Builds cuttin up the lx (1 Viewer)

[Dave 2000]

anyone ever break anything inside one of these transfer cases? i was attempting to climb a 10ish ft high rock at the entrance of a trail yesterday and heard a decent pop when i landed one time. no weird noises on the next 3 attempts and i gave up and took the bypass. wheeled for a couple more hours and then hit the gravel road back to camp. when i got on the road i unlocked the center diff like usual, nothing out of the ordinary until i went around a turn, heard some binding and metal clanging noises and the truck kind of bucked a few times. i can recreate the noise/binding condition by switching from reverse to drive or hitting the throttle, letting off and hitting again but only randomly, doesnt do it every time.

i jacked it up in the garage (all 4 wheels) and the center diff wont fully disengage. the actuator runs but the front and back are still connected most of the time. i can roll the back wheels back and forth and make it disengage from the front for a second but after rolling them a certain amount it catches in the transfer case and starts turning the front again. you can actually feel something clunk and the front starts turning with the rear.

the viscous coupler is removed so normally i can spin the front and rear independently of each other.

any ideas? gonna tear it apart in the next few weeks hopefully and investigate.

Did exactly this trying to climb out of a dry river bed, something already told me something was wrong before it finally failed. If I drove VERY slowly and then coasted the 80 would stop shorter than expected and then roll back a few inches, I likened it to rolling into an invisible rubber wall and gently bouncing off. If I drove gently it would pull away, give the loud pedal a good shove and the gears just grated and the car came to a stop. Unsure you would get this 'bouncing' symptom with an auto?

The transfer box differential had mashed itself up, the full details are in my thread, link in sig.

Regards

Dave

 

[wv_lx450]

i dont think i have any gears messed up or anything. that was one of the first obstacles of the day and i wheeled pretty hard all day after that. it only acted up on the pavement when turning or letting off and hitting the throttle again. i can still go full throttle in my driveway with no noises at all. its a weird break for sure. has to be something like the nukegoat said, in the differential of the tcase.

 

[Dave 2000]

Birfs ok?

Regards

Dave

 

[wv_lx450]

no birfs here. lol 60/14bolt axles

 

[Dave 2000]

i dont think i have any gears messed up or anything. that was one of the first obstacles of the day and i wheeled pretty hard all day after that. it only acted up on the pavement when turning or letting off and hitting the throttle again. i can still go full throttle in my driveway with no noises at all. its a weird break for sure. has to be something like the nukegoat said, in the differential of the tcase.

Sorry, when I said gears I meant the differential gears, birfs....oops!

Regards

Dave

 

[nukegoat]

Sorry, when I said gears I meant the differential gears, birfs....oops!

Regards

Dave

That would make sense too. Arguably a good reason to consider a part time kit - you basically get a spool. I would actually prefer a way to use the viscous coupler as a spool - it engages on a beefier part of the carrier and a 35 splined section of the rear output... that gives me an idea actually... hmm

 

[wv_lx450]

so the part time kit replaces the locker parts in the center diff? maybe thats what i need to do then

 

[nukegoat]

so the part time kit replaces the locker parts in the center diff? maybe thats what i need to do then

No it spools the rear output basically and disconnects the front output from the spider gears, leaving it free unless engaged by the dog clutch.

Humor me though - i have been chasing down a noise in my t case for a while and am wondering if theres an early indication of failure here. Did it vibrate or whir or howl or otherwise make noise prior to failing? Like at 40 mph or so?

 

[wv_lx450]

nope, no noises at all. doesnt make any noise right now, either, except for the clunking/binding/slack when re applying throttle or turning. and even that is random or doesnt happen everytime.

 

[wv_lx450]

cant believe my truck has been sitting since october of last year, lol. ive been driving 4hrs round trip to work 5 days a week and havent had time to even look at it since i broke it. planning to do some disassembly next week while the rest of the family is on vacation and ill have a couple hours every evening to tinker.

plus, this job is almost done and the new job site is 10min from my house so ill have some time (and energy) to make a few wheeling trips this year. need to get the ol' girl up and running again soon.

finally back in the garage instead of outside rusting away lol

 

[nukegoat]

you gotta lower it down and cut more of the body off

 

[wv_lx450]

i have actually considered doing exactly that. i need to move the rear back about 2 inches and the front back toward the firewall about an inch or so. i have cut about all i can toward the core support and toward the rear doors and it still rubs. i would take the rear poly spacers and the metaltech front spacers out and that would get me an ~1.5in lower.

 

[wv_lx450]

i think i also would need to do something with the rockers if i lower it. definitely need get rid the cat skid on the sliders. my roll cage is tied into the slider mounts so it would be a major project to move them or cut the rockers out unfortunately

 

[wv_lx450]

finally got around to pulling the tcase tonight. havent opened it up yet but this is what came out when i drained it.

also appears to be self-clearancing the case with the skid plate lol

 

[wv_lx450]

didnt take much investigation to figure out what broke.....

 

[wv_lx450]

doesnt look like it did much damage to other parts luckily

also found this after taking the case out. some other small cracks around that bracket. looks like its been pulling away from the frame but not sure how since its bolted to an iron pig 3/8" skid plate which is also bolted to both frame rails.

 

[GLTHFJ60]

Those frame cracks are concerning. That's a regular IPOR skid?

 

[wv_lx450]

Yep. Regular ipor skid. That bracket doesnt have much weld on it, im going to weld it farther down the frame rail and weld the cracks up. If it continues to crack, i guess ill just plate it or something.

 

[Cass007]

Glad you found your issue. Amazing to me that with that carnage you were still able to drive it.

 

[wv_lx450]

Im surprised too. I actually wheeled pretty hard after the 2 loud sounds we heard. It never made a noise all day until i turned on pavement