240D snapped a rear axle, yes you read that right
 

Well I suppose it didn't "snap" the rear axle as much as something within the passenger side cv joint closest to the diff broke, causing the beer car housing to turn but not the axle itself.

This happened suddenly while going around a corner in 4th gear. I have no idea how many miles on the car or the axles.

Crusing at about 45mph I went around a tight right turn. As the body rolled there was a sudden shudder that went through the car accompanied by a noise that sounded like the tire was spinning (inside rear wheel). I pulled over and checked everything out and all seemed fine. Went around another tight right turn and it happened again, although this time the noise continued when going straight, accompanied by the motor revving up but car not accelerating. At first I thought clutch or flex disc but upon inspection it was the right side axle.

Issue I'm having now is that its very hard to remove the axle. I have everything apart and unbolted and both axle splines are sliding free in the diff & wheel hub. I think what ever broke within the inner most CV joint is not allowing the axle to compress enough for me to get the splines free from either the hub or the diff.

I have tried raising and lowering the diff with a jack.

Any suggestions?

In that case, I think I would just cut the inner can off.

sorry,

u saying to cut the axle shaft in half?

Would this be best to do with a sawzall?

m: Cut the can; it seems to be your term! You may then be able to see Was ist los.

Sunscribed .

I seized one on the highway and did exactly that, cut the shaft right in the middle with an angle grinder. Sawzall will probably work too. An axle heavily damaged can be impossible to remove. Like the OP i struggled for hours and finally decided to sacrifice the entire unit.

After that i went with the alternate design external flange axle as far easier to remove.

Ok, unstated but implied because this happened: LS motor swapped into 240D body.

There should be plenty of warning before CV joints fail. You cannot let things go until catastrophic failure....which will often cause much more expensive repairs than the original problem.

In the last several weeks I removed the Trailing Arm to change the Bushings. If you do what is needed to remove the Trailing Arm you should have plenty of room to remove the axle.

I believe that the CVJ Axle Rebuilder in Col. replaces the spiders and so on inside. If depending on what broke inside it might be able to be rebuilt.

Cutting the Can could be done with a regular hack saw except for the cramped space. If you cut the Can close to the differential and cut the Boot the can should be able to slide down the axle shaft. Then you can see what the hold up is.

Update:

I ended up cutting the axle with a harbor freight angle grinder. Took all of 3 minutes to chop in half.

I haven't checked out what actually happened to the joint but it was pretty much frozen upon removal. Weird thing is the boots and grease look fresh so perhaps the PO ran the inner joint dry and then put a new boot on it or something.

For those saying this should have given plenty of warning I agree. I've had CV joints go on VWs and they do give plenty of warning. This one did not however and suddenly locked up/failed.

Only thing I had trouble with was the bolt that holds it to the wheel hub. The new axle did not accept the larger bolt that came out of the old one. The new bolt supplied in the kit was much too short to work. I had to purchase a new M8 x 100mm long bolt at the hardware store.


Heres a pic of the old axle. Going to save the boots off it since they look new.

https://i.imgur.com/Vh7mny1.jpg?1

That looks like a fairly recent remanufactured axle, is it?

I have found tremendous quality control issues in replacment axles, sometimes its a crap shoot. Had a fresh one last less than a year once.

For future reference, when I did this job on my '85 wagon, I had to loosen the differential mounts and push the diff away from the side that I was removing the axle in order to get the clearance to remove the axle.

LS swap was my first thought.