Driving without the CV halfshafts... bad idea...
You cannot drive without CV axles. The wheel bearing will fall apart and you wheel could fall off. In addition, the diff will leak gear oil.
You can cut the middle of the shaft out and run both ends- one in the diff and the other in the hub/ bearing assembly.
OK, wishing I had read this before the weekend. Good decisions come from experience, experience comes from bad decisions. I gained some experience last weekend, fortunately without a major disaster or loss of life or limb.
A little preamble is in order. I was experiencing a thumping at various speeds near the front end. Felt like the right front. Thought it was a bearing so I replaced that. Wasn't the bearing. I might add that a bearing replacement on the 1995 Explorer is pretty painless. The real key is to buy the socket for the nut on the end of the drive shaft (must have to get it off and to get it tight enough). Anyways, since it wasn't the bearing I went back into diagnosis mode. Maybe it was the front driveshaft. Thats pretty easy with the right tools. The front portion requires a torx socket. The back requires you drop off the metal shield and then I recommend an 8mm 12 point ratchet box wrench (a 12 point socket is tight as I recall). Took that off. No problem driving without the front driveshaft. Still had the clunking/thumping. Decided it must be the right hand halfshaft... this is where the experience starts... So I took out the right hand half shaft and drove for a while without it because I mistakenly thought the bearing assembly was a self contained unit that didn't rely on anything else. Wrong. First hint was the ABS light and ABS activating when slowly cornering. In hindsight this was because the bearing has an integral ABS sensor and as the bearing was coming apart while driving I was losing the ABS signal. I still wasn't clueing in yet that this was happening... and I still had the thumping (as well as a new sort of grinding noise which I now know was the bearing suffering a horrible death). Since I still had the thumping I decided that there must be something inside the front differential and axle that was hurting and the way to tell about this is... you got it... remove the other half shaft and see how it behaves. Once that was done the thumping was gone. Yes indeed my front differential/driveshaft is in bad shape. But now I have ABS issues and things sound like they are grinding... the penny is still dropping here folks... slowly... Anyways I take a wheel off to see if I can figure out the grinding and realize both bearings are now feeling like they are about to fall apart... because they are... lucky I didn't lose a wheel while test driving.
The splined shaft and the nut that is the outboard end of each halfshaft is crucial in keeping the bearing together and loaded properly. My theory about driving the vehicle in 2WD mode until I could replace my differential/driveshaft up front are dashed... or are they. I decided that on the cosmic scale of things buying a couple of new half shafts was cheaper than renting a car for a week so I decided to cut off the ends of the half shafts and use those to hold the bearing together. I tried to take apart the half shaft so I could just take the outboard end part as a whole (Anybody got anything on that? Inboard end comes apart very easily, outboard end is still a mystery shrouded in liquid grease... those boots are full of thin grease and I have to admit those CV joints are amazing looking... and seem to work forever... unless a boot cracks and leaks the life blood out). Anyways, I opted to use my chop saw and cut off the end of the shaft just outside the outoard CV joint, right where the flat part starts, but before the splines, you need the wide part beyond the splines to hold the bearing together. Thats a major cut for sure but it worked well. Once I got the stub in place and torqued, the grinding stopped and the ABS was back operational. The bearing is whinning from the abuse of driving with it coming apart and I have 2 new bearings on order so that was a $140 learning experience not to mention a near miss on a disaster. But the bearing I hadn't replaced was actually hurting before I abused it so I don't feel too bad about that and the driver side ball joint needed replacing so I did that while I had it all apart so there was a lot of plus aspects along the trip.
So the short answer is you can drive with the halfshafts missing as long as you have the outboard ends of the halfshafts and the end nut in place and torqued to hold the bearing together. As the pictures above show, you can just cut the shaft as close to the outboard CV as possible or you can do the major cut like I did and just have a small stub in place. I should have taken pictures but I probably didn't because I realized how stupid I had been to get to where I was and didn't want photo evidence.
So now I am looking for a new differential/driveshaft and once I have that a couple of new halfshafts are in order and I will hopefully be back in 4WD mode before the snow flies and I really need it!
I realize this is a lot of work on a 1995 vehicle. It just happens that I love this vehicle. I had a 1994 for a long time and it was pretty good. I got the 1995 and loved it. One model generation newer and there were so many improvements. This particular 1995 was undercoated with a tar substance that makes working on it a messy experience BUT it has kept the rust down amazingly. I bought a 1996 for parts when the tranny went on the 1995 and was tempted to drive the 1996 and scrap the 1995 but the frame and body was in so much better shape on the 1995 that my son and I swapped the 1996 tranny into the 1995 to drive it instead. So now I have front differential and driveshaft issues and there is no question in my mind I want to repair that rather than scrap the car at this stage. It has 308,000km on it. Thats 191,000 miles. others have gotten more from Explorers, as long as the chassis is good for it, so am I... but I digress... sorry...
