Hello there, This is My First Post Here And Probably The 1000'th Thread Ive Come Across On this site. Ive had Alot of Good Luck Using This Forum For TroubleShooting Etc. Anyways, i Finally Signed Up Today Because Ive Been Putting In Time On My Truck When The Weather is Nice Enough And Ive Got A Few Problems Im Unsure Of How Deep The Root Goes.

This Topic Here Is About The Locking Hubs, And i Have To Tell You The Backstory On How This Happened, It Might Make a Diffrence In The Damage... Ok, So, Several Months Back i Believe My CPS Went Out For a Second And the truck "Shut Off" Like The 7.3's Do When The CPS Starts To Go, Only this time it was extremely cold (Around -6f to -10f) Truck Wasnt Warmed Up Yet, The Engine Hiccuped And I Think Cought Itself On The Wrong Stroke Causing All Kinda Of Smoke, Oil, Liquid, Etc To Spew From Under The Hood, Engine Was Unable To Turn Untill i Cranked The Motor By Hand (breaker Bar) About 8 Full 360degree Turns, Then She Started Up..

When I Was Doing That Work I Decided To Drop My Truck Off At a Shop And Have The GlowPlugs, GPR, Injector Packs, Fluids, Batteries And Bushings. After About a Week, (I Was Out of State With My Son in the Hospital in NY, Truck was in CO) The Shop Called me and said my Driver Side Hub Assymbly was Going Bad, And they Think i should Replace it.. Ok well, im already about 2200$ into the truck on labor, storing, and parts, so why not.. About 2 weeks after that i came , picked up the truck, and about 5 days later drove from Colorado To New York Where I Live Now..

Note: I Have The "Star" RockStar Wheels, With the CenterCaps on them, And in Order to Lock or unlock the hubs i have to remove the center cap to see the hublock and lock or unlock.. the caps were on, the hubs were checked and the damaged one was replaced, or so i thought. . .

The Drive To NY From CO is About 1800 Miles, The Wife And i Did it in the F350 In About 28 Hrs And A Ton Of Diesel Later we Were almost Home, About 1 and a Half Hours Away.. Shes Driving, Im Taking a Nap For the first time On the rear bench seat... And .... Bang!!!!!! Pop!!!!! Pop!!!!!!!! Pop!!!!!!!!! Bang!!!!! Bang!!!!! ETC, ETC, At 75 MPH On a toll Road This Was Scary For Her and Stressful For me lol. i was in Diagnostic Mode Immidiatly while driving after waking up to the bang from a dead sleep..

We slowed down, No DTC, Eingine Coolant Temp Was Good, Trans Temp Good, Oil Pressure Good, Motor was still responsive to my throttle, And i noticed the Banging was hitting at the speed of travel not the speed of the engine (RPM's) Obviously pointing to Drivetrain.. We blew through the Toll so we didnt have to stop, Pulled into a restraunt parkinglot at 0130AM and less then 2 hrs away from Home....

Symptoms:

Truck Makes The Bang or POP when Moving Foward Or Backwards
In 4WD and In 2WD Via The 4WD Shifter in the Cab
No Leaks, No Nothing, Just this terribly loud Sound of Vehicle Pain ...

I Dont know why but i thought to check the Hub Locks.. Of Corse... The Damn Shop I Had Replace Them, Left Them Locked, And i Just Drove A Week And 1800 Miles On it In Dry Weather at 75-85 MPH For over a Day Straight..

Unlocked The Hubs, Moved the Truck Back And foward, Everything ias then Fine as far as drivability. This was 2 weeks ago about, i havent tried the 4WD or locked the hubs sence that incident...

My Question: ... What DiD I Break , And How Bad Is The Hurt I Put On Her Doing that?

Cost Ideas? Part Ideas? Anything..

Thanks For reading my overly Long Forum Post / Story haha, i just felt you had to know the whole story instead of.. "One day it went bang.. Why?" Anyways, Thanks In Advance, Apritiate it ! -Fusion

 

To start I would lock one hub in at a time and jack the truck up and spin the wheel by hand, you should be able to tell which wheel is the culprit and where the noise is coming from..

 

Just running the hubs locked, in 2wd will NOT hurt your truck, other than burning a little extra fuel, I lock mine in November when hunting and seldom unlock them until the snow is gone. If the axle is damaged the only thing I can see was that the front diff. was low or out of fluid, even 1 locked and 1 unlocked shouldn't be a problem although there would be some extra wear on the spider gears. I would check the front knuckle u-joints and the fluid level first. Also check the u-joints in the front drive shaft.

 

Like he said ujoints...As long as both hubs were locked in you prob just blew a joint.

 

If the U-joints are both OK (spin each wheel with the hub locked and the wheel turned to one side) then it could be the differential. You could have a broken spider gear.

Brian

 

I've also driven many months with the front hubs locked and in 2wd. I have also driven in 2wd with one locked and one free, thanks to a child's blonde moment.

First thing I would look at is the U-joints, front axle and front driveshaft.

 

Don't wanna come across as sounding rude, but it nearly gave me a headache trying to read your post and every word having a capital letter. I kept wondering where the sentences ended and began, looking for punctuation, but anyway.....thanks for the post, it will surely help others with the same or similar problem...