May be something vital about the washer fix; the wear that can round off the splines can only come from in and out motion. Adding the washers will use the rubber in the giubo (JOO-boh for those of us that just learned that weird today) as a compression spring to hold the shaft aftward into the transfer case to keep the in and out motion to a minimum. It's not the unnecessary "extra bite"; the splines are long enough, it's the elimination of the in and out sawing action that will extend the life of the splines. No motion, no wear. It adds more work to the giubo which in turn will make it wear faster but they are obviously made pretty tough!

I'm sold. I will add washers the next time I'm working under mine and wife's e53.

My ¢¢ on the sawzall discussion. A non-red neck would have used an angle grinder or a band saw I suppose. In that particular case I think he was making a new "blank" for the next 2-part drive shaft. It was oddly specific. Why would you have to cut in a particular place of you are going to replace it?

It seems just a tutorial for how to avoid removing the giubo when replacing the shaft but also making a "core" you can send in to get a discount on the two-part shaft.

If you can remove the giubo and make enough room to pull the drive shaft then that sounds like a lot less work. The only reason I could see to use an extended length spline is if the spline inside is damaged.

(Can somebody chime in and confirm that the shaft can or can't be replaced by removing the giubo) it would explain the relatively short spline length on the shaft.

My drive shaft made it 154,000 mi. so far. If the splines are good I'll add some washers if I can detect any slop in and out and I should be good forever. They will only wear with relative motion.

If there is angular slop then I'll get an OEM equivalent shaft and install with washers if the giubo isn't already tight at the onset.

Back to the washers. It would seem there is an engineering oversight. The drive shaft was probably engineered with the telescoping action to be there when there is relative motion between the transfer case and front differential but the extent of wear was not accurately determined or Bmw was happy with 100-200,000 mi lifespan of the part.

Will the extra force from the washers just cause the seal to wear? How much relative motion is there in and out from body twist and engine torque? Maybe the washers won't help if it just means the rubber seal acts like a thrust bushing until it wears out and then allows relative motion again.


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2011 E70 • N55 (me)
2012 E70 • N63 (wife)