Cardan (front transfer) Shaft Problem

[JE 17]

I was on my way across the Mississippi to get gas in Missouri (Illinois taxes you know.) I had just gotten on the bridge, accelerating uphill, not hard as I was behind one of those slow non-turbo dronemobiles when I heard a bang, then a grinding noise.

At first, I thought I had run over something, but I never saw anything. So I slowed to a crawl over the bridge until there was a safe place to pull over. I couldn't see anything, and it was running fine. So I rolled down to a gas station, got out my flashlight and tried to see what was wrong. No luck, so I called for a tow.

Now this is really aggravating, but since I no longer have a property with a lift, I had to send it to a shop.

They called the next day to tell me it appeared that a circlip holding this shaft had failed, and the shaft had pulled out of the transfer case. Now, in searching several forums, I didn't find anyone else with this problem yet he says it's common. In fact, it's so common, there are about seven upgrades of this circlip. A $16-some-dollar circlip! Oh yeah, and a driveshaft. $1700 there, though I found it on FCP for $1200.

You must expect some problems at 115,000 miles, but I'm just happy I was a mile from town instead of the middle of I-80 in Nebraska or somewhere else fun!