It was weird. For a few days before I had been hearing what sounded like the drum wasn't adjusted and it was rubbing at low speeds and the car felt.....sluggish. I was guzzling gas more than usual.
Then last week I was driving home going 50km/h when there was a "pop" and the wheel started dragging. Shifting between gears it would just grind away and move nowhere I thought I had somehow blown the transmission/transfer case up.
Nah, the axle snapped and that was the shaft clearing out what remained of the hub splines. The wheel spun off the shaft and fell onto the brakes. If it had happened a few minutes earlier it would of happened while I was going down the highway so you look at it and it seemed fine until you realized it had a camber to it.
I've been pulling parts off an '87 Eagle about an hour south of me. I was able to drop its axle a day later and that's what I was able to replace my shaft using. As others have noticed there are no aftermarket shafts available for the AMC 35. Either you have to find a used one or you're swapping axles entirely.