Hi all, I've scoured google for the past hour looking for an answer to this one, and there's so much info pertaining to CV axle removal issues and carrier bearings, that I'm not finding much info at all on this:
First off, the car is an automatic AW50-42 FWD and it has developed a substantial leak which appears to be coming out of the driver side differential seal.
The most concerning thing is that there is tons of up and down play where the male end of the CV shaft goes into the differential... I can grip the inner end of the CV axle and wiggle it around like crazy, where it should be firmly in place in the differential (aside from some mynute in and out play)
It feels like the bearing or bushing inside the differential is wallered out.
Idk, I guess I'm reaching out to the community as a hail mary hoping that theres some other explanation for what I'm finding here...
I'm trying to sell the car anyway as I havent used it much at all in the past years and I'm kinda tired of working on it.
Put a used transmission in it with the help of a local shop for which I was working at the time, 7 years and ~10k miles ago (really don't want to have to do that again but in my driveway...)
And this year I just finished rebuilding the head with new valve seals and head gasket, pcv etc.
So what do y'all think? is the differential f***ered or what?

 

Not an expert, but my opinion is you should NOT have any vertical or horizontal play in the differential where the CV axle attaches. If it was the CV joint itself, I would say yeah, the CV joint is toast. What you are describing is a failure inside the transaxle........

 

dang I was afraid of that... I think I’ll still pull the axle out and inspect it I’m still a little hopeful that the splines are just really loose or something, as this cv axle is pretty old, been in the car longer than the transmission actually.

 

So upon inspecting the axle, there is a bushing surface on the inner end of the axle, just outbound of the splines that fit into the diff. This bushing surface seems to be worn out causing the shaft play.
I'm looking around to try and figure out if this is servicable, hopefully the axle's bushing male OD is worn down, so a new axle could fit into there more snugly, but its hard to say for sure.
I'm having a hard time finding information of renewing the female bushing inside the diff, if this is possible? or if the axle's male OD surface is what wears.
Maybe if someone has a spare drivers side axle laying around they could measure the OD of this bushing surface for comparison?
EDIT: the bushing surface inside the diff is all gouged up, IDK how this happened but idk how it can be cleveryly repaired with some sort of insert maybe 🤔

 

Heres what it looks like apparently theres no sleeve no nothing to do other than to take the transmission out.
I bet someone who is clever and determined enough could find a way to broach the hole oversized and press in a new bushing but I've decided to throw in the towel on this one.
Frankly I'm kind of disappointed in Volvo for a ****ty design... in the angle gears they use, they have replaceable sleeves for when these wear out, but not in the transaxles apparently. Or at least no one is talking about it.