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Intermediate Shaft Snafu?

C

captastic

CEG'er
Joined
Aug 17, 2012
Messages
239
Well, I've been on CEG for years, and have seen this mentioned. My son-in-law was driving my 3L 2000 SVT home from work when it lost drive. He said the clutch felt fine...went into gear fine...motor reved...just no go. SO of course I was thinking of a couple different things that could go wrong. Put the car up in the air, and saw what you see in the pics. The intermediate shaft has backed out of the tranny. The 3L was swapped in over 7 years ago...and the trans has a Quaffe.

With the trans having an LSD...shouldn't he have been able to drive back under one axle?
 

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Not at all. This is a misnomer. It is a ATB, automatic torque biasing differential, which is a geared system.

A LSD, limited slip differential, generally has clutch packs and is for RWD applications.
 
Yep, a Quaife has no clutch packs, or preload other than gear tooth friction, so if one tire is off the pavement, or an axle is broken, it's an open diff, and won't move torque to the loaded tire.

There are some torque biasing gear diffs with preload like the Torsen T2R and Wavetrac units, and OS Giken makes a limited slip clutch pack diff that can be used in FWD, but limited slip (speed sensitive) diffs can be a real handful in a high powered front drive application.
 
Thanks! I did not know that...

Any thoughts on the shaft backing out after 7 years of driving?
 
Look at the mounting bracket. Only way I could see this happening is that the retaining nuts backed off or the bracket got bent.
 
I think it was last year, I was driving onto the freeway and the ramp had a sharp curve. My 2000 Contour (146,000 miles) lost power and the oil light flashed briefly. I shifted to neutral and shifted back into drive and got control of the car again. The car had a tendancy to erratically shift and buck as if going from drive to 1st and 2nd gear when driving over 55 mph. As the problem got worse, I took it into a well reviewed transmission shop.

Transmission guy said it was a bad "transmission shift plate" and charged me I think $127 to fix. I don't know where the shift plate is, or if it's related to the problem you're having. Been running smooth since.
 
That's what I'm thinking as well. IIRC, the intermediate shaft doesn't use a circlip where it plugs into the differential, so I'd look at the bearing and bracket on the other end of the shaft. Most times the bearing is mounted in rubber, if the rubber fails, it lets the bearing wander and the shaft can come out of the trans.
 
X2, the intermediate bearing location sideways is what keeps the axle in trans on the pass side.
 
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