Well i finally broke the streak of not breaking anything in my mudder .

So anywho, we had a bog today that was supposed to be a drag race more than a bog so we were expecting to get our butts kicked by the guys with bigger power than us, but when we got there we found out that they had been grooming the track all morning, so it was nice and deep (like 30" average) and sticky. Once I found this out i entered myself into 2 classes as we normally do extremely well in this type of mud as compared to the drags.

Now its time to line up in the mod class (i also entered in the super stock class as well), and off i go, its slow going but i'm making good progress till 106 feet when i feel the driver side tire quit pulling and thus i lost all forward momentum (would've went another 15-20feet easily), and that feeling of oh ***t what broke came to me and i instantly thought i blew the hub. So i get pulled out and i manage to get it back to the truck and trailer and start taking the hub apart. Once we get it apart we couldn't find anything the matter with it as we thought the one part was sticking (we had this problem when i first got the axle under the truck), so we get it back together after doing what we can to make sure its free, then we give it a couple of dry runs to make sure its working, and nothing, still no power to the driver front tire.

By this time I'm up in the next class so i jump in and line up, i take off and instead of the 106foot run pior to this I make it and EXTR3ME 25feet . Now i've got that sinking feeling that its not the hub. So i pull it over to the guy with the pressure washer and wash the front axle off to get a better look at things, and low and behold Mr. Front Driver's side ujoint is no longer home and on its way out it decided to take the ears clean off the stub and short side axle. Well crap, i could've won both classes too and be 600 bucks richer as well.

The cuprit: One thing i noticed when i was washing the axle off was that there was a good bit of gravel in the pit for some reason of another, and after thinking about what happened when driving the truck when this happened (when it broke it didn't just snap, it was like it had full power, then it declined then nothing all in a very short span) i think a rock got up in there and it gouged the ujoint and ears and then KA-BOOM.


So know the challenege is to get both sides pulled apart tomorrow morning and see if any other damaged has occured, and then to replace the broken axle and ujoint, ivan said he'd send me a stub he has, and that leaves me to find a short side axle and that tube seal as well. Oh and i'll get a few pictures up of the damage and claim it as my first offical COTY entry.

 

good excuse to do 35 spline outers

i had that same problem with gravel a few weeks ago when i ran in a bog. i had to forfit because my brakes would not work at all due to the gravel being packed into everything(And i didnt trailer it), it wa sin the brakes, all aorund the axle shafgts and everything...like concrete. it took me an hour to get just that washed off

 

That sucks but when you said kaboom I was thinking the motor went. Clad it was a cheaper fix than that.

Chris

 

Too bad it didn't break after you won the 600 frogskins.

 

Stupid wimpy Dana 60.. should have went with a 5ton Rockwell like Ivan said too..

Anyways, sorry 'bout your luck.. now you need ChroMo 35 spline outers

 

uh oh I can sense Pro swimming around here and the theme to Jaws playin......

*Pro's voice* I told you grasshopper...go with the Superior shafts and CTMs from Schaffers Offroad and ........ *Pro's voice off now*

I am almost wishing I had the extra coin to get the same shafts and joints for my build.

Chris

 

Du-da.........................du-da................du-da.......du-da..du-da..du-da

Bwahaha, I have nothing to add, that is all

 

Well its a possibility for at least some yukon's and 35 outers, but probablity unlikey, i'd rather put the money into a motor that'd be able to break the jointsin a straight line

Yeah now after doing what i could tonight (didn't have the right size 4pronged socket) i gave everything a good check over and discovered that the plastic outer you turn on the hub is cracked and that let in a bunch of water into the hub, then after looking at the knuckle good i discover an inch long and about 1/8-1/4" deep gouge towards the front of the bottom inner c.


Now this brings me to wonder if this will affect the strenght of the inner c at all?, my biggest worry is that it will crack in this gouge (my camera is having issues at the moment), is this something i should worry about (don't even think about mentioning deadenbar c's )?

But yeah it was definately a rock that did it in. I'm hopin to get pictures up tomorrow, as well as get both sides tore down and make sure the lock right is good to good and to change the fluid.


Oh yeah i actually found a piece of one of the yokes tonight in the packed mud in the knuckle .

 

did the front end sorta look like this??

it took me frekain forever to clean all this crap out, it was the nastiest mud ive ever seen

 

I was worse, its was a solid mass of mud from the engine crossmember (granted you have more clearence then me) down to about 6" below the axle tube, plus you couldn't even tell that the ujoint on the remaining good side was turning, but yeah when i head back to the farm i will try to get the vid of the run that i broke posted up and you can see how thick and gouy the stuff was.

 

Dang i miss my truck....

 

Well i finally took the broken axle in to one of my instructors to see if he could tell me anything else about (he's got a degree in metallurgy) it, and the short side axle was actually fatiqued badly and had several crack forming in it, and the rock was that extra push it need to fracture along one of the cracks. So i guess thats a good thing, well sorta , but anyway i'll be getting some vids up later on tonight, and maybe have a picture up of the stub shaft tomorrow.