transfer box sheared teeth on 4.6is

[robzilla]

i'm not sure if this has been covered but one of my friends 4.6is has a damaged transfer box, he went to pull away and the teeth in the transfer box had sheared, he has since found out that there is company that make a slightly longer toothed part of the prop about an inch so it goes into box further, because there is only a small part of the prop being used from new thats why it's sheared off. I can get details if required of company, it's less than £300.

this has probably been covered loads but i couldn't find anything when i did a search.

[X5Sport]

Never heard that one before!!  That's not good at all.  Nasty..

[Don Coffey]

I'm not that technically minded, so maybe you could explain how there's enough room for an extra inch in the prop?  I always assumed tolerances were very tight.

Don

[X5Sport]

I think the prop actually moves fore and aft to take up changes caused by vertical movements in the front & rear suspension.  Not seen it on a car with Indy suspension (been years since I got that close to the underside of a car), but the old solid axle ones certainly had it. 

The prop on my Mk1 Cavalier could certainly move in and out of the back of the gearbox as the axle moved in a vertical line (no mid point mount) from full up to full down which changed the radial length of the prop shaft and either pulled it out or pushed it in by about half an inch from a datum point.  It was fixed at the rear, but moved at the gearbox end and had a special lipped oil seal to allow for the movement.

The X5 appears to have a splined male/female self-adjusting coupling on both front and rear props.

[IanP]

Quite a few X5s on American sites have suffered the same problem. Finger of blame in some cases  was pointed at the AC drain which apparently comes out right above the spline