I put the car on jack stands today and let her roll in gear. I had 3 wheels spinning at the same rate and the driver side front wheel rotating very slowly, and then it started to struggle just to turn, eventually stopping.

I did this because a few days before, I had just the back half of the car in the air, and found I could rotate the rear wheels with the car in gear (the fronts were planted on the ground still). I noticed it looked as though the drive shaft wasn't turning, and also the wheels were rotating in opposite directions.

The think the opposing rotation of the rear wheels is due to the nature of Diff. I could be wrong (please correct me).


I was thinking something may be going on with the rear diff, or where the driveshaft meets the rear Diff... wasn't sure. But since the Passenger side front wheel was spinning without any problems, I’m a bit confused now.

...someone please educate me here =/

 

Do you have a 2003/2004?

 

yes 03

 

Maybe it has something to do with the open differential on the front of 03's?

 

This is normal operation of the "open" front differential. You may want to check to see if your brakes are dragging on the wheel that stopped.

 

That's odd considering the car has an LSD in the rear, basically that shouldn't have happened. Now if you had the front in the air with the backs on the ground, exactly what you said should have happened. Weird...

 

Isn't it a big no-no to start driving an AWD w/ two wheels in the air and two wheels on the ground? It'll burn up the viscous coupler won't it?

 

I think he had all 4 wheels in the air when he let it spin in gear, then the fact that one wheel didn't spin puzzled him, so he put the front on the ground and tried to spin the back wheels by hand. When he did that, one went forwards, the other wen't backwards.

The reason one didn't spin in the front when all 4 wheels were in the air is because of the open front dif, the one that was spinning was probably spinning faster than the back wheels.

Like I said in my previous post, I don't know why the one back wheel was doing what it did.

- Steve

 

well if you had 2 on the ground then 2 in the air would it not just push the car off the jack stands???

 

As I said in my first post. A few days before today (today is when I put the car on jack stands and let it run in gear) I had the back of the car in the air. The front wheels were on the ground. I could rotate the rear wheels without effort (even though the fronts were on the ground, and not moving).... I did not start the car to do this, used my hands to rotate one of the rear wheels. The car was in 1st gear when I did this.

That is what prompted me to put the car on jack stands and see if only the fronts were spinning.... so I could check and see if I had a problem with the rear Diff.

 

With an open front differential, both wheels should be spinning if it is being driven, even when in the air. In the air, there shouldn't be so much resistance on one wheel that would cause it not to move and send all the power to the outer wheel.