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  #1  
Old 06-18-2020, 09:46 PM
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Installing new front drive shaft

Wanted to post this for you guys and share changing out my front drive shaft. My recent mod made me re-evaluate the condition of the splines of the front DS and the possibility of a break-down in the event of the splines fully stripping out. Now my X roughly has 190k miles on her and think this is a worthy part to replace for reliability.

Ideally it would be great to change out the Xcase drive splines as well, but changing a drive shaft is much easier. The shaft costed about $120 shipped. It was nice to see the drive shaft have balancing weights installed visually indicating it was balanced.

I used moly based grease on the splines to help aid in sliding action of the two parts and to maintain rust prevention. The main concern would be excess play between the mating of the two parts.

Changing the drive shaft is pretty simple. All it took was jacking up the car, removing the reinforcement plate, removing the 3 fasteners on guibo/3 fasteners on DS flange. Then to gain access using a screwdriver in between guibo and DS flange to "wedge" the DS back further towards Xcase. Once adequate clearance made, the guibo was able to be removed, thus, allowing enough clearance to fully remove driveshaft out.
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Old 07-12-2020, 02:17 PM
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where did you order the driveshaft from? is it modified with the longer splines to fully engage the socket?

interestingly I believe this problem presents itself in different ways. My old Xer that my kid is driving now required the replacement around 175k but the only symptom was an audible clink when shifting into reverse.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CDn1...ature=youtu.be

some folks strip it out completely and are stopped dead in their tracks.

i'm gonna have to do this one eventually on the NEW (2005 lol!) Xer.
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2005 X5 3.0i - 71k mi (9.2018) -> 81k (9.19) -> 100k 9.21
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Old 07-12-2020, 04:05 PM
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Nice job on that, lots of people have had to loosen the front diff to fully pull the shaft, sounds like you’re one of the lucky ones

I have considered it a couple of times but sitting at 120k miles and mine not seeing too much rain, grime or full pedal launches... (don’t get me wrong, I do drive the sucker), it would be solely paranoid prevention...


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Old 07-13-2020, 08:19 AM
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yea I was definitely lucky. could have been a lot worse. I actually didn't have time to research or do this repair and was getting the oil pan gasket changed at the same time so I ended up getting my indy to do it. he ordered it from somewhere where they extend the driveshaft somehow so the splines go further into the socket.
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2005 X5 3.0i - 71k mi (9.2018) -> 81k (9.19) -> 100k 9.21
---------------------------------------------------------------------
SOLD : ( 2003 X5 3.0 - 177k mi (9.2018) -> 186k (9.19) -> 205k (9.21)
SOLD : ( 1997 328is Coupe - Hellrot Red
SOLD : ( 1988 528e w/ Bullseye s256 / MS2 Extra / GC Coilovers / Yukon Coils ~ 300+ HP
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Old 07-13-2020, 08:31 AM
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That is definitely the way to do it, the guys that developed the extended shaft are geniuses for sure, which I guess makes BMW jack***es, or just too cheap to do it right the first time on a truck that cost what it did new... Nutty really.


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Old 07-13-2020, 01:33 PM
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Russianblue View Post
where did you order the driveshaft from? is it modified with the longer splines to fully engage the socket?

interestingly I believe this problem presents itself in different ways. My old Xer that my kid is driving now required the replacement around 175k but the only symptom was an audible clink when shifting into reverse.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CDn1...ature=youtu.be

some folks strip it out completely and are stopped dead in their tracks.

i'm gonna have to do this one eventually on the NEW (2005 lol!) Xer.
I saw your video...you could also have a really loose xfer case chain as well that contributes to the "click" sound in your clip--but def could be the splines having excessive lash when switching load direction (via D to R).

It's actually fairly EASY to just check. I would remove and inspect the front driveshaft just to see the condition the splines are in.
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