I recently purchased a 1998 v70 AWD, and noticed that the rear drive shaft has been making noise. Now, as I found out, you cant just change a part of the drive shaft, but you have to replace the whole thing. My question is, is it possible to only use front wheel drive, thus taking off the drive shaft?

 

Yes you can thats what I would do.

 

I just had to do a similar job but a bit bigger I think. Both the ends of the driveshaft (sealed bearings replaceble only from dealer weld on) and the center bearing. Only I didn't do this repair I went to a junk yard and bought another one that looked like it had been replaced already. I replaced this and also two wheel bearings and it's fine now.

Before this it acted like a truck with a bad u-joint. And if you turn it shakes the whole car. Now that it's all fixed it drives nice. The cost of just one of the Drive Sharf bearings was around $230.00 I think and they (Volvo) wanted $1300.00 for a new Drive shaft. $850.00 later and I'm fixed. Now I need tires and an alignment.