2002 DRW 4x2, bought about a year ago with 145k miles, now 172k.

Can't remember for sure but I believe it has always had a pretty decent vibration at about 5 mph, especially under acceleration. Has always had a noticeable but not terribly loud whine under acceleration from the rear end that would go away when coasting.

About November last year at about 155k miles, the pinion seal started leaking to the tune of a few ounces per 1000 miles. Just took it to the shop today to get the seal replaced since it is really slinging a lot of oil. They also put in new u-joints and indicated the center bearing looked and felt fine.

Shop indicated that they were going to count turns when removing the yoke nut, replace the seal and run the nut back on the same. They warned me that it is not the best method and that we might have a leak again, in which case they're going to need to rebuild the axle.

Now I have a pretty bad vibration in the driveline that is worst about 27 mph and gets progressively better until it isn't noticeable by about 45. Rear whine is still there but gets noticeably louder under deceleration and, as you get down close to stopping sounds a bit like a continuous scraping noise.

Opinions? Calling the shop tomorrow for their opinion. Shop manager test drove it and mentioned some additional whining noise but not vibration. I crawled under at home and everything is tight. I can see marks on the shaft and yokes, etc. that shows they lined everything up correctly on re-assembly.

 

Carrier bearing?

 

You have the Dana-80 rear on your dually. The shop is doing this wrong. The pinion nut needs to be torqued to 470 ft/lbs. Make sure they do this right. You can count the turns of the nut on the Sterling 10.5 but not the Dana-80.

 

Its been my experience, once a ring and pinion starts making noise. Replacing it is the only repair. What causes the noise is the wear on the teeth of the gears.

 

I would take the truck to an actual driveline shop. Like others said the d80 is completely different from the 10.5. I had an old gmc dually (d80) and I had a regular shop replace the pinion seal and they did not properly torque the nut down causing the pinion nut to actually come off while the pinion gear fell into the housing doing 55mph after a very loud boom actually blowing the housing apart I had if towed to a driveline shop in town and I was told that was the cause of the problem, the pinion nut was not properly torqued, destroying my ring and pinion and well the whole rear end.

 

At the shop now. They did torque it back to spec. Apparently the bearings were already on the way out, just noisier now that it has been apart and back together.

For the vibration, they want me to bring it back and they'll send the driveshaft out to get it balanced. Turns out they use the one and only driveline shop in the area that I ran across doing a google search on driveline shops. I might just take it there myself and get them to go through it all next paycheck.

 

I just went through the same thing. I had an intermittent whine and it turned out my carrier bearings were ready to explode! All new bearings, seals and fluid was about 1,300.00.

 

Bump and an update. The original shop didn't really tighten the pinion nut, just inspected everything. Still noisy.

Called the local driveline shop that I ran across on the internet but they only do large (semi) truck drivelines (though they balance any driveshaft). They recommended a shop nearby that is owned by a former Ford mechanic who is really good with driveline issues. Took it in yesterday.

Today they indicated they'll have to replace the ring and pinion along with bearings, etc. Essentially a full rebuild. Should be about $1200 out the door.

Also, they're specialists in Ford diesel engines (I always noticed a disproportionate number of super duties and E-250/350 chassis, buses, etc. out front). I asked them to also do a coolant flush and fill while there and they explained that they use ELC coolant, so correct answer again. Looks like I found the place to get things done on the truck. Bonus points - it's the closest auto repair shop to my house.