Service your driveshafts... and everything else for that matter!!!

RESURECTIONJK

RESURECTIONJK

Hooked
This came in to the shop today. Lady was on her way back from EJS when her front drive shaft seized up and tore a big hole in the transfer case going about 80mph. After inspecting everything it’s clear that this was due to major lack of maintenance and servicing.
If you run serviceable drive shafts then inspecting and properly greasing them is important especially before and after long trips.
Also found a lot of other issues related to neglect on this rig.
Gonna be expensive to fix no doubt.
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Damn! That sucks! I’m really bad about greasing my driveshaft, but this really opens my eyes to what happens if I don’t! Thanks for posting it [emoji106]
 
Wow that would suck.

As it happens, I just dropped my rear driveshaft at the local shop this morning to fix a vibration that’s recently developed.


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wayoflife said:
How could you not hear and or feel that thing going bad?
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Yeah it was pretty alarming hearing her tell the story. She said she would feel and hear it around 50mph and then It would go away at 70 so she just “figured” it was a tire issue. Uh.... nope

Edit:
After speaking with her again she said that the shop she had taken it to when she first started hearing feeling the vibration informed her that her unit bearings were bad, ball joints tire balance etc. They just kept taking her for a ride and taking her money.
 
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Some more pictures once I got the case out. Lots of shrapnel and banged up heat shielding. It caused a small fire due to a ruptured fuel line. Luckily none of the A/T fluid caught fire. At least she had a fire extinguisher and stayed calm enough to handle business. Could have been a lot worse
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Did the front CV sieze up?

I developed a chirp after the Rubicon in 2016. Eddie was kind enough to lend me his garage to drop the front shaft before the 400 mile trek home.

wayoflife said:
How could you not hear and or feel that thing going bad?
Click to expand...

This happens on our fire engine. The axle end CV siezed up and we had about 10 seconds notice before bang! Sounds like she had a bit more notice.

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jesse3638 said:
Did the front CV sieze up?

I developed a chirp after the Rubicon in 2016. Eddie was kind enough to lend me his garage to drop the front shaft before the 400 mile trek home.



This happens on our fire engine. The axle end CV siezed up and we had about 10 seconds notice before bang! Sounds like she had a bit more notice.

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Yeah the CV seized up and finally went boom. But there had to have been some play in it leading up to that. Her rear drive shaft was also nearing the same failure. Glad we caught that one. Most people don’t noticed the grease fitting in the center of these and they get neglected. Or at least what we’ve seen here in the shop. Somewhat of a small sample size. But this entire shaft was void of any grease so... yeah. Lack of maintenance. But to be fair to the owner, she was taking it to a shop she trusted to do the servicing and the weren’t doing it.
 
RESURECTIONJK said:
Some more pictures once I got the case out. Lots of shrapnel and banged up heat shielding. It caused a small fire due to a ruptured fuel line. Luckily none of the A/T fluid caught fire. At least she had a fire extinguisher and stayed calm enough to handle business. Could have been a lot worse
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Holy Crap! I've always wanted to see the inside of the TC and the chain... thanks for posting this..Lol
 
RESURECTIONJK said:
Yeah the CV seized up and finally went boom. But there had to have been some play in it leading up to that. Her rear drive shaft was also nearing the same failure. Glad we caught that one. Most people don’t noticed the grease fitting in the center of these and they get neglected. Or at least what we’ve seen here in the shop. Somewhat of a small sample size. But this entire shaft was void of any grease so... yeah. Lack of maintenance. But to be fair to the owner, she was taking it to a shop she trusted to do the servicing and the weren’t doing it.
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Yeah I regrease everything at every oil change. My rear shaft had the center zerk but the front did not. It started chirping at about 4 yeaers and 25k miles. Had the whole thing rebuilt locally for around 100 bucks.
 
Oddly enough my Adams front DS came with out grease fittings on the double cartigen. With all the salt on the roads it began to seize. Sounded like a pack of angry squirrels under the driver’s seat. I’ve since had it rebuilt with one. Just an FYI to anyone upgrading their DSs, make sure the are built to be greased.


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wjtstudios said:
Oddly enough my Adams front DS came with out grease fittings on the double cartigen. With all the salt on the roads it began to seize. Sounded like a pack of angry squirrels under the driver’s seat. I’ve since had it rebuilt with one. Just an FYI to anyone upgrading their DSs, make sure the are built to be greased.
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Not necessarily. A serviceless double cardan isn't such a bad thing. Just like serviceless u-joints, some would argue that they're stronger. You just need have your drive shaft rebuilt on a regular basis. That would include having the double cardan replaced.
 
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