Crap

[RCCUMMINS89]

My rear axle was COMPLETELY rebuilt 52,000 miles ago.

Today I'm letting out the clutch and turning and hear this BAM!!! ....keep driving everything feels fine.

Tonight I pull the plug and check the oil... oil still green, seems to have a lot of bubbles..... feel it and sure enough it is metallic. Upon closer inspection inside of the little hole (didn't feel like pulling it off yet) and I see what looks like scrape marks on the hard parts that I can see.

WTF! What should I do? Is this a rebuilder error? Or is it the power that the truck is putting through it? I don't beat on the axle. No boosted launches, no towing, no spinning tires.... it merely gets laid into in a single gear and in a straight line.

[opiebennett]

Did you rebuild the limited slip when you did the rear axle?

Some metal in the fluid is expected, I'd pull the cover and rotate the ring gear to look at it. 50k is a good point to do gear oil anyhow.

[ellis93]

Some material is expected(like stated) but......not much and very very fine.

I say pop the cover and inspect before it goes nuclear in there,any banging isn't going away.....it's just waiting to show up at the least convenient time.

[RumbleFish]

X2 on the power lock, if thats what you have. I just so happen to have a spicer rebuild kit for that.
My 91 had an open diff and the roll pin that holds the shaft in the carrier broke, allowing it to drift out and hit the housing. After a few bangs like you describe, it finally did it for good and junked everything except the housing and axle shafts. This also happened to be the first time i got my girlfriend (now wife) drunk and she had to pee in a ditch cuz my d250 left me stranded on a dark country road.

[RCCUMMINS89]

This is an open differential.

[ellis93]

This is an open differential.

There should be little to no metal then.....your eating a bearing or worse

[RumbleFish]

Then id be popping the cover and start at the cross shaft. This sounds very similar as to how my d250 started banging once in a while. The good news, is that it will eventually quit...along with forward movement.

[RCCUMMINS89]

Putting it up on the rack later today.

[Philip]

Well how bad is the damage?

[RCCUMMINS89]

Don't know yet..... I dropped it off at an axle guy's place, awaiting his call. When I drove it over there today, all was totally normal feeling.

However..... I'm feeling my case do some funky things too now. I'm almost wondering if the banging I was getting wasn't actually just in the case, and I'm having multiple issues right now. Keep in mind my rear axle is so close to me, that it can be hard to tell where noises are coming from.

[RCCUMMINS89]

Ok.....

Basically what happened was it torqued the carrier assembly so hard that it spit out the shims. The shims then proceeded to find their way inside of the roller bearings.

I (not knowing axles very well) asked my axle builder "was it set up error?". Which he replied, "no".

I then called a few other axle shops around and asked them their opinion. All axle guys said the following "no, it is not a set up error, if it was, it wouldn't have lasted near that long. It is a power issue."

What are y'all's thoughts?

[ellis93]

In setting up these axles,isn't there some kind of spreader you need to use to "preload" new bearings?
I think I've seen that some where

Idk how or why it would do that but the only thing that's detrimental to gear wear is pinion depth,back lash is important but not as. If the back lash was set up right but the shims were pushed in by hand them it could be possible for them to move.....I guess.

I swear is seen something on YouTube about building one of these axles and it showed the builder using one.

All this could be totally wrong tho

[matthewh]

I thought the spreader was only needed to aid in the removal and installation on the carrier assemblies, however it was still set up without it. Never rebuilt one, just used to mess with CJ5 Dana's

[RCCUMMINS89]

Yes, you use a case spread and set the "stuff" up with shims.... I originally was thinking that that was the cause (improper shimming). Apparently it's not, according to a few axle builders. They all said I would of known a long time ago.

Also.... the other bearings and what not don't show wear. This tells me that it wasn't progressively getting worse over time... it literally just broke.

[DodgeFreak]

Yes, you use a case spread and set the "stuff" up with shims.... I originally was thinking that that was the cause (improper shimming). Apparently it's not, according to a few axle builders. They all said I would of known a long time ago.

Also.... the other bearings and what not don't show wear. This tells me that it wasn't progressively getting worse over time... it literally just broke.

The spreader is just to install the carrier, I thought the shims went behind the bearings which is why they have those bearings that slide on by hand so you don't have to press the bearings on and off....I want to know how it spit the shims.