[Julian2485]

Originally Posted by Julian2485

Yea I thought it was my transfer case that's why I pulled the front driveshaft to see exactly where the noise was coming from and once my diff started locking up on me I knew it was the front diff

Front diff

[Julian2485]

Originally Posted by Julian2485

Front diff

More pics

[stashtrey]

Originally Posted by Julian2485

More pics

Bummer to see this but I'm glad to see my suspicions are likely correct for my situation. Glad I might have helped you diagnose yours or others out there.

Can you tell me what you paid to put in the differential and where you found your used replacement? I am still running RWD but with the recent rain/wet weather I truly miss my AWD and also miss the neck breaking acceleration with all four wheels hooked up and no slip!

Any info/advice you can provide on your diff swap (cost of used diff, source, additional parts needed when swapping like seals mounts etc?) would be greatly appreciated. Did you diy it? I'd consider doing it myself but have no clue what's involved. Will start searching. Thanks, brother! Glad you got it sorted. That noise just sucked the first time I noticed it.

[Julian2485]

Originally Posted by stashtrey

Bummer to see this but I'm glad to see my suspicions are likely correct for my situation. Glad I might have helped you diagnose yours or others out there.

Can you tell me what you paid to put in the differential and where you found your used replacement? I am still running RWD but with the recent rain/wet weather I truly miss my AWD and also miss the neck breaking acceleration with all four wheels hooked up and no slip!

Any info/advice you can provide on your diff swap (cost of used diff, source, additional parts needed when swapping like seals mounts etc?) would be greatly appreciated. Did you diy it? I'd consider doing it myself but have no clue what's involved. Will start searching. Thanks, brother! Glad you got it sorted. That noise just sucked the first time I noticed it.

Hey sorry that's all the pics I have. I got the used diff from leesville junk yard in New Jersey it cost $345. I had my mechanic friend help me put it in but I'm a assuming labor would be around $350 maybe. We dropped the front subframe, pulled axel, disconnected steering rack from subframe and swapped diffs. You will know if your diff is toast once you hear that sound and drain the fluid it will most likely have metal shavings in it

[blown07]

I dropped the diff oil to add some Lucas oil stabilizer and noticed some of the aforementioned tiny metalic particles in the oil.....I guess I'm still in denial...will see if the noise is still there....have noticed that the whirring doesn't get any worse and doesn't start until I've been driving for a while. Not sure if I will go the used diff route cause if I'm gonna do all that work I want to be sure....Less than $400 is good though for a used one

[bruning6]

Hey guys. Wondering how long you have driven collectively with no issues. My front shaft broke yesterday at the rear yoke. I was just driving through town. I heard something bounce off the bottom of the car at my feet and then a few second later bang bang bang in the tunnel.
The sound off my feet I assume was the last of the missing u joint caps on the needles.
I found a good used one but wanted to drive around for a while in rwd if there are no issues.
No long term problems for the front diff or tcase with them being out of sync at any.point with the rear?
Thanks

[stashtrey]

Originally Posted by bruning6

Hey guys. Wondering how long you have driven collectively with no issues. My front shaft broke yesterday at the rear yoke. I was just driving through town. I heard something bounce off the bottom of the car at my feet and then a few second later bang bang bang in the tunnel.
The sound off my feet I assume was the last of the missing u joint caps on the needles.
I found a good used one but wanted to drive around for a while in rwd if there are no issues.
No long term problems for the front diff or tcase with them being out of sync at any.point with the rear?
Thanks

I've been without front shaft for over 6 months easily. No apparent issues!

[KeepRidingDirty]

Originally Posted by stashtrey

I've been without front shaft for over 6 months easily. No apparent issues!

So if we pull the diff out, the drive shaft (front), and both front axles would this essentially make this a 335i?

[cmg5461]

A few questions to anyone who's pulled the front driveshaft -

First, does traction control freak out with the front driveshaft removed? Ive had the servo motor fail on me before and pit the car in perm rwd without dsc. In the midde of december. Talk about risky.I would like some sort of save my ass if the car becomes upset. If this is the case, I would remove the front drive shaft as I switch seasonal tires.

Second, if traction control does work, does it react the same as RWD dsc. This is a bit scary if it let's you add more throttle during oversteer, which I the correct reaction in an awd car. RWD would be to gently lift off throttle until traction is regained. If you can't answer this, it's not a problem, I'll just test it if traction control is still enabled.

Third , with the front drive shaft removed, is there any leakage from the transfer case front output? I've been curious as if you leave the splines to TC and front dif in place. I'd assume to remove them, as they're just splines and don't seem to have any thing holding them in place.

I also have an idea about making a dummy plug for the servo motor. If we can trick the DSC into thinking the servo responded to its inputs, we shouldn't have to remove the driveshaft to achieve rwd.

[blown07]

You just can't remove the front axles as the end of the axle is used to hold the wheel bearing onto the hub. The pressed on bearing may stay on for a while but a catastrophic failure would be just around the corner...pun intended.

The front drive shaft is bolted to a flange on both end so there is no loss of fluid.

[cmg5461]

Originally Posted by blown07

You just can't remove the front axles as the end of the axle is used to hold the wheel bearing onto the hub. The pressed on bearing may stay on for a while but a catastrophic failure would be just around the corner...pun intended.

The front drive shaft is bolted to a flange on both end so there is no loss of fluid.

Wasn't planning on removing anything other than the driveshaft. Very good to know though!

I did notice it's bolted on with 4 bolts on each side, which would make it easy to remove. My worry is with the driveshaft out, will the splines holding the flange into the transfer case and differential fall out. If they could fall out, removing them would be the best option. But they they're removed, no we run into the issue of will the oil seep though the seals of the differential input and transfer case front output

[blown07]

Originally Posted by cmg5461

Wasn't planning on removing anything other than the driveshaft. Very good to know though!

I did notice it's bolted on with 4 bolts on each side, which would make it easy to remove. My worry is with the driveshaft out, will the splines holding the flange into the transfer case and differential fall out. If they could fall out, removing them would be the best option. But they they're removed, no we run into the issue of will the oil seep though the seals of the differential input and transfer case front output

When you remove the drive shaft you will see that the front pinion and transfer case have a large nut that is used to hold the pinion together in the rear end and as I recall the output flange on the xfer case. There is no chance of these falling out. My comment on the axles was for the question before yours : )

[cmg5461]

Originally Posted by blown07

When you remove the drive shaft you will see that the front pinion and transfer case have a large nut that is used to hold the pinion together in the rear end and as I recall the output flange on the xfer case. There is no chance of these falling out. My comment on the axles was for the question before yours : )

Thank you, that answers my question. I just wanted a little more detail to reassure myself!

Can you answer anything about the traction control?

[blown07]

I've never driven my car with the drive shaft off so not sure. Maybe one of the other guys can chime in. I believe that there is no stability control when you do this but that's a guess as I have heard that it displays the stability control is disabled.
Other than the ability to do burnouts - removing the front drive shaft will not make your car accelerate faster in any gear as you still need to drive all the FWD stuff with the rear tires....doesn't matter if it's through the front driveshaft or through the road. The only difference would be the missing inertia of the front driveshaft which you would have a hard time noticing imo.

[cmg5461]

Originally Posted by blown07

I've never driven my car with the drive shaft off so not sure. Maybe one of the other guys can chime in. I believe that there is no stability control when you do this but that's a guess as I have heard that it displays the stability control is disabled.
Other than the ability to do burnouts - removing the front drive shaft will not make your car accelerate faster in any gear as you still need to drive all the FWD stuff with the rear tires....doesn't matter if it's through the front driveshaft or through the road. The only difference would be the missing inertia of the front driveshaft which you would have a hard time noticing imo.

Accelerating it isn't my intention with this. I like RWD for summer and AWD for winter. If I can get away with both in one car, perfect

Yeah, if the car detects something wrong with the traction control, I'm sure it will disable it. When my servo went out, DSC was disabled and fwd was disengaged. That was an electrical issue though. Just trying to think this through logically: Remove front drive shaft, servo can still engage, minimal torque lost by spinning the front output of the transfer case. Front wheels always seem to have traction, so the DSC should always throw the TC clutch to 100% engaged, which does nothing. The only thing that might tip it off is if the TC clutch is fully engaged and the rears are still spinning while it assumes front still have traction.

I will play with it and document my efforts

[Nismo G]

Originally Posted by DUI Elite

^From my experience, AWD will not help you outside of starting from a stand still. Every other situation you face in wintertime snow driving will require a good set of winter tires to have the traction you are seeking.

I've been lowered and used winter tires for about 3 years now (i have rwd), and never intend to run a winter without them ever again. The car was utterly useless in winter on all-seasons.

I have people asking me if I have xDrive all the time in winter because the winter tires make it look easy, even compared to an equivalent awd car on all-seasons.

AWD won't help out outside of starting from a stand still? haha I love it! I have runflat all season tires with 40% tread and didn't have any issues all winter...try to do that in RWD. AWD with winter tires is unstoppable.

[DUI Elite]

Originally Posted by Nismo G

AWD won't help out outside of starting from a stand still? haha I love it! I have runflat all season tires with 40% tread and didn't have any issues all winter...try to do that in RWD. AWD with winter tires is unstoppable.

Lol can you read? I acknowledged that RWD won't handle on the all-seasons (which come stock in run-flats).

I have done that with my RWD car on winter tires. It was never a problem.

[blown07]

AWD helps more than just starting from a stand still in the snow. When accelerating around corners and at higher speeds the AWD system is waaay more stable than RWD in the snow/rain. At higher power levels the AWD shines even greater in every driving condition.

[carguy138]

Originally Posted by cmg5461

Accelerating it isn't my intention with this. I like RWD for summer and AWD for winter. If I can get away with both in one car, perfect

Yeah, if the car detects something wrong with the traction control, I'm sure it will disable it. When my servo went out, DSC was disabled and fwd was disengaged. That was an electrical issue though. Just trying to think this through logically: Remove front drive shaft, servo can still engage, minimal torque lost by spinning the front output of the transfer case. Front wheels always seem to have traction, so the DSC should always throw the TC clutch to 100% engaged, which does nothing. The only thing that might tip it off is if the TC clutch is fully engaged and the rears are still spinning while it assumes front still have traction.

I will play with it and document my efforts

Any updates? I'm considering this as well.

Thanks

[cmg5461]

Originally Posted by carguy138

Any updates? I'm considering this as well.

Thanks

Haven't pulled it yet, doing it after my walnut blasting DIY. Have been busy

[stashtrey]

OP here. Traction control works. Confirmed.

I just put mine back in after replacing the worm gear in my T case. Didn't have any known issues from running without the drive shaft for 11 months.

Nice to be back to awd... forgot how well the car accelerates in awd!

[stashtrey]

Also... DTC works like normal. Push once or hold down. No codes at all. No lights/error on dash. All good. Give it a try... posi burnouts are fun!