Leaving work, let the clutch out and something let loose, felt and sounded like the rear axle ring/pinion came apart. Put it in neutral looked underneath and the driveshaft was spinning (slowly) and the rear end was going nowhere
I was able to put it in 4wd and limp it back in to a parking spot with lots of grinding and jerking like the ring was binding on the pinion. I'll get it loaded on a flat bed and bring it home tomorrow and start tearing in to the rear end... this cant be good
:atomic:
Emergency procedure:
Pull reardriveshaft,, if possible park vehicle slightly downhill or jack up rear to avoid spilling too much fluid out the slip yoke. (make sure front wheels are blocked!)
Cut a coke can or plastic bottle in half and squeeze it around slip yoke and apply ducttape and pretty anything you can think of to plug the hole, there is not much pressure just to avoid dumping the fluid.
Put in 4hi and drive home or to nearest mechanic
Taking of the driveshaft will disconnect the reardiff from the transfercase, so while limping down the road in "4hi frontwheeldrive" your transfercase won't blowup in case of one of the little pieces of spidergears or teeth from ping and pinion should bind up the rear.
Even if he had a SYE and removed the shaft, if the gears are jammed up in the axle it will continue to not be drivable or for a very little distance like he did to a parking lot. Obviously this depends on how bad the damage is.
And I'm not saying you can't do what you did with a slip yoke, I get that. But jammed gears are jammed gears!
Come on guys, Im not suggesting to blast down the freeway in 4hi, simply a way to get of the trail or to nearest place where you can Do something about it.
From what it sounds like that diff is already in need of mejor repair
Strong fix: The problem can be alleviated by installing transfer case spacers to lower the transfer case and decrease the rear driveline angle, but this comes at a cost of ground clearance. The hot ticket is to install a slip yoke eliminator (SYE) kit. This will shorten the length of the NP231 transfer case, allowing the installation of a longer driveshaft and thus eliminating vibration. As its name implies, the kit also eliminates the slip yoke used from the factory, which means if your rig suffers trail damage and you have to remove the rear driveshaft, you won't lose fluid out of the transfer case. Further, many of these kits significantly upgrade the output shaft as compared to stock. There are many SYE kits available on the market. JB Conversions offers standard SYE kits as well as their HD Super Short SYE kit (shown). The Super Short is an additional 3.125 inches shorter than other SYE kits on the market.
Contact: JB Conversions, 337/625-2379, JB Conversions, Inc.
Had a 99 Ford 4x4, was the 1st year they did 4 wheel disc brakes. (what Ford guys told me) The disc brakes had just enough play to allow the axle to slip far enough inward to drop the c-clip. It then slipped half way out the side gears stripping the axle splines causing the spider gears to rotate out of the diff busting It in 6 pieces one of which went thru the diff cover. This happened from a complete stop to turn left. Before I could cross the other lane (10-12 feet?) all that damage happened. If you havnt looked inside a diff when you have a problem don't drive on it. I wish id have had some warning there was a problem. This also happened with 60,135 miles on the truck. 135 miles out of warranty and ford wouldn't do anything about it.
Just thought id share another diff horror story.
Took advantage of the balmy 56 degree weather and tore it apart, sheared the pinion gear off
good news is it does have 3:73 gears so i'm just going to replace the ring & pinion. Found a couple broken spacers in the spider gear cluster so i'll have to redo that also.
I just picked up a D44 for $325... but I'm going to build it up with an ARB I just picked up too. I have a Rubi D44 in my Jeep but will sell that when I get this one built.
I found a complete Dana 44 w/ 3.73 for $695, Should I just swap it out or rebuild the Dana 35??? i'm thinking this is a dumb question :whistling:
What all is involved in doing the swap? I understand I need a new driveshaft? What do I need to get? and where would I get it?
I found a complete Dana 44 w/ 3.73 for $695, Should I just swap it out or rebuild the Dana 35??? i'm thinking this is a dumb question :whistling:
What all is involved in doing the swap? I understand I need a new driveshaft? What do I need to get? and where would I get it?
Dumb question (as long as it is out of a TJ). You should go buy it before it's gone. IIRC you need 3:73 anyway so this will save you a regear charge.
It is straight up bolt in (unless it came out of a RHD). Put Kroil or PB blaster on your stuff now to make it easier to take apart. Not sure about the DS compared to what you currently have, but they can be shortened quite easily if needed. You will need to bleed your brakes. Other than that, nice find!
No, absolutely not. Unbolt the lower shock mounting bolts and lower antiswaybar links and the axle will droop down enough to remove/replace the springs.
Got the Dana 44 mounted up under the TJ today. New upper & lower control arms and adjustable track bar.
Driveshaft is my new issue. It's to long as I figured it might be. What are you guys finding to be the magic number to shorten the shaft? 1 inch?
Not normally a chrome cover kind of guy but I needed new bolts and a gasket and Summit had the cover with bolts and gasket for $25 so what the heck.. It might get a coat of black at some point
-Never. I drive past houses with wood burners and always question if something in my wrangler caught fire/is melting.
Any idea of why your pinion shaft broke? Seems like it would have to be in one hell of a bind to accomplish that.
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