4L60E Tail Shaft
Thread Starter
Teching In
Joined: Mar 2011
Posts: 11
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From: Ellisville, MS
4L60E Tail Shaft 
I have an 01 Z28 A4 4L60E car. Today while cruising at interstate speeds I heard a vibration and a pop. A cloud of white smoke filled the rearview mirror and some of the smoke came through the dash. I pulled over and I was pouring transmission fluid. My Tail shaft is twisted in half but is still attached to the driveshaft. I have never seen nor heard of this. When this hsppened the speedometer went crazy. Also I had to get in it about 5 minutes later to move it and it still had fluid in it and shifted fine. Just pouring from the mangled twisted tail shaft. Car has a 3600 stall with 342 gears. Any ideas or anything on this! Got it home with my friends wrecker and putting it on a lift to investigate further! 
I have seen it happen after a vehicle was on a chassis dyno or was at the track getting beat on. Personally I would get the torque arm off the tail for starters. You could also have an issue with your pinion angle if your car has been lowered. Vince
I broke one on the dyno then busted a trans case on the dyno, it was due to bad angles in the driveline combined with a shitty resized stock type driveshaft.
Just hope there is no internal damage or unseen damage to the trans case internals.
First step should be getting an angle finder and measuring degree of tailshaft, pinion, and driveshaft. If those check out, have your driveshaft checked. If its a stock POS aluminum driveshaft it's likely bent or out of high speed balance.
Just hope there is no internal damage or unseen damage to the trans case internals.
First step should be getting an angle finder and measuring degree of tailshaft, pinion, and driveshaft. If those check out, have your driveshaft checked. If its a stock POS aluminum driveshaft it's likely bent or out of high speed balance.
Thread Starter
Teching In
Joined: Mar 2011
Posts: 11
Likes: 0
From: Ellisville, MS
Okay I hope I can get by with just the tail shaft. We are going to go over the car completely maybe by the weekend. Depends on work! BOO! When this happened to you Tittan what all did you have to replace?
