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960 960 questions

Hoggster

Hoggster

New member
Joined
Jan 15, 2003
Location
NC
I just got a '95 964 and I have a few questions about them.

The PO said it had a bad carrier bearing and that it makes noise when it gets hot. I haven't driven it enough to hear it and confirm it, but I'm assuming I have to change the diff assembly, or R&R and rebuild it. How hard is it to pull on a 960 with a transverse fiberglass leaf? Are there different rear end ratios on these cars, or are they all the same?

The driver's inside door handle works but it flops loose. I haven't taken it apart to look but I assume the return spring is broken or something like that. Is there an easy fix and do they get worse over time or is it OK to ignore?
 
Download this PDF file, and see if its related to your situation.

Might look for an axle ID tag; there might be ring/pinons available, but OEM literature needs to be consulted, or some place like Summit.

One site indicates: "The 940 (rear wheel drive) had ALD fitted to the 1041 with a standard solid axle. The 960 had ALD on the 1045 Multilink with IRS (independant rear suspension). Later in 1996, the 960 had the 1065 on the Multilink MkII (nil on 1055)."
 
the whole rear assembly drops out of the car as a unit. thatd be the easiest way to rebuild it. my 95 960 also has the floppy door handle issue. just be careful with it, ive been trying to replace the broken on on my passenger door and i CANNOT find one for under 200 bones.. 960s tend to has pretty crummy door panels as well.
 
Yeah, the tops of my door panels are peeling back too.

I still need info on the mkII IRS rear end ratios. I'm seeing 3.31s for sale but I want to make sure that's the only ratio available.

How do you take the tension off of the fiberglass leaf? (Slowly)
 
3.31 was not available except in the early live axle cars. Your 95 runs 3.73 gears. I can sell you a good center section for $150, plus shipping. It is G80 equipped. Your 95 should have the G80. Those were standard equipment until 96. The door handle uses a spring that is just like the spring used on a Victor mouse trap. In fact, I'll bet one of those springs would work as a replacement.
 
Relieve tension by lifting on the lca with a jack while the car is in the air. Drive the bolt out (it is splined) and lower the jack. The trailing arms and toe arms need to come off too.

Side note, the carrier bearing is on the driveshaft, why are you pulling the diff?
 
Silver said:
Door handle won't get worse but replacing the spring requires drilling out the rivets that hold the handle to the door.
Click to expand...

No, you don't have to remove the handle assembly from the door shell. You simply drive the handle pivot pin out with a pin punch and relace the spring. It is a little tricky, yet, achievable.
 
2manyturbos said:
No, you don't have to remove the handle assembly from the door shell. You simply drive the handle pivot pin out with a pin punch and relace the spring. It is a little tricky, yet, achievable.
Click to expand...

Impressive, Roy. Learn something new every day, I guess. Wish I'd known that when I did mine. Would have been a lot easier.
 
Silver said:
Driveshaft one will do the same thing. I've had one fail on my 740 before. OP didn't indicate which one he was talking about. Thanks for clarifying that for me.
Click to expand...

+1 ^

I've had a few driveshaft carrier bearings go and sounded like a diff prpblem. The D/S one's seem to drift not wear, and often need to be shimmed and reset, a service I've always had a dealer do.
 
I drove it up to highway speed and got it to act up after a while. I drove for 10-15 minutes at speeds between 50 and 60 and then during a long right hand sweeper it started rumbling.

There was a severe vibration coming from the rear of the car. It was worse when I was on the throttle but was present when coasting too. It was otherwise consistent and didn't change as I swerved side to side. I've driven a lot of broken cars, but this was bad, I thought I was going to have to limp back to the house.

I slowed down some and drove at 40 with the vibration, and during another long turn it disappeared. I sped back up to highway speed and it stayed gone for the rest of the drive.

I put it up on ramps and started checking things. I don't see any obvious problems or play in any of the components, including the prop shaft and rear suspension mounts.

I'm guessing its something in the diff housing. Is there anything else I should look at before I replace it?

Now that I think about it I think I need to investigate the right rear wheel. I just got the car and I noticed a set of parking brake shoes in the trunk, and the parking brake cable on the right rear corner has been cut. The PO "Just did the rear brakes." It could have something to do with the problem. The vibration is why he sold the car cheap.
 
Place vehicle up on blocks/stands like this; start motor and place in gear, at your own risk, and look underneath.

Note - Since your vehicle has independent suspension on rear end, this method will have to be adapted.
 
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There is a bearing just ahead of the diff. Mine was making a thumping noise so I had to repack it with grease. Wasn't too hard and it couldn't hurt.
 
I'm inclined to think its a bad drive axle. It feels similar to a worn out inner driver on a FWD car. Another mechanic agrees with me so I think I'm going to go ahead and change both sides.
 
CV axles didn't fix it.

It has a bad, speed related vibration in the rear sometimes. It comes and goes while I'm driving, I haven't figured out what is causing it to come and go, maybe curves, but when it starts it persists even when the car is traveling straight. At parking lot speeds I could hear a hollow metallic pinging that sounded suspiciously similar to the sound it makes when I hit the driveshaft with a wrench. It did it straight and turning, forward and reverse, but it would come and go also.

I'm trying to avoid doing a differential so I want to check everything else first. I've checked wheel bearings and all the rear suspension mounting, I even replaced some bushings that had gone bad while I had the axles out.

I've pulled the prop shaft and made some observations about it. The slip yoke is frozen up, I can't get it to move without a hammer. Also the CV joint at the diff end is dry and has a small amount of play. The carrier has a small growl but I doubt I would have noticed that while it was on the car. The two U joints are good. The diff feels smooth when I spin the hubs or pinion by hand.

Apparently, Volvo had an update for these cars where you get rid of the CV joint and replace it with a 3rd U joint like a normal 7/900. I have a solid axle car in my yard and I'm going to pull the propshaft and pinion flange and see if it will work on the 960.

The next step after that is to pull the diff cover and see what the fluid looks like, look for metal chunks. Volvo didn't put a drain plug on the Mk.II IRS cars as far as I can tell or I would have done it sooner.
 
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