Uh oh...this don't look good

[dan brooks]

Just checked the rear diff fluid, and when I pulled the fill plug I could see something shiny just inside the hole. Dug out my hemostats and pulled this out:



Looks like one of the shims self-destructed. Wonder how much a shop is gonna charge to replace the bearings and reset everything... .

 

[Evan A. Beck]

Rear end repair is usually $500-1500. No way of knowing how bad it is until you get everything apart.

 

[Philip]

That doesn't look good. I wonder what kind of damage has been done.



To bad you aren't closer. I could teach you how to reset it.

 

[dan brooks]

The shim is very thin - about . 002" - so I'm hoping it isn't enough to cause major damage to the ring & pinion. It doesn't seem to be making any noise, or if it is it's not loud enough to be heard over the engine.....



I'll pull the cover sometime this week and take a closer look. Hopefully I'll have a better idea of what the damage is once I get inside.

 

[dusthomps]

Actually... I had the exact same thing happen about six months ago when changing the fluid in my rear diff. Magnet had one good sized strip of metal. I didn't think much of it at the time and put cover back on and filled it up. I haven't experienced any problems... yet... hopefully I won't. #ad

 

[Dman]

Shim chewed up

I have a similar story Dan. Only I found the shim 60K miles ago -

before I started bombing. Have changed oil and looked at dif

yearly since - no change though. Good luck





Dave Williams

 

[dan brooks]

Thanks, I feel a little better now. It doesn't look like the cover has ever been off - the truck only has 51k miles on it - so maybe I'll luck out. At least I'm not the only one who has seen this.

 

[tgbol]

Just a thought. To me it looks like the cage off off one of the bearings. Especially the smaller piece that has a small flag on it, looks like the part between the rollers.

 

[dan brooks]

Definitely not the bearing cage - way too thin for that. All the pieces are paper-thin and measure about . 002", but it's hard to see that from the pic. I'm 99% sure its the remains of a shim.

 

[DPKetchum]

Over the years I've had techs bring me pieces like that out of differantials we serviced,never knew of any that came apart!Years ago had a toyota of my own and found slight piece of bearing cage and drove it another 100,000 miles and sold auto with no ill affects. But then again you never know!

 

[dan brooks]

This looks even worse......

Just got the cover off, and it's worse than I thought. It looks like multiple shims came apart and ended up on the magnet. I can't see anything obviously wrong otherwise, but I guess it's time to take it to a shop. Probably should pick up some KY on the way..... :--)



More pics

 

[Philip]

I thought you would find more in there. I think someone has had the rear apart before. The shims were installed between the carrier bearing races and the axle housing I bet to shim the carrier over for backlash. (The factory installs shims between the carrier support bearing and the carrier case). The problem with installing shims here is. If you do not get everything extremely tight on side play. It will eat the shims up and spit them out like you have seen.



When I say tight. You sould have to drive the carrier assy into its setting point in the case with a good dead blow hammer. Not roll it in with your hands.



Looks like a backlash reset. I hope you do not get gear noise when it is reset. No telling how long it has been running with excess back lash.



Keep us informed on what they find.



For a complete reset at a shop expect around $300 to $500 just for labor. The shim kit itself the last time I bought one was around $40. The bearings for every thing ran another $150 or so. This might ad up.

 

[dan brooks]

Just got back from a friend's house - he's a maintenance foreman for a large contruction company and does a lot of work on heavy vehicles. As soon as I showed him the pieces he knew exactly what happened. Apparently, in Dana axles it isn't uncommon for the bearings to spin on the carrier and destroy the shims.



I'll be pulling the carrier on Saturday to see if it can be saved - apparently they have had good luck using green Loctite if the damage is minor, then resetting the backlash. He said the R&P looked fine and shouldn't make much noise, if any.

 

[Philip]

I haven't seen the bearings spin and spit out the shims like that. But anything can happen. Hope you can save the carrier.

 

[DPKetchum]

Sorry to hear this!

 

[dan brooks]

Update

Well, I decided not to wait until Saturday and pulled the carrier yesterday afternoon, and took it to my friend's house this morning to check it out. The driver's side bearing did spin on the carrier, but not bad enough to ruin the carrier. I was expecting the bearing to come off by hand, but a puller was still necessary - just wasn't as tight as it should be. He's confident the green Loctite will take care of that. The right side bearing race had also spun in the housing, but very little - you have to really look to see any marks. He said that will be easy to take care of, too.



It looks like we lost two, maybe three shims total, but he has plenty laying around to replace them. Hopefully we can get it close the first time and not have to install/remove the carrier too many times - that sucker is heavy. Had to pick up new carrier bearings/races ($61 for both sides) because you could see where the shim material had gone through.



The ring and pinion is fine - luckily the truck has low mileage and probably hasn't been heavily loaded much since the shims went AWOL, otherwise the R&P would most likely be damaged. After really looking things over, I have a feeling that there has been some work done to the rear before - I've never seen these stamp marks ("H" on each) on the bearing caps and housing from the factory. The bearings were also "made in Japan," so they've probably been changed at some point. Hopefully this will be the last time, at least for 100k miles or more.....



Thanks for all the info, and I'll update again once it's back together. For those that have found shims in your rear (the trucks, that is... ), you might want to have the backlash checked.

 

[dan brooks]

Originally posted by Philip

... the shims were installed between the carrier bearing races and the axle housing I bet to shim the carrier over for backlash. (The factory installs shims between the carrier support bearing and the carrier case).

Philip - The D35 in my Jeep came from the factory with the shims between the housing and carrier... a lousy design if you ask me. Of course, the D35 is a lousy axle anyway.



When we pulled the driver's side bearing off the carrier, there was another damaged shim - or part of one - between the bearing and carrier. When the bearing spun it destroyed the shims. We're going to try and use a thicker shim instead of several thin ones, so if it does spin again it may hold up better. It doesn't take much to destroy those paper thin ones.

 

[Philip]

Dan your right on that axle. best reason to have a 44 narrowed.



These ring and pinions will take a lot of abuse. Its the bearings that give up easy with a little debris threw tem.



glad to hear you go off easy. Yes the carrier is heavy.

 

[Joseph Donnelly]

Dana stamps a letter vertically on one side and horizontally on the other so the caps won't get interchanged in the field. Could be any letter. I have seen Japanese bearings like Koyo from Dana.

Be sure to clean out the axle tubes carefully. Rust in the tubes that washes down to the bearings (from lubricant flow) is a major cause of failed carrier bearings.

 

[dan brooks]

Thanks, Joseph. Maybe the markings and bearings are original after all. I had never seen them marked from the factory - I've always had to stamp my own.....



I'll take another look in the tubes, but at first glance everything looked clean. It doesn't even look like the shims made it into the tubes.