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Nephew's Ft. Bragg Jeep Problem. New Update, Now Atlanta

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Fordum

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Folks, this is going to eventually be a continuation of this thread.

http://coloradok5.com/forums/showthread.php?t=305429

When I posted that, it was a request for help which several folks answered. Heavyleft was closest, and did what he could in the time available.

Any postings past the last one there, will be running the risk of the dreaded "Tech In The Lounge", so I am moving it here.

This latest update is not going to help much, but I hope it will develop into a final answer. The Jeep is at his folk's home in Fl. now, so I have a chance to get more involved.
I had a business meeting close by today, so I swung by afterwards.

The sound is very obvious, and has almost the perfect symptoms of a bad rear end.
Loud roaring under even the slightest load, perfect silence under coast.
But, it just sounds wrong somehow. There is no change at speed, or with different loads.
I tried putting the tranny in gear with the the TC in neutral to see if I could get it to make that noise.
Thought it might be an input bearing in the TC, but no sound.

A combination of my being in my good clothes, my bad hip which has been acting up the last couple of days, and a big honking skidplate kept me from crawling under and doing a better investigation.

We don't really have access to a shop type system, so his father it talking about taking to a private shop that he knows fairly well.

If so, I want the guy to pull the rear end cover and check for a bad pinion bearing or other problems.
Even though I suspect its the TC, that is an easy thing to check and it would not hurt to change the oil in the rear end anyway.

If it is the TC, we will be checking the junkyards for a good used NP231J. My nephew wants to learn wrenching, but he is active duty 700 miles away.
My tentative idea is to find a good used TC, get it installed, and let him take the old one back to NC with him the next time he is down for a weekend or so.

Then he can learn by doing with no real pressure. If it takes him a month, or he destroys the TC, no harm done.

Either way, he WILL either join here and post what happened, or I will post what happens myself.

Again thanks to Heavyleft and the other brothers who offered. Its just so darn frustrating to be so far away from a problem.
 
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since it's going to a shop they should be able to tell which one it is. when the shop puts the jeep on a lift they can run it and tell which one. then you will know. with out guessing if it is the pinion bearing changing the fluid will do no good
 
heavyleft said:
Any update?
Click to expand...

Not yet. I have been tied up trying to keep my head above water both physically and financially lately and have not been in a position to give it the attention it deserves.

His father keeps saying he is going to take it to his friend's shop, but has not done so yet.
He was going to take it to work Friday, drop it off, and catch a ride home with me.
But, I was otherwise occupied and could not give him a ride so he canceled.

I really wish he would drive it to the farm one weekend and lets work on it and make sure what the problem is.

I told him I would crank up the boom truck, and pick the whole thing up so we could work on it easy, but he did not want to.
He is losing his sense of adventure in his old age..........

As soon as I get able, or he gets off his butt and does something, I will post it.
 
Nephew's father was gone on business most of last week. Jeep has just been sitting, father has not done anything.
Nephew wants to use it during leave this coming weekend.
He contacted his mother, and she agreed to drive it to my mechanic's shop and I would take her back home.
Had some cranking problems, got them straight, got the Jeep there on Wed. My mechanic drove it, said like me, it sounded like rear end, but also agreed that it was possibly transfer case.

Then his kids got sick. One with some unknown sickness that put him in the hospital, the other one drank some liquid out of a freeze pack that leaked out of his lunch.

That one was OK, the other one came home and is doing better. As a result, he did not get it on the lift until today.

As soon as the rear end cover came off, it was obvious that the ring and pinion were shot.
Not sure of the cause, he started looking for a junkyard rearend with ABS right away. His best price for one with less than 80K is in the $1200 to $1400 range!

He called Randy's, and the parts to rebuild it are in the $600 to $700 range. I have a call in to my nephew, to see what he wants to do.

If I get any pics, I will post them.
I'm sure that there are cheaper units than that out there, but I'm not sure what it has under it, nor the ratio numbers right now.

I will keep updating as this progresses.
 
The ring and pinion shouldn't be much more than $300, install kit around $100 and the labor cost should round out to about $200-300....at least up here and the fact I'm not a jeep person I'm not familiar with the prices of Jeep R&P. These prices is about what I paid for an front diff to be re-geared. So if that $600 price tag is with his labor included then its not that terribly bad but a bit high to me. New R&P is a better route than a used axle from a junkyard, in my opinion.
 
I agree with both sentiments.

My mechanic was shocked when he got the prices.
I have been knowing this guy for quite a while, and he owes me several favors.

Plus he has kinfolk in the service. I suspect he would have done the work pretty much for free.
He expected to pick up a rear end from one of several junkyard he deals with on a regular basis for couple hundred.
But there is apparently something about that model that is special or rare.

He also does most of his gear buying from Randy's, since he can get a kit and it is complete and correct.
Unlike most of us, he has to put the truck on the rack, fix it and roll it off to make money.
So having everything there is important.

We could tear one down, figure out what is needed, and order just those parts. He does not have that kind of time to put into one truck.

Even so, the prices from Randy's were much higher than he expected.

I was in the middle of a bunch of stuff when he called, so I may have some of the model numbers wrong.
But, I think he said that the rear end with ABS is a Dana 35, which is what he has, and without ABS is a Dana 40.
I suggested finding a 40 and just living without ABS for a while, but he did not have anything to tell if they would interchange.

Shame it does not use a 44...

I told my nephew a few minutes ago, to just write off using the Jeep this weekend. I will try to get some pics, get my mechanic to just slap the cover back on, pour in some cheap oil, and we will see if we cannot get it to my farm this weekend.

Its about 10 miles to the farm, about 40 to my nephew's house, and I don't trust it that far.
I can fire off my 250 and drag it there if I have to. Then it can sit behind my 7 foot chainlink fence until we come up with a solution.

Any jeepers with more knowledge feel free to chime in.
 
It will be a D35 unless it is a Rubicon. In that case it would be a D44. D40 does not exist. A Ford 8.8 swap would be easy enough and stronger. Drum brake units sell for around $150 around here.
 
I'm sure you're right. When he was telling me, I was on the phone to him with one hand, a guy was standing next to me asking me a question, and I was working the computer with the other hand.

I'm pretty sure its a D35, with ABS. Wish it was a 44. Would the Ford exchange with the 35, or only the 44?
And I don't think he cares about the ABS, but would the Ford tone ring, or whatever it uses match?

It just so happens I know where there is a 1998 Ford 8.8 in good shape he could have for free if its a bolt in.
 
A 97 Wrangler is a TJ and has a four (5?) link suspension. The explorer rear end would have to have the proper brackets welded on it to work, I was just throwing out the fact that they are easier to find.

As for the ABS, I'm not sure what that would take to keep it working. I would think the tone rings would be similar, but cannot venture an educated guess about making it work. My Cherokee didn't have ABS so it was never a worry.
 
Yep, been doing some research, found this nice writeup.

http://www.nwjeepn.com/Axleswap.html

He did away with the ABS, so no help on that front.

I know that a swap like that is way out of my nephew's abilities, but he could probably find some help.
I'm going to email him that link just for fun.

Pretty sure the 8.8 I have would not work, its under an F150, and he needs one out of an exploder.
Still a nice upgrade though.
 
I wouldn't ask the guys on pirate. They have forgotten some of us still drive our 4x4s daily.

A 44 would be an easy swap if you can find one. They are rarer than the D35 and 8.8 and highly prized amongst TJ and ZJ owners.

I'm surprised the D35 gave any trouble in a DD. They are usually a pretty solid axle on the street.
 
TerryD said:
I wouldn't ask the guys on pirate. They have forgotten some of us still drive our 4x4s daily.

A 44 would be an easy swap if you can find one. They are rarer than the D35 and 8.8 and highly prized amongst TJ and ZJ owners.

I'm surprised the D35 gave any trouble in a DD. They are usually a pretty solid axle on the street.
Click to expand...

I'm not sure what happened. I know he has done some wheeling with it, but nothing hard core that I know of.
I hope to get a look at it tomorrow, and maybe get some pics.

From what my mechanic said, the pinion gear is pretty thin, and the ring has a lot of wear with a wavy pattern that was causing most of the noise.

I suspect a ring and pinion kit would fix it fairly cheaply, but with that much metal in the system, I would not stop with that.

I would not trust any bearing in there, including the wheel bearings. And would check the spiders for slop.

I suspect the oil had never been changed, and its possible that he chipped a tooth, or that the hardening process on the gears was faulty and not all the way through.
So, once the gear wore to a certain depth, it started going faster.

Problem is, my nephew has lots of talents, but mechanical stuff is not one of them.
My mechanic said that it looked like those gears had been whining for a long time.
Certainly possible with my nephew.
He would not have noticed until it got really loud.
 
Well, my nephew is becoming a major project.

He is driving his big Ford truck up at Ft. Bragg. 250 I think. The other day, while we were discussing his Jeep, he said he had just finished a major brake job on the truck.

I don't know all the details, but I think he replaced the calipers also. Not sure why.
He was so proud of the accomplishment.
It had to be the most complex repair job he has done.

We all know how he felt. The satisfaction of doing a major repair and winding up with a perfectly repaired truck.

So, this morning I get the call..........

He did not go into details, but I think he lost brakes briefly. He also noticed that the container of brake fluid one of his helpers went and got during the brake job is not brake fluid.

Its power steering fluid..............:eek1:

He asked me what damage it would do.

I told him that if he had put brake fluid in the power steering, it would probably destroy everything.
In this case, I don't think there will be any damage to the parts, but his brakes are not going to be reliable.
I don't know the boiling point of power steering fluid, but I'm quite sure its well below brake fluid.

So, when he does any hard braking, there is a good chance the fluid will boil putting a bubble in the line and causing brake failure until it cools.

I told him he is going to have to find a power bleeder and a lot of brake fluid.
Just keep forcing new fluid through the system and out the bleeders until all the PS fluid is out.

Problem is, I'm sure its got an antilock system, so I don't know if just doing that will get all the bad stuff out.

Any Ideas??
 
OK, there have been developments.
First of all, in the immortal words of Gilda Radner.........Never mind......

He went to talk to the guy who brought the power steering fluid, and it turns out he brought both PS and Brake fluid.
He had noticed the PS was low, so he put the power steering fluid in the power steering and the brake in the brake.
But he only left the power steering fluid bottle in the back of the truck, and my nephew jumped to the wrong conclusion.

I got more info on the brake problem, and it sounds like the classic master cylinder damaged by bleeding problem.
I told him he would have to replace the master cylinder.

I also rode to my mechanic's and crawled under the Jeep. Could not get as close to the diff as I wanted to, but used the fold-out LCD screen to frame the shot.

I zoomed in and cropped the pictures to show the damage. One shot shows the damage to the drive side of the ring gear.
Next shot looks like the pinion was going too deep and rubbing in the bottom of the ring teeth.
Last shot is the best I got of the pinion. You can tell that the teeth are thing at the ends.

I told my nephew to check with local Jeep clubs. Since the guys who drive like K5ers with really large tires mostly swap out the D35s with Ford 8.8s I figured there should be a surplus of rear ends.

Sorta like looking for 10 bolts around K5ers.
He said he has heard of a guy who has several D35s, but he has not gotten up with him yet.

IMG_4728.JPG

IMG_4732.JPG

Pinion.JPG
 
check out jasper if that doesn't work out i have gotten a few diff s from them in the past a fairly cheap.
 
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