Disco out of commission on the trail. Rear driver side axle seal gone. Diff oil leaking out on the brake rotor, plus rear diff is toast.

Is it possible to disconnect the rear drive shaft and drive it out under 4wd/ front wheel drive? Or since the rear end is a grinding mess tow it out? I mean the rear end is done.

Just for context the vehicle is probably 40 odd miles from Big pine.

Thanks for any advice.

Hugh

 

Assuming you can lock the CDL is is technically possible to drive it out on the front wheels. Can’t say how it will effect the rear, but it sounds like it’s done for either way.

 

From what I know, lock the diff and pull the rear driveshaft. Should get you going again as FWD. That said, unfortunately I can't say how long you can expect this to be a solution. There are many folks here that know far more about this than me, however being a holiday weekend I thought I'd chime in with a timely answer. I just did the reverse to isolate the front diff and drove as RWD so I'm certain this will work. Of course, this assumes you have a truck with a CDL. Good luck.

 

Prior to the rear end blowing up the cdl wouldn't go into low without the neutral alarm going off. Even though the alarm was going I was able to get it into 4lo but it would eventually kick me out of gear. I personally believe something is wrong with the CDL too. I think it's either going to be disconnect the rear drive shaft and either tow it out or have Millers towing flatbed tow it out. This is gonna be expensive.

 

It doesn’t have to be in low in order to work, if that helps at all.

 

Thanks it helps.

 

I drove from KY to VA over the holidays with no front shaft as it died. Drove fine, don't need low to lock the CDL so long as you have a CDL. Don't see an issue with doing the reverse.

 

Thanks. We'll see tomorrow.

 

Don't confuse hi-lo range with locked/unlocked CDL. Forum members have apparently driven for months with only one driveshaft and the CDL locked, even at highway speeds; obviously you wouldn't do this in low range.
Leave it in hi and move your CDL shift lever to the left only. If you don't have a lever that moves to the left, you might have to get underneath to activate the CDL lock (if you have it). The likelihood of that will depend on your truck.

 

The previous owner installed the CDL linkage.