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I'm no guru but I do have some thoughts for you:
Firt of all just to make sure you understand what is going on inside there, there is no friction between the plates per se. The shearing of the plates through the liquid makes the liquid become more viscous, to the point where lots of shear makes the liquid almost solid. The solid fluid caused whichever set of plates is shearing fastest to drag the others along.
Next, you don't really need to remove the rear driveline at all.
If you picture the system it looks like my little ascii diagram below.
T = transmission
- = wheel facing driveshaft
| = center driveshaft/propeller shaft
B = Bevel Gear
V = viscous coupling
o = road wheel
O-T=B--O
|
V
O---R--O
All you need to do is remove the center driveshaft. Just leave all the rear end gear in place.
O-T=B--O
V
O---R--O
I have done this and it works beautifully.
You should not be scared of this operation. It was not difficult or time consuming and so far for me there are no consequences, except that the AWD is disabled and gas mileage is better.
Also, I would not worry about the VC until you get much worse symptoms than the low-speed-turn-shimmys.
Check that your Bevel gear has new fluid and it's not leaking, and your system should last a long time the way it is.
On to the VC:
There are no built in drains/fills/etc.
I think you could probably drill a hole in the casing and drain the fluid out, and then stop it up with a bolt or weld it shut. I suppose you could refill the same way, esp if you took it out of the car first to do all this.
Again, I don't see why this would be preferable to removing the center driveshaft.
Eerie Volvo offered to sell me one for $350 plus shipping with a lifetime warranty. Pretty good if you ask me.
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1998 V70 AWD Turbo 190k+
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