Hello all I have an interesting problem that has recently became a major issue in my trucks rear diff. It actually has always been there since I have owned the truck but I had always assumed it was the drive shft bearing. It started as a little jingling noise (similair to christmas bells) in the rear and it would come and go. finally this past weekend my friend and I went and did a little offroading thats when all hell broke loose. We had just got done going through a decent size puddle where the water was up to the bottom of my gas tank. Thats when it started it sounded like the worst bearing noise I have ever heard in my life. We drove it home put it up on jacks thats when my buddy noticed this little dome shaped piece of metal that was just sort of dangling on the input shaft to the rear. What was really strange is it urned out to be the sorce of all the noise. I temp fixed it by puting some tape around it and the axle houseing to prevent it from spining on the drive shaft. Turns out this small piece of metal has been making the noise this whole time. You can see the piece of metal in my picture in my photo album with an arrow pointing to it. I tried to post it on here it wouldn't let me. My question is what is this metal for and can I temp fix this until I can pay for the proper repairs? Thanks for reading my book LOL

 

By the way it's an 82 f150 xlt larait!

 

 

That is basically a gaurd for the seal. It can be run without it, but another option would be to tack weld it back in place. You could do it on the truck, and the repair is not hard at all. Another option would be to take off the yoke, take the slinger (one name for it) off and gently tap around the inner edges (the ones that ride on the yoke). That will make the slinger a tight fit onto the yoke, and then pound it back onto the yoke. With this method, you will need to buy a new crush sleeve and pinion nut, and re do the bearing pre load.

Tack welding just enough to keep it in place would most likely be easiest.

 

Thanks for the response I just got a mig welder perfect opertunity to try it out!