Rear drive shaft "carrier bearing" squeak, need help!

[KaiHartman]

All:



Recently, I have had an audible squeaking noise coming from around the rear driveshaft area of my 05 3500 SRW. This occurs primarily when it is under load. I crawled under the truck and the squeaking seems to be coming from the "carrier bearing" (this may be the wrong term as I am just grabbing it out of the air) on the 2-piece rear driveshaft (it is a long bed truck).



However, when I looked at it real closely, I can't seem to see an actual bearing (all I see is black rubber surrounding the driveshaft and mounted in the drop down bracket, and it has quite a bit of movement in it, although I bet some is normal). The truck has 37k miles on it and has NOT been dunked in water or has anything else done to it that would create such a squeak.



I sprayed white lithium grease around the area, but it didn't seem to accomplish anything. I searched this forum (as well as the HD driveline forums) and can't seem to find a remedy for it. I couldn't see a grease zerk when I was down there either. I may just drop it out and try to "pack" it full of grease this weekend. If anyone has any insight or ideas, please help!



Thanks in advance!!

 

[tkerrigan]

Make it squeak a lot and then quickly go underneath and feel for hot bearings, u-joints. The one that is significantly hotter than the others will be bad.

 

[JApol]

Chances are your carrier bearing is shot. I don;t have one but I have heard of enough of them going bad. As long as you have the shaft out you might as well do the shaft u-joints, they are not to far behind. My u-joints lasted about 40K

 

[HGreen]

I had this happen on my old '89 Ford F350 4x4 crew cab. I dropped the center bearing carrier removed the rubber and use a needle fitting on my grease gun to pentrate the seal and greased the little bugger real good and then sealed the hole with RTV. Did this about every fall, bearing was still spinning along when I got rid of the truck at 175,000.

 

[HPetrat]

Mine is doing the same, and I ordered a new one from "Quad 4X4" for $75. 00.



Will be installing the new one in about 3 weeks when I get home.



HP

 

[KaiHartman]

I felt for hot parts the other day after a 2 hour trip. Only the U-joint at the diff felt real warm, but I can't get much play out of the U-joints (I know things change a lot when you get them down off the truck, but I just had the entire driveshaft out 10k miles ago when I put in the clutch and all felt real tight then). I'm going to hope/pray/wish that the U-joints aren't going out this soon on a truck that I don't beat on or tow heavy with (in comparison with what some of my buddies do!).



HGreen: Thanks for the hint! I think I'll try to take the cheap way out (I know, I know... it's so bad sometimes) and see if I can't get some extra life out by doing what you recommended.



Has anyone else had their carrier bearing out? I assume it's a sealed unit with the rubber being bonded/impregnated somehow onto the bearing? Any other input? Thanks for the ideas/input everyone!

 

[KaiHartman]

HPetrat: Have you found a procedure on TDR for doing this? Don't get me wrong, I know it's real straightforward, but I appreciate (and I joined for!) the insight and extra knowledge that you get when someone else has done a job before you.



If you find anything or come across anything and can offer pointers when you do yours, can you let me know? My searches aren't turning up anything. Thanks!!