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Guidance for angle gear replacement

3K views 17 replies 6 participants last post by  davidmckeel 
#1 ·
So after diagnosing my 2005 M66 awd s40, I have determined that my angle gear must be busted. I got all 4 wheels off the ground and started it up. Both the rear wheels and prop shaft do not spin. But if the prop shaft is manually turned the rear wheels will spin (which would indicate to me that the rear diff is in decent condition). My question is what is the best way to get my prop shaft spinning again? I'm leaning towards replacing the entire assembly with one of these : https://www.ebay.com/itm/OEM-Volvo-...763947&hash=item1a739c6fc4:g:vU4AAOSwijZcU1z2

Or should I repair the one already in my car with new sleeves/seals etc? Is that eBay link probably sketch? Should I just weld it? Any advice is welcome!

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#2 ·
I would think it is probably that the collar sleeve that connects the front differential to the angle gear is stripped. This is more common in R's but I've seen in popping up more for the P1's lately. Your angle gear may or may not need to be replaced. My collar sleeve stripped a couple of years ago and I had to replace my angle gear as well since the splines on it were stripped. There are several how-to's in the R forum but from what I understand it can be a real bear to get the old collar sleeve off the differential output shaft. I had mine done by a shop when I had a new clutch and Quaife LSD installed so I don't have any direct experience with the job. Volvo sells a collar sleeve replacement kit and I bought mine from FCPEuro. The eBay link looks legitimate but you can also find the angle gears at wrecking yards by searching car-part.com for 'transfer case'. I bought mine locally for $100 with low miles and a one year warrant.
 
#4 ·
I would be doing this myself so I'm going to have to do some research on whether to do a rebuild or replace the whole unit. Also IPD and FCP both indicate that the angle gears for M66 and auto trans are different. I would think that finding a good angle gear for such an uncommon car would be rather difficult. Thanks for the advice!
 
#5 ·
Not sure how the TT system works but the fact that the drive shaft is not spinning indicates the angle gear is at fault. From just spinning the drive shaft by hand the rear wheels turn and I can hear the pump turning on. But it is probably time to service the Haldex anyway. Do you remember how hard the job was? Is it easy enough that I might as well do it while I have the car taken apart? Thanks!
 
#6 ·
The angle gear itself never goes. It's almost definitely the collar.

Servicing the Haldex is an entirely separate job. Deal with the major issue first.
 
#8 · (Edited by Moderator)
So I have taken the angle gear out and it looks to be in good condition. The collar is stripped though so it needs to be taken out. But for the life of me it does not want to budge. I have rigged up a slide hammer but before I spend hours hammering away I want to make sure there is nothing I need to remove from the collar before it can slide out. Form what I understand by reading other threads is that the collar is epoxied in. I havent used heat yet just in case I decide to give up I still want my seals to be good. Also does anyone know if this can damage the transmission? The slide hammer gives it some pretty serious axial shock. Thanks!

 
#9 ·
Update: this thing is stuck on so strong it bent the rod holding the slide hammer and completely tore through the pipe. The mark I put on it indicates it has not moved at all. MAPP gas offers little help. Probably just going to do an awd-fwd conversion at this point
 
#10 · (Edited)
A few people have reported this - the collar twists and kind of welds itself to the surviving splines. You can burn it off with a torch, or cut it and split, but that will be difficult. Maybe just look for a junkyard angle gear as replacement?

Edit - oh, wait, the sleeve is stuck to the transmission side. Ugh. Maybe someone here has fought the same battle and can advise. I edited your post to put the image inline btw.
 
#11 ·
I would assume the snap ring inside of it has been removed? One would venture a guess that the snapring holds the collar between the Angle Gear and Transmission so that it does not float in either direction, ergo removing said snapring would give you the room to smack it in before pulling outward.

I haven't done the job myself so no other input than that unfortunately.
 
#12 ·
I'm not sure why the snap ring is there. I happen to have my angle gear out at the moment to install my downpipe and fix a leaking axle seal and the snap ring is about 1/8" from the end of the differential output shaft. From my understanding, the collar sleeve is supposed to press fit on the splined output shaft and should be driven all the way on the shaft until it bottoms out against the differential bearing. In this picture from lookforjoe's M66 AWD Quaife 14J Install thread you can see the o-ring at the bottom of the shaft that is supposed to fit in a chamfer at the end of the collar sleeve and seal the splines. (My interest in this stems from the fact I had a shop install my Quaife LSD and I think they may have put the o-ring in the wrong place. When I took my angle gear off I found a green o-ring between the snap ring and the end of the differential output shaft. There was only one o-ring in the collar sleeve repair kit I gave them so my suspicion is they did not put it at the end of the collar sleeve as intended. I gave a bit of effort to get the collar sleeve off to check but it's not worth any more effort to confirm or deny my suspicion.)

Auto part Flange Gear Rotor Bearing


Anyway, you should go check out the collar sleeve removal posts in the R Forum if you haven't already. It seems one of the more successful approaches is to cut slots in the sleeve and use a puller that grips the slots and presses against the differential output shaft. I think some people have broken 3 ton pullers so make sure to get a heavier duty puller. I didn't have to go through this since the shop installed a new collar sleeve on the Quaife LSD they were installing. I think I still have my old differential with the sleeve locked onto it in my garage.
 
#13 · (Edited)
Here's my angle gear collar at 165k miles (still stuck to the trans in this picture). Splines were fully wiped out:



And here's the angle gear itself. It was also fully wiped out. Splines were basically gone except the very front edge (which doesn't touch anything):



This was the collar removal method: weld 2 tabs to the inside of the collar, then get the thing glowing hot with an oxy-acetylene torch, slam it out with a slide hammer.



My car is from New Hampshire, then NW Pennsylvania (after 140k). So this is going to be the typical failure mode for cars from road salt areas. You should not expect your Angle gear to be any good. If it is, that's a gift. But my suggestion is to plan for it being destroyed along with the collar. I got 3 of them from the junkyard. 2 of them I had to send back because the splines were rusty and nearly gone. My guess is they would have failed in a year, given a few hard launches. Luckily the last one they had was minty. Some more discussion of my fix up in this thread: https://forums.swedespeed.com/showthread.php?521561-M66-Angle-Gear-Quick-Fix-Denied
 
#14 ·
Haha I've read your thread a million times for motivation. Couldn't get the collar off even with a 20lb slide hammer and heating it to 300 Celsius (don't recommend it smells awful). Just gonna fwd it for the foreseeable future. Fortunately my angle gear splines are in decent condition. Not sure if I'll ever get that thing off though. Considering calling some indie mechanics to see if they have experience with it and how much they'll charge.

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#15 · (Edited)
Hmm. I doubt any of them could be stuck worse than mine was. I would think mine would be the absolutely worst example. I even had trouble getting the new collar back *on*.

I'm thinking MAPP gas is not hot enough to do the job. You will probably need an oxy-acetylene torch. You will have to nearly (or perhaps actually) cut through the collar. If you have a good angle gear already, I think it's definitely worth fixing to get the AWD working. The car is just so much better with AWD, especially in the snow.

Luckily, it is easy to just pull the driveshaft out, throw your axle back in and leave it FWD for now. No extra parts needed at all. When possible, you can drive it to a shop, they pull the axle and extract and replace the collar for you. If it goes on anything like mine, it will fit tight enough that you can drive it back home that way. Then you can reassemble the AWD stuff at your convenience. Or have the shop do it if you want - it's really not much work from that point.
 
#16 ·
Not sure if reviving a old thread like this is cool but I want to provide the solution I found for other’s reference. There was a parts awd m66 s40 in the area so we bought that transmission since it had a good collar sleeve (it looked immaculate my guess was that the car it was from had a busted rear diff since it seemed like it never had any wear on it). Instead of just taking the collar out of the original transmission we just put this whole transmission in instead. Not an easy job by any means but doable if you have the right tools or skills. I followed rx8er’s video on YouTube for the trans removal.

If I had to do it again I would just pay someone to take the collar gear out.
 
#17 ·
Not sure if reviving a old thread like this is cool but I want to provide the solution I found for other's reference. There was a parts awd m66 s40 in the area so we bought that transmission since it had a good collar sleeve (it looked immaculate my guess was that the car it was from had a busted rear diff since it seemed like it never had any wear on it). Instead of just taking the collar out of the original transmission we just put this whole transmission in instead. Not an easy job by any means but doable if you have the right tools or skills. I followed rx8er's video on YouTube for the trans removal.

If I had to do it again I would just pay someone to take the collar gear out.
How many hours did it take? I am currently on the fence about calling it quits on the car when this day comes or if it's shadetree mechanic doable but just takes time. I think my flywheel is going to go sooner than the trans (though not for a while), so getting in there is going to eventually be either of some importance or absolutely no importance at all depending on which route I take.
 
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