Hi, I'm having a nightmare here, I have a mk3 mondeo st tdci and have removed the driveshaft only to find it's snapped the snap ring and I belive about 1/3 of it is inside the gearbox diff area.

Can I get away with risking leaving it in there or must I now remove the gearbox and strip it down and find the missing part of this snap ring?

I could cry, this is the second cheapo shaft from Euro car parts that's lasted less than a month and now when I finally remove the damn thing for good to replace it with a dearer brand it bites me one last time and leaves part of the spring ring inside the box.
Maybe it fell apart after I removed it but I can't see it anywhere on the floor.
I'm going away in the car at the weekend and it's due for test in the morning. I'm really thinking about just building the dam thing back up and risking it.
Has this happened to anybody before?
Thanks andrew

 

I think if the ring is in it will do serious damage. I don't know if the plug of an mk3 has a magnet on it (think not) but what you can do is place/glue a strong magnet to your box and hope it picks up the ring...

Might help a bit, but don't know where to glue or anything. Push the car in gear first before driving