Backstory: when I bought my truck from the dealer it had a new driveline in it, (odd configuration but new). Last August it had a ujoint go out before I went on vacation, I had one of my mechs change it here at work change it for me to save time before I left. He put in the the correct ujoint.

Last Wed AM I am coming home and notice an odd bump and pop sound when I come to a stop. When I get home I decide to get under the truck to try to find anything loose underneath So I grab the rear drive line to help pull myself underneath and the driveline moves sideways. Turns out the wrong yoke is on the axle. According to a friend who is the DANA Spicer dealer here in town there is no known road application using that journal length and cap diameter. Best guess is the yoke came off some sort of tractor and never had the right ujoint combination in it ever, since the driveline was built. So I go and get another yoke to replace it with. As Im replacing the yoke it appears there is some play in the pinion but I let i go figuring its been that way for who knows how long. I pu t it in gear and it pops HARD but then moves then starts to howl and grind. I back it up to my shop, it runs better in reverse (not good, but better). I opened the rear the housing and found 1/4" deep scars in the carrier where the pinion slipped after the bearings died. After pricing out parts. I managed to find and spend my weekend replacing the entire rear housing with a complete rear axle housing 4.10 with a LS diff for $300 but had to swap out all the brakes, drums, and lines to make it all work. Definately not on my itinerary of things to do recently but I figure at least I got a LS diff for fairly cheap. Needless to say Ive been busy as I had to do the whole job by myself by sunday night when I had to be back at work. all because someone put the wrong yoke on and it killed the bearings over time, and I didnt check it.

 

Good job. It appears that you met the problem head on and all is well. That's not a bad price for a complete rear assembly with limited slip to boot. Is the L/S Ford or of a different brand? (Just curious)

Rog

 

getting L/S is the silver lining

I ended up rebuilding the entire rear end and putting in a L/S because of a bad pinion seal. You know how it goes, if you are going to do step A you might as well do step B and if you are going that far you know you don't need much of an excuse to add on step C. One thing leads to another and a $5 seal turns into a $800 project.

 

You should have been here to witness all the screwed up stuff I fixed on mine this year. Every bit of it was messed up by the dealer and a brake shop.

bell housing bolts left loose
throwout bearing trashed and pilot bearing missing after Ford dealer had it off and said everything was fine. They did replace the DMF on it but I guess it didn't come with a new pilot bearing.
rear brake shoes on wrong side and backwards!
front brake slide pins in backwards
front brake bleeders missing, broke off,
removed defective chip in pcm
replaced wiring harness on engine due to too many crimp on butt connectors on injector wires
replaced radio harness due to the same problem.
replaced entire body harness going to the rear end and lights in trailer connectors for same problem.
replaced all 4 door strikers
rebuilt all 4 door window motors
aligned all 4 doors. Ford said they were unfixable!
replaced all 8 injectors because they had iffy solenoids on them. Someone had beat on them with a hammer.
replaced 2 of the uvch's. Ford couldn't find the reason the glow plus weren't working on that side. It took me 5 minutes to figure out.
rebuilt turbo after being dusted by plastic hold down screws that Ford should have replaced and K&N filter. It was always serviced at Ford and this should have never happened.
Oh, this is the best one. gear oil in the trans and ATF in the front dif. I didn't even ask who did that. I fixed it though and no apparent harm done to the differential but I have to rebuild my trans in the spring. It's not too happy right now.

I'm getting there.

I almost forgot, whoever did the last brake job left out half the parts on the auto hubs. One was constantly locked and the other not locking at all. I know it was aligned twice for a bad pull and pull was never fixed. Till I replaced the hubs!

 

Dang RRanch....,
We need to start a "Hooker" account for you....you need to relax!

Rog

 

I closed that one when I retired from the Navy. Ha HA.

I do need to relax. I know. It helps when garages getting 90 bucks an hour do their jobs though.

 

what kind of axle did you swap in, was it a newer one with the metric lug pattern? If so I want to do the same thing so I can get a L/S for cheap

 

Glad you got it fixed with minimal damage to the pocket book makes me wonder now if I should get better prepared for the axle seal job on my wife's expedition this weekend LOL