So I just noticed some clunking going on from the passenger side front, decided to take a look and saw that the compression rod bushing was completely sheared. I know these go bad, but I think it shredded itself during a visit to goodyear for an alignment. They claimed I had a bent tie rod, and I told them I'll fix it myself, and when pulling out of where they parked it, the car was undriveable, with the wheels so cockeyed I couldn't even steer the car. They said they never touched anything. I argued with them that I drove it for two weeks with no issues and it was fine before they put it on the lift, and now that it's off the lift, it's undriveable. I saw the pic they sent me of the mildly bent tie rod. When they put it back on the lift, which was difficult because steering was so screwed up, I took a look and the tie rod was literally shaped like an S. I think that's when it completely sheared the bushing and the post is even bent. I couldn't get the spacer of the old bushing off even though I can get it to spin. I just threw a poly bushing from a 4 link kit for my 4runner in there so I can keep it driveable and not metal on metal clanking until my Armstrong ones come in. When I finally got all the rubber off (left the spacer on the post) and got everything in, I sat there for a second just staring, and happened to see an empty hub staring back at me. Then looked at the empty wheel hub. Then back at the transfercase. Then it finally hit me there is no cv axle there. I looked at the driver side and there isn't one there either.

I haven't gone back under the car again yet after getting the wheel back on because I'm kind of tired of messing with it right now. So I haven't looked at the condition of the diff and if the front driveshaft is there. But I did some searching and all I could come up with doing a RWD conversion is pulling a fuse under the driver seat. I guess I don't necessarily need to go back to AWD, and just wondering if any unforseen problems may happen by leaving the front axles out.


here's my ghetto rigged temporary bushing. There is about an 1/8" play around the center sleeve, but better than 1/2" play of metal to metal.

 

Bright red looks good in there. Nice work. Good luck with the rest.

 

Yep it's a ghetto rigged RWD conversion, unfortunately I've seen crap like that in the past. What probably happened was the previous owner BROKE the CV axle and it flailed around, beat up everything in it's vicinity as it was slapping around (thus explaining some of the damage you have), then the boyfriend-mechanic did the zero dollar repair option and simply pulled both front axles off and then pulled the fuse for the transfer case. There's also a decent chance that you have an inoperable VDC/SLIP light but not always.

When Goodyear put it up in the air everything finally gave out, probably not their fault.

I'd start sourcing replacement parts and get it back to functional AWD again. Shouldn't be too much work if you have a local pick-n-pull to yank parts from, my biggest concern is the passenger side potentially not being sealed up. Hopefully whoever did this job left the stub shaft in place and just pulled the tripot bearing apart in the CV axle. If you have a big hole in the transfer case then you might have a lot of damage and need to replace it.

 

I figured that's probably why they are gone. There's been some damage to the driver side because I know the compression arm has been replaced, the fender is repainted, and there is a crack in the bumper on that side. The wheel speed sensor was also ground down like some rotating part near the hub rubbed it. I'm kind of tight on money until I sell the car this one is replacing so I'm going to have to wait a little while. I'm having some buyers remorse with this one thinking I got a good deal at $3000, knowing there was a few things I could fix. It looks like they just pulled the joint apart and left the splines and hubs still in the diff. I don't even see any trace of grease in the hubs. I need to see if anything else is damaged still.

 

That's perfect if they left the shafts installed into the transaxle, all you should need is complete CV axles including the nut and large washer.

There's still a chance that there's some other worn components like possibly the front propeller shaft but worst case scenario you just leave the electronics for the T-case disabled until you can fix other items.