Ram 1500 Woes Continued But With A Happy Ending..
- Thread starter Jeepenstein
- Start date
- Joined
- Feb 9, 2018
- Joined
- Jun 15, 2003
I would need clutches, the spider and side gears and the center pin.. At that point I'd be at the same cost. The LSD would be nice to have but it reality, I'd prefer the reliability factor of an open.. The entire carrier with spiders loaded is pretty cheap and I had the passenger side axle was jacked up too.. I am lucky it made it home like that.
- Joined
- Jan 11, 2015
I had a Chevy with LSD yrs ago that did nearly the same. Clutches locked up and it busted carrier, side gears, ring and pinion, and screwed up axles before I got home.
I found a changeout, entire housing, at the junkyard.
- Joined
- Jun 15, 2003
My particular one was hard to find as it has the 3.92 gears, all the yards around here didn't have.. One yard did offer to get one for me.. $1700.. I just ordered every thing soup to nuts to rebuild mine for $900 from Summit..
- Joined
- Jun 15, 2003
So there I was, putting it all back together, being super careful to do everything right, get a good backlash, good contact pattern all happy assembling and I get to the easy part.. Stabbing the axles and C clips.. I have two different C clips.. Summit sent me one good one and one chevy one.. They are sending a new one, no arguments, so good on Summit, but dangit, now the truck is on the lift for a couple more days..
And yes, stupid me tossed the old ones.. And did a dump run yesterday..
And yes, stupid me tossed the old ones.. And did a dump run yesterday..
fr8dog61
Member
- Joined
- Sep 21, 2023
One of my biggest fears in life…
- Joined
- Jun 15, 2003
Well, the happy ending part took a crap.. I was assembling and the passenger side axle did not want to slide in.. Initially I thought it was just tight splines in the new carrier/axle, but nooooooo, I have a bent axle housing. All I can figure is a month or so ago I hauled a pallet of wet sod that was super heavy and put the axle against the bump stops and maybe that did it. I'm really perplexed.. It's a pretty solid housing (Chrysler 9.25) and the tubes are huge, but sure enough it's bent. It seems that was my root cause all along, angular loading of the side gears and clutches and it ate itself.. Ugh.. so Now to find a new axle housing and get to rebuilding. Grrrrrrr..
- Joined
- Jun 15, 2003
Yeah I got one for $400 lined up in Lake City.. Heading up tomorrow to go get it.. Unfortunately it's a 3.55, so I gotta plop my 3.92 gears into it.. I have found several 3.92 versions, but they want 1300 - 1700 for the 3.92..
- Joined
- Jun 15, 2003
OK, update..
While finalizing the rebuild and sliding the new passenger side axle in, it resisted, I forced it and broached some new splines into my shiny new side gear.. Yeah, my axle housing is bent.. What the flipping flip.. Grrrrr.. All I can figure is the pallet load of wet SOD I put in there was a bit too much.. Dangit.. So I sourced a good axle from the boneyard with a 3.55 gear.. Mine is 3.92.. Gotta swap it all into the new housing. So here is the good question.. If I take the old 3.92 pinion, bearings and all out of the old housing and just direct swap into the new housing, what are the odds my pinion depth will be correct? I know, if I'm this far in, why not new bearings? I likely will, but I'm tempted to try to to just see what happens..
While finalizing the rebuild and sliding the new passenger side axle in, it resisted, I forced it and broached some new splines into my shiny new side gear.. Yeah, my axle housing is bent.. What the flipping flip.. Grrrrr.. All I can figure is the pallet load of wet SOD I put in there was a bit too much.. Dangit.. So I sourced a good axle from the boneyard with a 3.55 gear.. Mine is 3.92.. Gotta swap it all into the new housing. So here is the good question.. If I take the old 3.92 pinion, bearings and all out of the old housing and just direct swap into the new housing, what are the odds my pinion depth will be correct? I know, if I'm this far in, why not new bearings? I likely will, but I'm tempted to try to to just see what happens..
- Joined
- Jun 15, 2003
Yeah I think I'm gonna take a stab at it and see what happens.. Heck if I need to go into it later, I've become super adept at it and I have the special tools and all now for this setup.. Backlash adjustment on this axle is insanely simple as long as you have the right tool.
- Joined
- Jun 15, 2003
So I've made an important observation.. It's obvious that I overloaded the rear axle and bent it, but I've overloaded many trucks in the past and never had this kind of failure. Something I didn't take into account was changes in design. In our old leaf sprung trucks, the bump stops are usually on top of the leaf springs, or outboard the leaf springs very near the hub/axle end. In the pic below, you can see the two yellow bump stops are waaaaaay inboard and there is a very long bit of axle tube before you get to the hub. That's where my housing bent. Design flaw if you ask me.. (well, we will ignore the idiot that overloaded the truck part of this..). Anyhow fellas, learn from my mistake and don't overload your coil sprung pickups.. The two bottom pics are the old and new axle housings, you can clearly see the pretty gross misalignment (concentricity) of the tubes..
Don’t forget the panhard bar! Is there any way to retrofit bump stops to the axle housing, or up on the frame, nested inside the coil spring? I agree as designed, it is begging to bend the axle tube when overloaded. Obviously, you can’t “overload” these trucks like we all did to pickups in the past. I used the overload snubbers as my gauge of how much more I can load on, often 1/4” to 1/2’ off, or barely touching. This is of course with leaf springs!
- Joined
- Jun 15, 2003
I'm just going back to stock.. I just know better now. If I have to haul heavy I'll take my trailer..
I really had a moment of stupid when I did this.. I was at lowes and wanted like 40 pieces of sod and the guy got tired of counting so he just sold me the whole pallet for the price of 40 (which turned out to be 109) so I just kept loading.. I knew I was on the bumpstops, but old truck logic took over and I thought I was fine, never even considered bending the axle. The problems didn't show up until a couple of months later, never drove weird or anything.
I'm almost done getting it back together. I just need to run and get a new pinion seal and crush sleeve later today..
- Joined
- Oct 25, 2006
I find this inexcusable. What purpose is a truck if you can bend an axle by overloading it? Why not just get a station wagon then.? 100 pieces of sod… gimme a break.
My 2004 Chevy Silverado would easy carry an entire hack of 3/4 plywood or a palllet of Portland cement plus 10 bags or 2 yards of 57stone or sand.. all day everyday.
1980 f100 would drive with an entire skid of bean seed where the front wheels hardly touched and bounced.. everyday in planting season for years.
I have to look to see how my 2026 ram 2500 is constructed now. I bet it’s similar and that would disappoint me.
- Joined
- Jun 15, 2003
If it has coils it will likely be similar.
And you are right, I have, and have seen several of my old Fords overloaded to the point of absurdity and never had this happen..