stopped by...had no idea.


There is only one u-joint on each drive shaft and that's at the dif end of each. The tc end has a cv joint.

Most likely if it's popping under acceleration it's one of the cv joints. That's where I'd start my search.
 






There is only one u-joint on each drive shaft and that's at the dif end of each. The tc end has a cv joint.

Most likely if it's popping under acceleration it's one of the cv joints. That's where I'd start my search.

What would the part name be so I can find out how to get a rebuild kit or buy a new one?
 






What would the part name be so I can find out how to get a rebuild kit or buy a new one?

cv joint. It's probably the one at the rear of the front drive shaft but I would check all of the cv joints for play. The culprit will most likely have quite a bit of play.
 






Ok so now i'm thinking about taking my ft drive shaft out. But i have another question. Since we all have aode's corect me if i'm wrong. why not put a stock tailhousing on the trans and add a 2wd driveshaft and be dnoe with it. I want to pull my ft driveshaft but can't afford to replace a tc if it goes bad.
 






I am having the same clunking under power. I pulled the front shaft and it drives like a dream. I parked on an incline to see if it would drift in park and it does. My drive shaft looks ok but hard to tell just by hand force. I am going to pack my driveshaft cv joint with greese and re-install. If the noise lesson than I will probably chang out the front shaft. I am not driving the truck till I find out what the cause is.

From what I read the cv is not replaceable on the front shaft. I did read where some guys found someone who did have a cv repair kit but I don't think there was a follow up post.

I am going to test my front diff to ruel that out and I will report back my findings.
 






when mine went it was the slines that were stripped so I had to replace the drive shaft not just the cv.
 






I read the entire thread and I see there's no diffinitive answer to whether or not driving without the front shaft will damage the VC. I wish someone knew the answer.
 






How hard was it to pull the front shaft on the AWD 5.0? Did the transfer case have to get pulled?
 






Just unbolt the u joint from the differential and there's 6 bolts connecting the CV end to the transfer case.
 






Drive shaft is off. Looks like the transfer case has to come off to get to the front seal. Any one cracked one.
 






If the truck is moving like you say then the issue is the parking pawl. All automatics have a steel pawl(finger) which engages the output shaft drum teeth. There are teeth on the outer portion of a drum at the back of the trans, which are only for park. If the vehicle is moving like that with the sound of the teeth/pawl jumping, they have become damaged.

Under all circumstances it is very wise to apply the parking brake to keep the vehicle from moving while parked. The transmission should not be used to hold the vehicle still. The parking brakes are far easier to service than the trans.

makes total sense!!!!!!!!
 






i've had the front drive shaft out of my '97 explorer since christmas for the same binding ,dragging,clunking problem.i've done approx 25000 klm(i live in australia) about 15000 miles with no problems.it does roll back about 8 inches when parked on an incline in park with the hand brake engaged but it did this with the front shaft in.
 






Joined the darkside and removed the front drive shaft today. Noticed right
away no binding and popping on tight turns. Everything seems to move
freely now; hard to explain before seemed like the truck was binding up
and being held back somehow. Drives great & noticed no problems or loss of
power; drove about 100 miles today no issues so far.

Parking Issue Discussed here:
I am using the parking break; but I did not notice any drifting. When put in
park the transmission seemed to hold truck just fine even on an incline. Will
continue to use the parking break anyway.

I will try to keep giving updates here on my darkside adventure.

100 Miles and no issues.
___________________
Brian
96 5.0L AWD w/Bad TC; Now 2WD by removing front driveshaft.
i've had the front drive shaft out of my '97 explorer since christmas for the same binding ,dragging,clunking problem.i've done approx 25000 klm(i live in australia) about 15000 miles with no problems.it does roll back about 8 inches when parked on an incline in park with the hand brake engaged but it did this with the front shaft in.
 






btw.my '97 explorer is 4ltr v6 sohc
 












1998 Mountaineer Front Driveshaft

Hello, Im new to site, as I am new to owning a 1998 Mercury Mountaineer.
My ? is, How do you remove the front driveshaft? Getting the universal joint loose is no problem, it about fell out.:) My question is, does the shaft just pull out?
It seems to have suction on it when I pull it,
Thank you,
Paul;
Ohio



:thumbsup:I have solved my issue, It does just pull out with some persuasion.

Paul
London,Ohio
 
Last edited:






Ok so i read through this whole thing and seems like nowone has had this problem, but i pulled the front drive shaft out of my 99 explorer 5.0 and went to back it off the raps and wouldnt move..... it just spun the front part of the transfercase. now not sure if im reading this forum wrong or what but that should have been all i needed to do to make it drive in 2wd right?
 



Join the Elite Explorers for $20 each year.
Elite Explorer members see no advertisements, no banner ads, no double underlined links,.
Add an avatar, upload photo attachments, and more!
.





The factory AWD TC is a bias split torque unit if you dont have the front DS in it will destroy the Viscous coupling inside.

I have had a couple of well experienced Ford mechanics tell me that removing the front axle will not damage the viscous coupling - so on what do you base your opinion?

From what I see removing the front shaft will relieve the stress on the viscous coupling - not make it worse. The viscous fluid solidifies due to heat generated by the speed differential between input and output shafts. However, since there is no torque load on the output shaft (due to the lack of a drive shaft connection to the front end) the output shaft will spin very easily and will not cause significant heat generation within the viscous fluid. So the viscous fluid will "thicken" only slightly - just to the point where the input and output speeds are matched.

I would think that having different size tires on front and rear would cause far more harm to the viscous coupling than removing the front drive shaft.

UPDATE: I just joined and did not realize that there was more than one page. Obviously, later post that I did not see stated the same thing I just said. Sorry for the repetition....
 
Last edited:






Back
Top