Removing propshaft- best way

[vtl]

Lots of PB Blaster over couple of days and occasional "motivation" with a sledge hammer.

Did you remove the center section?

[DYZ]

Yeah, the center is loose and the whole shaft can move out 1 inch or so. I have been soaking it with PB Blaster for over a week and pounding it everyday. It just won't budge. The amount of pounding from the back makes it feel like the damn thing is not supposed to come out.

DYZ

[vtl]

Use a higher quality bolt then. Use two or more bolts to push it even more.

[DYZ]

There are only 2 threaded holes in the back that are not straight-through. One is unusable now that the allen bolt head snapped off leaving the rest of the bolt inside. The bolt seems to be good quality machine bolt. I'll see if I can source some with higher strength. It almost seems like I missed something, but from what I can see the 6 screws are really the only thing holding it. How rust can have such bounding strength is beyond me ...

vtl, I see you have an 2016 XC60, does yours burn oil? My wife drives one (MY 14) and the low oil light would come on before the 10k service time. Dealer is now claiming this is normal after doing some checks.

DYZ

[vtl]

6 screws is the only thing, yes. Next thing I would do is couple of metal bars with threaded holes in one of them and threading in bolts through unthreaded holes.

I actually just had miserable experience with rear engine mount in my 05 XC70, where lower bolt got welded into the bracket. Broke three 1/4" extensions and one adapter before deciding to lower the subframe and removing anti-sway bar to make room for a 1/2" extension and 5 ft pipe Everything gets corroded or welded in the presence of heated exhaust and winter salt.

Our XC60 is T5, I only agreed to buy it because in 2015.5 (I think) Volvo replaced sluggish 3.2l 6 cyl oil eater by the old good 2.5l 5 cyl w/ turbo. And I dumped Castrol from the engine shortly after and replaced it with Amsoil Signature. So, no, our XC60 does not consume any oil. The only thing which bothers me slightly is unusual (to Volvo) amounts of rust underneath.

[DYZ]

I gave up - bolt broke in the 2nd screw hole in the back and my punch also snapped when pounding through the unthreaded holes. The broken bolts are stamped with 12.9, so they are the strongest bolts I can find. I also used heat which didn't help either. Anyway, I cut it off and the original noise disappeared (removing bevel gear is a piece of cake compared with this). However, the leftover from the cutoff is making some noise because it's flopping around in the back. So, the saga continues ...

DYZ

[DYZ]

UPDATE: I yanked the leftover propshaft out of the joint. So now only the outer cage of the joint is still stuck in there. I don't think it'll ever get loose but I put the screws back on. The car drives nicely as a FWD

DYZ

[howardc64]

UPDATE: I yanked the leftover propshaft out of the joint. So now only the outer cage of the joint is still stuck in there. I don't think it'll ever get loose but I put the screws back on. The car drives nicely as a FWD

DYZ

Wow, pretty amazing the remainder won't come out. Basically the outer cage for the CV joint and the end cap (bottom left of this pic) is all that remains. I can see the end cap being rusted on where you live. But the outer ring for the CV should come out since only thing holding it to the end cap is sealant between them. Unless rust made its way in and locked both of these components in tight against the Haldex input.



I guess doesn't matter in any case, prop shaft is cut so no going back to AWD now. You do get to enjoy more power and +1 mpg

[DYZ]

Yeah, no regret cutting the shaft after seeing the wear on the input shaft of the angle gear. As long as it drives fine as FWD, it's just not worth investing anything on this car at this mileage.



DYZ

[Chrisd]

Just did this on my 01. Yes removing the exhaust makes life a whole lot more pleasant. Get ready to either grab the rusted bolts with a vice grips, after liberal WD or similar, or grind off heads and then see if you can grip remaining bolt, or get ready to drill out and clean or tap for new threads. It was worth it to take the time to remove the exhaust. Vida says to remove the cat converter, which would have made life a whole lot easier, but getting at those turbo bolts is past painful. Having the exhaust out of the way as compared with attempting to just let it hang makes a world of difference IMO. Front cv generally comes out a whole lot easier than the read cv. Personally after this experience, I soak both ends, all 12 bolts for a full day, and the flange from the rear as well, considering the risk and the pain involved if even one bolt breaks. I didn't try the run the car and hit the brakes or whatever to loosen the final drive flange cv, sounds a little sketchy IMO, but next time I'm ready to try anything. Including soaking the rear 6 bolts, removing them and then driving around for a day or so to see if that will work? The rust in the rear flange was insane. I wanted desperately to save the rear flange and cv, so the 2 holes in the rear of the flange became very important. I made a number of s shaped hooks. Hit the end of the s hook till it was useless then used another s hook till it too bent. These are the 2 holes that you can just reach between the final drive and the flange. I don't understand how some people say they can use a pin? Is this pin about 3/4 of an inch long, cause you just don't have the clearance for a straight shot. Once again you would have thought they could have made a small opening in the casting for such a purpose? I don't understand why the flange has 2 holes in it either, no special tool to push out the cv??? I imagine you could make a tool to help with this, spending 2 hours of constant light tapping is a real pain. But that 's what it took to loosen the rusted in cv. Then at least 60 minutes of gentle persuasion with a rubber and plastic mallet hitting the flange whilst rotating it every few hits. After 2 hours of this the rear cv then fell out of the flange. A little glass beading and all was well. I have had to take a sledge hammer to the rear flange, the resulting flange was so bent it was unusable at that point. And that resulted in having to cut the flange off the VC with a saw, being very careful to not get too close to the VC shaft. Now replacing everything I pack the flange both front and rear with some copper neversieze and a little rustproofing wax to help with the rust as well as keeping the joints and underside as clean as possible. Carwash.