Can i damage my LSD by driving my car with only 1 axle? Im trying to rule out a clunking noise that seems to be coming from my axle.

Before anyone starts in, its not the front diff mount or anything else that is blatantly obvious. Ive had the whole drivetrain off the car for the second time and i think ive ruled it out to the half shaft.

Let me know thanks.

 

you won't very far and yes, if you aren't careful you can ruin any type of LSD with only one shaft installed.

basically speaking even an LSD doesn't give enough braking force to move a vehicle without at least some force on the opposing axle. you might get going but you'd have to be very easy on the throttle and i'd still probably say it's not a good idea.

 

Cool thanks for the info. I think ill choose a different route!

 

When i jacked my car into the air, i got under it and listened for the clunk while my girl drove it. the right axle was clunking very hard every revolution.

So i took off both half shafts and switched sides. Now the left one was doing the exact same thing

when i jack up the side thats clunking, and make the wheel level, the clunking stops.

This would leave me to believe the half shaft was clunking due to the wheels hanging so far down, and the angle being so great on the half shaft.

the reason why im not so sure about this theory is because the other half shaft was NOT clunking on either side.

My next step is swapping out the half shaft, unless anyone has some insight on this.

 

you are absolutely correct and it sounds like a bad half shaft.

 

That would be bitter-sweet news if it was the halfshaft. i paid 200 for the pair. oh well.

Thanks for the help!

 

you could try disassembling it and cleaning it out. it is quite possible it is just that the grease dried out and a new boot and grease will bring it back to life.

 

Would it being dried out cause it to clunk really hard, like someone is hitting my floor pan with a hammer?

 

^This.

 

it's quite possible but likely you would feel it binding with the shaft out of the car though.

 

I've heard fwd cvs pop while your turning and ****, but this sounds like boom boom boom, as opposed to click click click click

I'm off tomorrow so I'll peep it out in the morn. I'll post my findings

 

could be one of the spherical notches inside the CV joint broke completely apart.

 

Doubt theres any saving it. Maybe if you could get the joint that was bad. But likely at the cost. it will be too expensive to fix. cheaper to replace

 

my old mercedes 300D turbo had a dry cv joint in a rear half shaft that made a hell of a racket. the boot was torn and the grease was dry with a very minor surface rust developing. i disassembled it and cleaned it with carb cleaner, repacked it with new grease and boot, it worked perfectly fine after that but i addressed it within maybe a couple of weeks of it starting to develop.

i haven't had a bad CV joint in an RX7 yet so i can't comment on how bad they might get and still come back.

 

If you have a tight diff you'll be okay. Can you raise one tire and torque the wheels without the wheel spinning?

I drove ~20mi with a broken axle and a limited slip. With one wheel drive, you will NOT be putting any significant torque down, not only because of tire spin issues but also because the car handling gets very sketchy.

If you do this you will need to put a dummy shaft in the wheel bearing. The axle nut torque holds the bearing together, a wheel bearing will fail in a block or two with nothing holding it together.

 

Why not just jack up the rear, put it on jackstands, fire it up, put it in gear, than get under it and watch/listen?

 

he already did that and even switched the axles from side to side and the noise follows it. i don't know what further reassurance he's looking for though.

 

My bad, i missed that. I agree, if it followed sides, for sure its the half shaft, almost a no brainer

 

a leprecon a doctor, a lawyer, a judge, adam and eve, and jesus standing over his shoulder telling him,.. its the shaft bro.

 

Looks like there's some wear in the outer housing.

I don't know much about CVs but I'm assuming there's supposed to be 6 ball bearings not 3?

 

ask the person who sold you the shafts why he sold you known garbage(because someone obviously took it apart in an effort to repair it when it was unrepairable). they may have only used 3 to try and avoid the pitted groove but then why not 5? anyways, it will be extremely sloppy with only 3 and that's why it's clattering now. that CV joint is toast.

 

Yeah I've already spoke to the member on this forum about them. He's very apologetic and says he's going to make it right by sending me another one. But we'll see....

Thanks again.

 

3 can balance, 5 will not. clever if not for reducing the strength by half and leading to this noise..

 

at high speed you'd feel an imbalance but at normal highway speeds possibly not, but 3 is just something a stupid kid would try to pull off on someone. "ill just inconspicuously **** this shaft in the *** and sell it to some sucker"

 

now... you know you've had an issue before that was speed dependent, like its' really bad at 55mph, but not so bad at 60, but then gets worse at 75, but then is completely gone at 90.
bearings/bushings/any imbalance can make a vibration, but they usually occur at specific harmonics. At certains speeds, things can self balance. on paper it doesn't seem that way, but from my real world experience, this is very true.