Losiracer2

This may sound stupid since I've never done it on a running car, just salvage ones.

But if I remove my driveshaft from my LS, will all the ATF leak out after removing the yolk?

Would the same happen on my differential side?

I'm swapping entire driveshafts because I found a low mileage one with perfect guibo rubber couplers, mine are cracked.

Or would a way to avoid this be to elevate the rear higher than the front?

EDIT: DIY instructions below of the steps I took. No exhaust removal required!

valex

No liquids will come out, neither ATF, nor diff., you have to drop exhaust first to drop driveshaft. I dropped entire exhaust in one piece, disconnecting downflow O2 sensors under carpet instead of trying to remove O2 sensors from exhaust (they are rusted in there, good chance of damaging them when removing). But if its a JY, you probably just clip the O2 wires

Banshee365

Removing the o2 sensors from the exhaust is much easier, especially on an AZ car. They shouldn't be rusted on. Before installing the sensors into the exhaust wind the sensor and wire 3.5 turns backwards before inserting into the hole so that the wire isn't twisted when it's tight. I remove the exhaust from the front of the cats back to the mid pipe connection. Absolutely no need to remove the muffler sections in the rear. Way too much time. Remove the 3 bolts/nuts that connect the isolator joint to the pinion flange. There is a recess cast into the diff housing to allow the bolt to be slid out rearward. You'll see what I'm talking about when you get there. Same goes for the trans side, remove the 3 bolts/nuts holding the isolator to the output shaft flange. If you don't want to loosen the nut in the middle of the driveshaft to allow it to compress I alway's just go ahead and remove the carrier bearing from the body. That will give you enough room to first pop the shaft off the diff, then the trans. There are washers between the carrier bearing bracket and the body. Don't lose those or forget to reinstall them that way.

To answer you question shorter, no fluid can be lost by doing anything with the driveshaft.

sha4000

iTrader: (1)

Are you going to replace the rear pinion seal on the differential side while you have the driveshaft out? I think I might have a slight leak coming from there on my 430 but I'm guessing that both cars are the same as far as the setup. I can't find any How To's so Take pics when you remove yours if you have the time.

valex

Since your flex disks are toast, inspect the two diff mounts, they might be too, that way you are dropping the driveshaft once

Losiracer2

Got my low mileage 95k one swapped in with the good couplers and my old 279k one swapped out. Amazingly my high mileage one had literally no rust and the lower mileage one had some slight surface rust. My center carrier bearing was still good as was the U joint, it didn't have any slop.

I managed to do it without dropping the exhaust or unbolting anything exhaust related. I just undid the hangers for the pre-mufflers right after the Y and used my arm weight to pry the mid section downward while wiggling the front driveshaft rubber disk part by the center catalytic converter.

What I did was:

1. Remove the heatshield with the 6 10mm nuts holding it on. Then rotate it around the exhaust and it comes off easily.
2. Undo the 3 17mm nuts holding the rubber disks to the transmission output and the differential. I was able to undo two each from the front disk and rear disk, then I needed to shift into neutral to be able to rotate the driveshaft around to get the upper ones in a more accessible spot. Then I slid the bolts out through the recessions cut into the rear diff and found a spot with enough room on the front transmission side for those three bolts.
3. Remove the front and rear braces using a 12mm wrench. I removed the rear one with a 12mm combo gearwrench (8/10 - 12/13mm) and the front one I just used my 3/8ths socket wrench with a 10" extension to clear the exhaust. The braces are against the studs with some tension so you'll have to pull on them straight out to remove them.
4. Remove the 14mm bolts holding the center carrier bearing flange to the car. Pay special attention to the washer above each bolt, above the carrier bearing flange. They are used for alignment of the driveshaft and are pretty important to establish the correct angle.
5. Remove 12mm nut holding shift linkage arm to shifter above for clearance of the rubber disk to slide by. It'll be a very tight fit when it slides out and you may have to play with the shifter and move it in different positions inside the car to get the right angle of that linkage for the best amount of room.
6. remove the rear Premuffler hangers just after the Y in the exhaust to allow for clearance for the rubber disk. When you do this, it'll give you about an inch of downward clearance. I just used my arm to pull down on the mufflers while sliding the entire driveshaft by the center catalytic converter.

That's pretty much it! Took me about 45 min to remove.

The shifter linkage on the bottom posed a slight threat, but I just undid the 12mm nut holding the arm to the gear shifter and it barely gave me enough clearance to wiggle it by with the rubber disk still installed on the front.

The only things I removed were the heat shield, and the front and rear braces, and the 3 bolts securing to the front trans output and 3 bolts for rear diff, so pretty easy.

I didn't really notice any difference after installing my new driveshaft, since my driveshaft wasn't really bad, just those rubber disks were cracked and my diff bushings were cracked but that's a job for another day. I already combined this job with replacing my original 20yr old fuel filter, which took just the same amount of time due to fuel constantly leaking on me the entire time.

I'd say this driveshaft swap took me about 3 hrs total, start to finish. I spent the most time trying to figure out how to slide the driveshaft out while leaving the exhaust intact, since I really didn't want to mess with all that stuff. Play with the shifter position and you'll find a good angle where it allows you to slide the driveshaft by with the disk still attached. But I had no issues with rusted bolts, corrosion or anything like that, so I'm thankful for my rust free AZ car.

Losiracer2

I didn't replace the seal, since it wasn't leaking. I'll go under there in a couple days to drain/refill the diff and see if this new driveshaft has disturbed anything, but for now, everything is sealing as it was intended.

Banshee365

That sounds like a lot of work. Removing the 6 from cat nuts and loosening the mid pipe clamp takes 5 minutes.

Losiracer2

After having to drill through a stud on one of my cats when replacing the EGR pipe, I didn't want to deal with another exhaust removal + gasket replacement.

It wasn't any more work, I just took very detailed steps when writing that DIY above. The only hard part was torquing the 3 nuts on the tranny output to 57 lb-ft with the exhaust installed. I had to get creative with some 1/2' extensions