It finally showed itself!

[Mopar Man1]

I've been having a bad clanging coming from the rear of my truck for a little while now,I've crawled under it several times and inspected the u-joints and they looked fine,not much slop at all in the d-shaft so I thought the worst,rebuilding the rearend :{ I couldn't bring myself to pull the rear diff cover because I knew if I did it would be sititing there for a long time waiting on money to fix the rearend. So I take the truck to the tire shop here in town,get the front tires rebalanced and frontend aligned,I said do what it needs,you know who I am,treat me right. So I come back in a few hours and they balanced the front tires and it's in the alignment shop. I know Chris(feller who does the alignements) and he's a really good feller. He said they didn't rotate these tires,feel these front tires. They are beat out pretty bad from the frontend being out of alignment,but they didn't rotate them. I reckon I'll get the pleasure of doing this. He says and come look at this thing,why ain't you fixed this thing man! He grabs the rear d-shaft and it just flops like crazy. The u-joint right behind the hanger bearing was all but falling out!! I paid and left there and went to Hasty's and got a joint and come home and me and my pappy worked on it. This joint has been like this a long time but I never noticed because it never showed up until just recently(noticed it was getting worse noise from the rearend) I'll include some pictures of this bad boy. The cups were in pieces,no needle bearings what so ever!!! :--) Now there ain't no more vibration at low speeds and it don't clang or bang or chatter anymore! That just made my day

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Jimmy

 

[bgilbert]

Now thats ugly ! See what you can learn from crawling under your truck and LOOKING closely

 

[dpuckett]

Hmmm..........

What, exactly, was MY first suggestion? I believe it was to check the u-joints. What were you doing, inspecting it at night, without a flashlight? :-laf Just kiddin ya- glad it wasnt a $750 rear diff job. Oh, you can put the cupped, feathered, whatever, front tires on the rear, and since it is a dually, it will wear them down to where they are even again. Done it several times, as I am too cheap to buy new tires if there is more than 5/32" tread remaining. How are plans coming along for the "new" project?



Daniel

 

[MMiller]

Very simple question from the peanut gallery. How did you check your ujoints? Did you depress the parking brake and put the trans in neutral? If the truck is in gear(manual) or in park(auto) then the drivetrain has load on it and you might not find a bad joint. The drive train needs to be free of tension or load to find the loose parts.



Don't feel too bad I have taken ujoints apart that looked much like that on my vehicles. Happens more frequently with aggressive driving, ie 4 wheelin, drag racing, 3rd gear chirps, you get the idea.



Michael

 

[Scot]

Vehicle in neutral with the rear end up on jack stands. Rotate the wheel back and forth to take up slack and backlash. Watch the joints for movement.

 

[dpuckett]

i normally grab the yoke on either side of the joint and see if I can feel/see any slack as I twist back and forth. Sadly, I've had joints with no noticeable slack have roasted needles that were powder. The only real way I've found is to take it apart and look at things. Or grease the snot out of it, and if you get a bunch of slack w/in 100mi, you purged the powder that was your needles out of there. BTDT.



-DP

 

[daveshoe]

Mine went ,but slowly enough to not be noticeable. I got used to the slop factor when the truck took up the slack upon acceleration or braking. The noise it made in town when passing parked cars at low speed --a squeech squeech sound that varied with speed prompted a trip under the truck. Found the play, fixed the U-joint and life is good.

It is amazing what you can get used to when the problem develops slowly. The difference post repair is night and day.

 

[flightmedic]

A little variation on the theme here. I have developed a similar vibration, and after checking everything in the front and balancing the wheels, started rearward. Lo and behold, all the u-joints were fine but the carrier bearing rubber mount was shot. There is significant play in the bushing. I am fairly certain this will fix my vibration. Now the only thing is finding that rubber bushing and getting it replaced.