99 v70 xc driveshaft removal

[bonnieandmatthews xc]

Greetings All MVS Members,

Newbie to the site and first time posting. Proud new owner of a 1999 V70 XC and i am very pleased with my purchase. It has 130K and going strong.

So now to the point.....When i got the car the tires were shot and not of even tread wear and one of the front tires had wire showing. I put two used tires on front making all the tread within 3/32 of each other. While driving home from the tire shop (second day of owning car) i start hearing a clicking noise that sounded like it was coming from under the console. It clicked in sync with the speed of travel and seemed to be more prominent while turning. The clicking only seemed to do it when decelerating at lower speeds. A few days later I put brand new tires on all four wheels and had the car on a lift. While on the lift i noticed the rubber gone from the VC front and a bit of play in the driveshaft. After the new tires the noise seemed to only come back randomly. After a couple weeks of driving the noise began to be more prominent and more frequent. After much research and reading many posts on this and other forums i decided that the driveshaft should be taken out to see if it was the culprit of the noise.

After taking the driveshaft out i have not heard the noise reappear. Although i haven't driven many miles with it out, i am wondering what the repercussions will be? Initially i have noticed a loss of traction especially upon heavy acceleration while turning the wheels will break traction. That never happened with AWD in place of course. The more alarming thing that i noticed was a shutter or vibration upon heavy acceleration at speeds up to 50mph.

Are there any other expectations i should have with the driveshaft out? I plan on running it this way until i can afford to put a new driveshaft in.

ALSO i am currently wayyyy out of state from where i live. I am wondering if the driveshaft i took out is worth lugging all the way back home as cargo space is limited with everything else i have packed inside the car. Can it be rebuilt? Can the VC be replaced? Or have I already done to much damage? And If i buy a new one is there a core or any other reason to keep the faulty driveshaft i have just taken out?

Any suggestions or advice on this matter would be much appreciated. My questions may seem silly but this is my first AWD and i would like to take car of it and use the heck out of it. Thanks ....Cheers!

[kahl]

We had a similar vibration problem on 2000 XC. Only on hard acceleration we would get a vibration. Found the front motor mount under crankshaft had failed. This would be on the right side of the car.
I would also check your torque mount on the top of the engine.

When we purchased the car it did not have a drive shaft. We got a drive shaft from Colorado Driveshaft and just ate the core of $100.00.

[BEJinFbk]

First off, driving without the DS in is no big deal in terms of damaging anything.
The thing to keep in mind is that the P80 platform ( 850/x70 ) was originally FWD only.
AWD was tacked on as a feature in later model years. So, drive without it for as long as
you care to with no worries. It will never know.

The vibration could be a lot of things, but it's not the DS. I'd start with wheel balancing
and move on to the front end components if that doesn't pan out. There's a ton of info on
the forums about the front ends in these cars. And with a "new to you" car, it's one of the
things that you should get a handle on anyhow. Search "Stage 1" for a complete run down.

The front CV is pretty much always the one that goes first. Since it lives mere inches from
the catalytic converter, the boot bakes and breaks before the rear CV. After that, the CV's
days are numbered...The good news is that it's not too much of a hassle to replace. The CV
itself can be purchased separately along with a fresh boot and you can save some money
doing it yourself with basic tools and some elbow grease.

Keep your DS! It'll be much cheaper to deal with this with a good core on hand.
Are you anywhere near Colorado? These guys can help you with parts or a rebuild:
http://www.coloradodriveshaft.com Tell Dave that MVS sent you...

IMHO, the system is well worth keeping - I prefer it big time to running in FWD.
No torque steer, better road handling and Hands Down a MUCH better winter car!
( Even in California, you might wind up in some ice & snow...)

Good Luck.

[bonnieandmatthews xc]

Kahl :
I will definitely check the torque mount. As for the front motor mount, the previous owner had replaced it a couple of months before i bought it.

BEJinFbk :
I am currently gathering info on the front end. The struts are shot so the whole car is kind of a boat at the moment. Additionally with new tires i also had an alignment. I will start checking front end components once i familiarize myself with the layout a bit more.

Being able to run FWD with no problems is great. There seem to be a ton of people who convert for one reason or another. However given the terrain and area where i live AWD will be much preferred. Thanks for the link to Colorado Driveshaft. I will give those guys a call for sure. It makes sense that the the front CV would be first to go. Not sure if I will go with rebuilding the ends myself or just get a freshly rebuilt one. Is it really an easy job to replace the CV joints, is there anything else i should check for on the DS.

Another thing i had forgot to mention in my previous post was about the DS removal. When I removed the two center bolts for the DS mount there was quiet a bit of rust on the piece that the DS mount bolts to. It looked as though the DS mount may not have been fully secured because the piece it bolts to was rusted around one of the bolts. How much of a contributing factor do you think this could have been to the overall demise of the front CV?

Thanks for all your thoughts guys, much appreciated. Cheers!

[JRL]

The only propshaft joint you can buy is the front
To repair the propshaft you need all 3 joints and the expertise how to change them especially the middle one.
I changed a front once and it was a minor PIA because it's full of ball bearings that are not sealed!

[Thanatos2489]

the rear one is the same as the front one but the rears rarely fail the heat from the exhaust cooks the grease


i got my front and rear cv from http://driveshaftparts.com/

[Jono51]

I did the front joint on my driveshaft myself and did not find it easy to get the old one off. I eventually resorted to an angle grinder followed by a cold chisel once I was almost through to the splines on the shaft. I was told it is not unusual for this type of joint to be reluctant to part company with the shaft, but you might be lucky. You also have to be careful when fitting the new joint that the ball bearings don't come out as they are a pain to get back in.

As JRL's post suggests this is one of those jobs that is fine to do once just to prove that you can, but an exchange driveshaft would certainly be the easier option. As others also say, the car is OK to drive as 2wd, but I do prefer the way it behaves now its 4wd again.

Best of luck