05 AWD-FWD Conversion

[ABoyAndABessie]

Hey y'all, newbie here.
So, the rear driveshaft in my beloved Bessie (05 AWD, Black, Moon/Tunes, 268k miles) dropped to the pavement last year, and being poor and needing to get home (was an hour and a half away when it happened), I just had the shop pull the rear driveshaft and leave just the front connected.
Wildly enough, it has been driving beautifully for over a year now with this emergency conversion, and I'm wondering...how rough would it be to just slap a base trans into it now that I've got it basically most of the way there? What sort of parts hunting would be involved? Or am I just better off getting the rear driveshaft repaired and stuffed back in there?

[hogdoctor]

I would say it depends on if you have a need for Awd or not. If you do, fix it. If not, sell off the rear diff on ebay for an extraordinary amount of money and blow it on coke and hookers.

[joatmon]

Welcome to genvibe!

I don't know how not having the driveshaft on an awd vibe would affect front wheel slippage, if it would make it behave like a 2wd vibe, or if it would be more prone to slippage.

A new or repaired rear driveshaft would be cheaper and easier than a tranny swap. What benefit would you hope to get from a 2wd tranny?

[Baadnewsburr]

I'm sure others know better, but you may need a different wire harness or at least ECu and maybe a TCU* if you swap in a 2WD transmission...but mechanically it should not make a difference if you just left it off you could drive it all day long forever without doing anything to it really you'd jsut be carrying some dead weight where the diff is.

(*I have only had my vibe for a month or so , so I don't really know anything about the electronics on this car just going off my experience on other AWD cars)