Hi Guys
I have been lurking here for a while. It seems that a lot of you guys have a lot of knowledge in regards to your trucks. from what i can see you guys don't seem to have a lot of problems with your rear ends.

My F-250 club cab 4 x4 is in the shop for the second time for what I am being told is clutch problems. The advisor told me that both of the clutches in the rear end housing are worn out. I had this happen at 60K miles and the warrenty company paid to have this repaired I now have 90K and the same thing happened again. The warrenty company is fixing it again.

Has any of you guys ever heard of this happening. My warrenty has two years or 30K left on it. The advisor asurded me they where using new parts. Is this just dumb luck or should they be looking for another cause for this problem

 

Have you been running different size tires on the same axle? ie, like if you had a flat and put a smaller spare on it. this would cause a differential speed difference in the third member and were out the clutches.

 

Pretty much the stock limited slip is junk IMO. I have never had any luck with the ones in these trucks, and all they do is wear out. However, im curious to see as to what clued you in there was a problem? Funny noise? Vibrations? etc? What made you send it in to the shop to get looked at?

 

I am on my second set of original equipment tires. Never had any other type on the truck. I notice when I put the truck in reverse there was a slight lag and a little shimmy comming from the back of the truck. Also I could feel a vibration that came from the rear when I hit 65 m.p.h. Ruled out tire balance.

 

I see you said club cab, is it a long bed or short bed? IF its long bed you have a carrier, and whole bunch more u joints, which is what i would be gearing towards, When the clutches on the limited slip wear out, you essentiall still have an open differential, there should be no slipping in the differential, you will either get one tire to spin, or both. If it was me I would be looking at u joints first.

 

I just got a call from the guy at the repair shop. He told me that the reason the clutches wore out is because the bearings are worn and they are sheading and spuing shards wareing out the clutches. The only rear ends I am familier with are the two legged type not the 4 wheel ones. It could be a load of bs I dont know as long as they fix it right. The warrenty company is picking up the tab.

Oh he said the U joints are fine

 

Well for some reason pinion bearing failure isnt uncommon with these rears, and im not sure why, as they are HUGE bearings (if youve ever seen a set for these) The only way i could really see the chatter (i was thinking about this while i was driving today) would be if you were backing around a corner, if your backing up straight, there is another issue. When you back up straight, especially light on the pedal, your not even really working the clutches, they are only being used while one tire is turning slower/faster then the other. If your pinion bearing was wore out, that could effectively seem to be like a failing u joint at the rear diff, and can cause a vibe at 65, mine happend to be around 76ish when mine was an issue, and my shaft also needed balancing. I guess i dont follow you when you say your familiar with two legged type vs four wheel ones? If i do follow you, you mean 2wd vs 4wd, and in these trucks the rear of a 2wd should be the same as a 4wd.

 

Rebelchevy, If I understand you correctly I maybe causing this problem myself, I do back up approx 50 yards with two turns to get to my turn around in my driveway sometimes 3 times a day. I'll have to ask the repair shop on this.

The two legged rear ends I mentioned really dose not have anything to do with trucks, Kind of a joke.

 

Those bearing are big ones. Also ernest talked about how his bearing have went bad twice on his truck. I can see how the bearing materials kills the clutchs but damn thats a messed up bearing.

BTW on my truck i do not use any limited slip additive, my rear end is not a one wheel peel and does not make any noise? I must be lucky or something. I used motorcraft fluid so there was no additive in the fluid. We will see how long my clutchs last.

 

Are you a type of doctor?

 

OK guys the two legged rearend thing relates directly to the gif in my Signature, you know nice puchie puchie.

 

DUH

You'll have to excuse these guys. I think they might sleep in the bed of their truck! That is all they can think about

 

Yea I kinda figured but ya never know!

 

HAHA i feel pretty smrt now let me tell you! And no, your not causeing any damage running in reverse backing around turns, its no different then gonig forward around a turn, with or without a load, I am trying to get as many symptons as possible, since you said it appears to slip in reverse, I was trying to see if it was when straight backing or what the scenario was. I didnt see were you said if the truck was a long or short bed? Might be a good idea to check the carrier on the driveshaft if its a long bed, as they do wear out and cause weird issues.


It sounds to me like they replaced your clutches on the rear a couple of times, ( which i was pretty certain you could not do on these limited slip diffs, but ive been wrong before ) when in reality it was wear from the bearings causing the failure of the clutches. But im still not certain that, that is what is causing your reverse slip, that sounds more like a tranny issue to me, assuming its an auto?

 

Guy's

Before I took the truck in for the repair I thought maybe the tires were out of balance. At The same time I had an aliment done. I only had one tire that needed rebalancing and according to the aliment guy it was only a small tweeking that needed to be done. The premise to the question is do any of you think that maybe the rear axel itself is out of sort, in other words it might be just a little out of true to cause uneven wear. 30K is not a lot of miles between repairs. Before this I have never had any rear end problems with any other car or truck that I have had

Oh I did not mean to offend anyone over the little joke.

Thanks Again

Dave K