Hey I need you guys advice. I'm a new tracker owner. I bought an 04 zr2 and discovered my front passenger CV axle going into the diff is loose. Axle is still attached but just flops around. I'm pretty sure my front diff is shot. Can I remove the front CV axles and just run it as a rear wheel drive? Will it cause any problems?

 

From the factory the front axles turn any time the front wheels are turning. Rather than remove the front axles I would buy a set of manual lockng hubs and leave them in 2WD. That way the front axles won't turn when you're driving and the floppiness should not be a huge problem.

 

Thanks but I kinda got screwed on this deal and I'm not in a spot to put money into this car if I can help it. I only need to to drive it for 4-6 weeks until I can save up for something else. My thinking is to remove the CV axles to isolate the bad front diff to hopefully buy me sometime. Is this do-able?

 

On driver's side you can remove the snap ring from the axle, unbolt the axle from the differential and wiggle the axle out. On the passenger side your best bet would be to cut the axle in half. Remove the snap ring to get the outboard half out and use a pry bar to pop the inboard half out of the differential.

 

So it would be safe to do you think? I don't wanna make anything worse. Thank you for your advice.

 

Your going to pull the axles out through the spindle (9). You will not disturb the wheel bearing or any part of the wheel assembly. There is no safety issue. You'll just have a 100 pound ligher rear-drive vehicle that rolls easier.