2nd Gen Non-Engine/Transmission Help! Center carrier bearing nightmare

[BarryG]

I have a good one for you guys (and girls). My center carrier bearing and ujoints were repalced about 5k ago. All seemed fine until the other day. I was pulling a gooseneck maybe 10k in weight. I started hearing this noise thought it strange and investigated. I look under the truck and my center carrier bearing had been pushed out of the housing towards the front of the truck. I took it back to where the work had been done a few months ago and they replaced it no charge but said that something else must be wrong as they had never seen anything like that before. I go happily on my way thinking it surely was just a defective bearing to begin with. However after driving less than 300 miles it has done it again. I had towed a 4k bumper pull trailer last weekend for about 200 miles. No problems with that. I loaded up my camping gear to go on vacation last night (no trailer) and thought I would fill it up with fuel so I wouldnt have to stop this morning and on the way to the station it did it again. I limped the mile or so home. I am baffled as to what would cause this. Now I am on my way in my little honda car what a drag, oh well the fish wont care what I am driving I guess.



Could the rear axle be wrapping unbelivebly upward shortening the space between the rear axle and the center bearing pushing it forward through the housing. I checked the ubolts and springs and dont see anything out of the ordinary. Strange as I would think and am fairly sure regular axle wrap would move the diff in a downward motion lengthening the space not shortening it. Also this second time I was only going 40mph in a very leisurly manner so there should not have been any axle wrap happening to begin with.



The shop who did the work said my front end was messed up becasue my axle wasnt centered in the wheel wells. And it isnt but I knew that. It has a Kore Chase system on it so the front end has been lifted 2-3 inches and I havent got around to putting an adjustable track bar on. However that lift has been on for over 100k. The original center bearing had over 200k on it before it was replaced and it wasnt bad. I just needed to do the ujoints and thought I might as well do that too at the same time. They were saying the angle was causing it but again it had been on for over 100k and no issues. I also am having a hard time understanding how even if it is driving a bit doglegged down the road how that would really affect the center bearing and cause it to move forward.



Does anyone have any ideas on what the heck is going on?

 

[SRath]

It sounds like your splined slip-sleeve joint on your driveshaft is hanging up or bottoming out for some reason and not doing it's job. It may be possible that they did not correctly index the splines. I have never had mine apart on the Dodge and don't know what idiosyncracy dodge might have, but I can think of nothing else that would do this unless they somehow managed to put the wrong driveshaft back in your truck...



Prior to the carrier bearing being pushed out, do you hear any kind of hard thumping or knocking?

 

[DodgeWarlock]

We experienced the same problem on our unlifted 01 last summer. The carrier bearing walked out of the rubber isolator in the mount and the shaft road on the rubber. At least at the time The only source available for the correct bearing assembly for our truck was the dealer. The shaft splines have a plastic coating on them to prevent wear and corrosion and the shaft has a master spline. It can be forced on wrong, but it damages the plastic coating and binds up. I spent quite a bit of time cleaning up the splines on ours and finally got ours working smoothly. It can be a real headache. I think in our case the axle wrapped and pulled the bearing down the shaft, so that when it unwrapped it pushed out of the isolator. Dodge dealer said that this was a really common problem and they kept several of the bearings on the shelf for that very reason. Hope this helps.