XJs-R-us

Would you feel comfortable daily driving your jeep (FWD only) for 1½ months?


Rear pinion decided to kill itself last night.
I was hoping it'd last till i got my other axles ready to swap in.

I'm not going to spend money on it, when I'm about to swap it out.

caged

sure. i've done it.

just don't try doing front wheel burn outs or quick acceleration from a stop light racing that other fwd civic for the merge lane and you'll be fine.

do you have any highway driving? i would likely keep that to a minimum.

what size tires are you running?

be sure to cap off the tailhousing on the tc so the trans fluid doesn't leak out. you can use a plastic water bottle and some duct tape.

XJs-R-us

That's what I wanted to hear.

Highway travel isn't required.
And I'm running 33's driving it like Grandma, already. haha

caronaxtr

I ran in FWD while waiting for my driveshaft to be made & shipped to me. Just take it easy & you should be fine.

Fred/N0AZZ

A good reason to keep a little trash in the Jeep like the water bottle

1976gmc20

Forty years ago at the gas station, a college girl brought in her Scout one Sunday and said it was shaking terrible. She said she had backed off of a retaining wall leaving a party and some foot ball players lifted it back on the road. I put it up on the lift and found that the rear driveshaft had about a 20 degree kink in it!


Being a little mountain college town, it took a week or two to get in a new shaft. So I took out the rear drive shaft, locked in the front hubs, put it in 4-hi and made her promise me that she would only drive around town and to school.


All went well and I installed the new drive shaft in her Scout some time later, but sadly there is no more to the story but that

exjay1027

you can drive it without a rear shaft forever if you wanted to. if there is no rear shaft, there is no tcase bind, therefore you have a freely operating fwd axle. btw, newer xjs (i forget which years) have a sealed rear output shaft. no leaks without a shaft

1976gmc20

I always figured the front ends were just not as strong as the rear end.

caged

actually the front ends are probably stronger. at least stronger then the d35 anyways.

the dana 30 is a pretty stout axle, minus the crappy vacuum actuator.

1976gmc20

I was thinking 4x4 in general, not just Cherokee.


Also, wouldn't driving the front wheels only put a lot more wear on the transfer case chain ???

SteveMongr

The pinion and ring gear are considerably smaller. Hence the suggestions by Caged in post #2.

exjay1027

the d30 is plenty strong, especially for road use. it should never break on the road, except in a case of abuse or poor maintenance. also, everything is always spinning inside it anyway, the only difference in moving parts between 2 and 4wd is the tcase. which, im not sure about the chain, maybe maybe not.

exjay1027

and lets not forget about those who have a 242 tcase that drive on the road with a d30. nothing wrong with that.

1976gmc20

Yeah but it's not pulling the whole load in full time.


I see no problem with FWD only for a short term but I wouldn't want to make a career out of it




There's a guy on our VFD who says that we should always put our heavy trucks in 4wd if we are putting them in low range, to keep from breaking the rear end. I don't agree. I think we would be more likely to break something in the front end running in 4wd, especially since most of the time traction isn't a real issue. When you have 8000 lbs of water sitting on eight tires, it has to be pretty slippery to not have enough traction.