Axle popped out (was RIP Transmission?)

Post by **jblackburn** » 19 Dec 2012, 20:44

I was gonna say...I remember them being $150 + shipping a piece.

Look at the bright side! Sure beats a new transmission though!

anmartin44 · Post by **anmartin44** » 19 Dec 2012, 20:48

my o'reilly auto passenger reman axle was about $70 with core and it has been fine for over 30k miles in the last couple of years.

Post by **matthew1** » 19 Dec 2012, 21:33

jblackburn wrote:Look at the bright side! Sure beats a new transmission though!

Heck yea. I'll take it. I was gutted for about 20 minutes. Just... bummed. I thought low fluid did it. It's been leaking from the driver's side, and I thought I'd damaged the new seal when that went in. But the slow drip was... drumroll... from the shaft not seating correctly in the transmission.

It was a panicky 20 minutes, I was not thinking through the situation. Transmissions usually do not fail immediately, but rather go through a long death phase.

Post by **matthew1** » 19 Dec 2012, 21:35

anmartin44 wrote:my o'reilly auto passenger reman axle was about $70 with core and it has been fine for over 30k miles in the last couple of years.

You know, now that I know more about how the Volvo 850 driver's side axle should look and work, far more than I ever wanted to know about it, I'll probably do my best to have CarQuest pay for some/all of another reman. This reman I will inspect like no other object I've ever inspected.

Post by **matthew1** » 20 Dec 2012, 14:58

Waiting to hear back from CarQuest customer service, might be a day or two.

Post by **xHeart** » 20 Dec 2012, 20:02

I was about to take $70 for each axle around thanksgiving, Lee cautioned, but then after reading the technical notes at EMPI web site, going with Raxles became that much more obvious.

I have learned to trust people over product. How is the seal?

I would like to believe the good solid Volvo transmission chewed the junk axle, and spit it out like in The Outlaw Josey Wales.

Post by **hausmeister** » 08 Mar 2014, 10:07

I have a related question. Changed the drivers side control arm today, and after putting it together there was a bad crunching noise when I put it in gear.
I then checked the axle and noticed it was very loose (tansmission side). Took of the boot from the CV joint and then I saw that the shaft was popped out of the transmission side CV joint. Was able to put it back in with a hook and now it's fine (there was sort of a ring that sildes over the toothed end).

But I don't think this should happen? Changed the control arms on another car before and there was no issue...
I think the car has a replacement trans. Should I look into this, or will it be fine?

Post by **matthew1** » 08 Mar 2014, 11:52

You probably didn't push it in far enough to have the circlip (ring that attaches to the shaft) click into position. Just keep an eye and ear open when moving from the trans from P to D or P to R.

Post by **hausmeister** » 08 Mar 2014, 12:28

Not sure if the shaft had a clip - this was the end in the cv joint... But If there is a clip it did not engage.
I guess the CV is a bit worn out... it did feel somewhat loose.

Post by **matthew1** » 08 Mar 2014, 13:05

Oh I thought you meant trans side. The cv side will easily come out because the boot allows for so much play. It's like a triple-jointed person's thumb. You can pop it out and move it all around.

No clip there.

Many times I've had to "back up" when working on that area because the unloaded spring pushes down so far that the joint goes out inside the boot. This is entirely normal, it probably didn't seat itself.