Hi all
Today I went to my GF parents outside my town... I took this chance to replace my shaft ujoints so I could Hammer the crap outta them without annoying my neighbours.... Short story long, While taking off the shaft I put the car in D (engine on) to inch a tad and turn the shaft so I could unscrew one of the clips near the diff.... Result: I hear 2 loud bangs and the shaft Is on the ground. It ripped the only screw that was still on ... But thankfully no other mess.... Now.... I have One of those screw snapped inside my diff and ... I was wandering if I can drive home (50km) with only 3 screws holding on my shaft... Or of there Is a spot in my car when I could get the same screw I snapped....
​​​​​​And yes, I am a noob.

 

If your Cherokee is 4WD, just put it in 4HI (part time) and drive it in FWD with the rear driveshaft out. Works like a charm.

 

The absolute correct answer is a resounding -NO-

Do not drive it like that without having the driveshaft fully and properly secured. The engineers utilized a four bolt pattern to secure the driveshaft together at this spot for a real good reason. The forces involved and created by rotational masses can become very great.

If you did decide to drive it while missing one of the bolts? Take it real easy! When that thing is spinning at full RPMs, the types of damages that could occur have the genuine possibility of being lethal. If any one of its other three bolts were to give way while you were up to speed? It would be amazing the many different possibilities of what this part could do when it let loose. The possible projectiles would be just one of the things to worry about. The loss of control, and/or the sudden jamming-up of some of the other moving parts could roll and do something like flip the Jeep over in a heartbeat. If sparks were being produced, and the fuel tank were also to be ruptured somehow, now we are talking about getting burnt up in an explosion.

I mean, you would probably make it just fine?

I've seen people driving down the road with a wheel bolt or two missing. I betcha they made it to wherever they were going? It is kind of like the same thing in a way. Although, the forces involved between the two are a little different.

If your Jeep is a four wheel drive equipped model? I agree to take off and fully remove the driveshaft would be okay, and is a safe thing to do in order to get back to where you need to be going.

 

I would agree , now with a cold mind and having seen the force that thing had while Just litterally inching the car in the backyard.... I completely didn't expect that I must admit though. Partially because I thought that to be held in place by only those 4 seemingly tiny screws the shaft must have put his load almost entirely on the diff and those screws were Just there to keep It tight.
Then, I gonna leave the jeep here, borrow the Fiat Panda from my GF parents, go to the wreckyard monday get a screw and come back to fix It.
What a pia!

 

All that because I dontd really like the idea of driving the jeep part time on asphalt too much if I can get arount with the Panda...

 

Like to point out most any parts store have those in stock, u joint strap bolt. Might have fun getting the broken one out being those probably have threadlocker on them. For future reference, neutral position is sufficient to to turn drive shaft for access to bolt or grease zerts.

 

Ah well ....as a complete noob I may miss some pretty obvious things. I would'nt bet on the availabilty of those buggers in any part stores tho ...as I am in Italy and I have already cheked on the tread and diameter and they both seems sorta funny

 

Looks like you have a 4wd...so as stated "just put it in 4HI (part time) and drive it in FWD with the rear driveshaft out." other than that... NO.

 

If you drive the Jeep in FWD mode, make sure you put a plastic bag secured with a rubber band or something over the tail housing of the transfer case. This will keep the dirt & debris out as you drive. It will also help you gauge how much transfer case fluid (ATF) is no longer lubricating the internals of the transfer case.

 

As do I apparently. Missed the Italy location. Well the bolts are standard not metric 1/4-28 so that doesn't bode well for your location. I assume standard is hard to come by. Another thing, that bolt size was used on several US auto manufactures drive lines not just jeep, something to keep in mind if your wrecking yards have other US makes. You might try a hardware store, if thats even a thing over there, Our hardware stores usually have a section for just bolts.

 

Hardware stores are common here too , they store bolts but the one I went yest (only one in Town) said he didn't have such tread, today its sunday so Im kinda stuck... but I know for a fact that one of the yards in my Town has 2 pretty sound xj ( only type you see over here are the 2.5 TD from VM Motori but I guess the diff,at least the bolts of It, would be same as mine that Is a 4.0 )

 

well, it looks like you have a leaky pinion seal anyways, so now would be a pretty good time to fix that too. you're better off pulling the yoke to drill out that broken bolt, so at that point, it's not hard to change the seal. just a bit of care when reinstalling as to not over torque the nut and crushing your crush sleeve to the point, your gears are out of whack. it's tricky but can be done right without getting into a gear setup.

you can also look for u-bolts. they replace the straps and are just as it sounds, U shaped bolts that go around the u-joint caps and through the yoke with a nut on the backside. you may have to drill out the threads in the other holes tho. but easy enough... may be a good way to go if you happen to screw up the threads when you try to remove the broke bolt anyways. full size ford broncos from the 80's all used them.


but i would definitely NOT drive it with only one bolt holding that side of the u-joint on. your u-joint cap will come off, and your drive shaft will most likely fall out of the rear yoke, spinning freely, smashing everything underneath, till it slips out of the t-case. if your lucky....
pull the rear shaft and as said, cover the tail housing on the t-case and drive home in 4 wheel drive. it will be safe, and no difference than a front wheel drive vehicle. we have all had to do this one time or another, including myself.

 

Well in the end the broken bolt came out easy, I drilled it first with a 3mm bit, then a 4 and finally a 4,5 which locked in and srarted to turn the Broken bolt till it came out from the back.... all very slowly... I was lucky the treadlocker wasnt to nasty.
that said thanks for the feed on the yoke. {I always was a bit concerned by it but I also had a nasty uj which didnt make it easy for me to sort out what was failing} Now, I wasn’t smart enough to upload a video of it but if I try to turn the yoke it doesnt feel firm but has 1 to 3 degrees of play in either direction...sorta. Even worse since I had this car (august) I noticed a rattle cominng from the rear train when reversing or inching while doing slight turns.... only when the car is hot though. Could this be linkable to a bad pinion seal or the cancer is inside my diff?
Btw I drove away with the fiat and in a copule of days Ill be back for the fix!

 

good thing the broken bolt came out easily. could've been a pita.

a few degrees of rotational "slop" is normal. that's your backlash in your gears.

not sure about the rattle you're experiencing. i doubt it's coming from inside the diff. but, it's probably not a bad idea to pull the cover and have a peek inside. if you have a mechanic's magnet of sorts, i would drag it around the bottom to see what it picks up. inspect the teeth on the ring gear, and see how the spider gears are looking. then use either black RTV, or a lube locker gasket, and fill back up with 75 or 80w90 gear oil.

 

A few months ago I did open the diff (without jacking the car) and found no visual issue actually, I also swept the bottom of it with a magnet and found 0 debris....So perhaps is just the pinon seal? Or maybe in worse case scenario even a bearing?
Anyway I will pull out the yoke and slap a new pinon seal asap... But I still didn't get this overtorquing issue that I have to be aware of.... I have seen a video that suggests to count the threads of the yoke screw... I also have a dynamometric wrench if needed..... And what's a crush bearing btw?
cheers