Need ideas on what happened (1 Viewer)

[elkun1]

Our friend Trask was going to go snow wheeling with his ford which you guys have seen on unreal adventures. Anyway he was just leaving his house with the hubs locked a week or so ago when his front end locked up and was steaming. The pinion was locked up and wouldn’t turn. He got it out here and on the lift, axles pulled and pulled the ring gear and locker. Oil had some shine but not terrible and no chunks, went to pull the yoke and it wouldn’t move, had a big boy puller on it and it got tweeked, air hammer nothing would pull the yoke even heating didn’t matter. Tonight he went to the last resort and torched the yoke off, there was still oil in the outer bearing so it wasn’t that. It appeared like it pinion was over tightened as the bearing looked almost compressed onto the shaft. The bearing and yoke had welded themselves onto the pinion shaft which was really cool to see since it wasn’t my front end. The gears were installed almost 3 years ago and have had many hard miles before this happened so no way could it have been a bad install to last this long. Never seen this kind of damage so thought I’d ask the guru’s for their thoughts. Pics to follow

 

[elkun1]

Here’s the pictures

 

[3_puppies]

was either the diff housing or the flange a different color? blueish from getting hot?

 

[pigmony]

Is/was the slip joint on the driveshaft moving freely? I'd think that a stuck slip joint could put a lot of pressure on the yoke and bearings really quickly.

 

[elkun1]

was either the diff housing or the flange a different color? blueish from getting hot?

so much heat was applied to the yoke to try to remove it that i'm sure everything is colored, as soon as the pinion was removed we covered the housing with welding blankets to hopefully have a slow cool down. haven't removed the races yet.

 

[elkun1]

Is/was the slip joint on the driveshaft moving freely? I'd think that a stuck slip joint could put a lot of pressure on the yoke and bearings really quickly.

that deserves a hmmm, will check it out, thanks seth

 

[3_puppies]

so much heat was applied to the yoke to try to remove it that i'm sure everything is colored, as soon as the pinion was removed we covered the housing with welding blankets to hopefully have a slow cool down. haven't removed the races yet.

I meant before cutting it apart, you said it was steaming when he stopped.

 

[elkun1]

I meant before cutting it apart, you said it was steaming when he stopped.

the outside of the housing didn't show anything that we can recall, so covered with dirt and grime it's really hard to say. at the time he had no idea how screwed up it was. besides the yoke being there the seal was still in so couldn't see anything . at the time just assumed the yoke was really stuck so eventually heated it up which didn't help. he got called out on a recovery tonight with a wrecker before he could knock out the races. i'll update when that gets done

 

[elkun1]

Is/was the slip joint on the driveshaft moving freely? I'd think that a stuck slip joint could put a lot of pressure on the yoke and bearings really quickly.

we're thinking that you nailed it as of right now. he got to thinking about it and quigley drive lines is one of the sponsors for the ua. they gave driveshafts to everyone and he measured and installed it before before installing the skyjacker suspension which was another sponsor. didn't even think or have time to check that part out, he went from basically a stock ford suspension on it to the skyjacker which has a lot of movement, thinking the slip joint probably bottomed out numerous times. won't really know until he takes that drive shaft apart and looks for carnage there also. tonight he mentioned how he thought it was strange but didn't think anything more about how loose the pinion nut was. didn't take any effort to take it off, just a little more than finger tight. also hoping it didn't hurt anything in the tcase, find out more this weekend. if you recall in those videos they showed where he was going up that shelf and went airborne and came down hard on the front end. he said that was one of many on the trip and usually when articulated. of all the places he's been with it this fall it couldn't have happened in a better spot. thanks again. the new gear set showed up today so barring finding more damage when we look at it much closer it should be put together this weekend, hopefully. i'll update when we find out more

 

[elkun1]

I meant before cutting it apart, you said it was steaming when he stopped.

hey Paul, how would you know if the heat damaged the housing? when it happened he was on a snowy rd so it went from very hot to cold rapidly. i believe that's a dana 60 front housing. should know more when the races come out and it gets cleaned up

 

[3_puppies]

hey Paul, how would you know if the heat damaged the housing? when it happened he was on a snowy rd so it went from very hot to cold rapidly. i believe that's a dana 60 front housing. should know more when the races come out and it gets cleaned up

highly doubt the housing is damaged
I've had parts locked up or damaged that were blue from heat, just depends on how hot things got
after adding heat it is too late to tell

 

[pigmony]

I'd do a real careful inspection on that tcase and the bellhousing bolt flanges on the trans. Probably should check the rubber mounts too. Fingers crossed that it only damaged the pinion and some bearings.

 

[REZARF]

I'm impressed with the carnage, and the fix. Thats no joke to have to torch it out.

 

[elkun1]

Finally had time to install the new ring gear and pinion last night. After assembly measured for the driveshaft and Seth nailed it. Both front and rear are going to be shortened. If you guys change your suspension make sure to check your driveshafts length. His issues started when he had to order his sponsored driveshafts before the suspension arrived and was installed. It showed up about 10 days before he had to be in Arizona for the start, long weekend and it was installed and figured we better change fluids and give everything a look over. That was when the carnage from the thru pin coming out of the arb was discovered . Try to find a gearset with less than a week till departure, unbelievably a local offroader had one sitting on his shelf, down to I believe it was 4 days when he started building that. Due to work he finished that with 2 days left, day before they were leaving his tires showed up lol. 42’s on beadlocks take a while to do but everyone showed up and had it done that night. They left the next morning, reason im bloviating so much was to kind of explain how checking the driveshaft’s was overlooked. Looking at the truck with the shafts installed last night you could see they were too long and will be corrected, whew.

 

[pigmony]

I'm glad to hear it's figured out, and probably not too tough to make right!