I think one of the front axles on my '99 Durango may be stuck in the locked in position. Suddenly the other day my gas milage dropped substantially. I mean it went from 12mpg to about 8mpg and it was right after I used the 4x4 in a snow storm. It's since een out of 4x4 and the milage is still horendous. I noticed that when I turn the steering wheel to the extreme left, the fron of the truck hops a bit. But when I turn to the extreme right, it turns normal.

How can I determine if one of the hubs is still locked in? I've tried driving backwards slowly for short distances, but that has not helped.

Any Help is very much appreciated.
TIA
Brian

 

Ok, I just jacked up the front of the Durango and gave the front tires a spin.

When I spun them, I noticed that the front axles were spinning with the wheel. Are the axles supposed to turn along withthe wheels when the hubs are supposed to be disengaged?

If not, how do you go about getting the hubs to disengage?

Brian

 

Do you have manual hubs on your truck or auto hubs? If they are auto, then the axles will always turn even when not in 4x4. Easy way to check if 4x4 is still locked in is either find some gravel and gun it and see if the front tires throw rocks or not. Option two would be to put the whole truck up in the air and put it in drive, see if all wheels go or just the back. (Use caution this is dangerous).

By the sounds of it jumping only when turning one way though, it sounds like you might have a bearing locked up or something similar.

 

They are auto locking hubs.

But if the transfer case isn't engaged, there will be no power going to the front axles, so the front tires won't spin even if the the hubs are stuck in the locked position.

And I am a little confused as to why the front axles would spin all the time whether the hubs are locked or not. Isn't the purpose of disengaging the hubs to keep the front axles from spinning all the time?


I know my ford ranger, when the hubs were unlocked, the axles did not spin. I'm just not familiar as to how the Durango functions. A was assuming it would work the same way.

 

With auto locking hubs, when not locked in 4x4, the drive line to the front will not turn, but the axle will turn because they enguaged to the tire, so when the tire turns via the road surface, it turns the axle.

With manual locking hubs, you can disenguage the wheels from the axle so the spin freely. This will also improve your gas milage by putting manual hubs on. The down side, you have to get out the truck to lock them in when you use your 4x4.

Do you understand what I am explaining here? If not I will try to clarify it better.

 

Gotcha!

 

You do not have " locking hubs"!
The axles ends are splined and will move ALL the time.
My guess is you may have a bad CV joint.
Check the boots and see if they are cracked or leaking grease.
They will bind more as the wheels are turned. The outers always seem to go first since they are the ones that twist and turn.

 

The Ranger (atleast my '98) uses a vacuum to engage and disengage the 4x4 at the hub when the switch on the dash it turned to 4x4, so it locks and unlocks the front axles at the hubs instead of the transfer case. (The axle is only engaged to the tire when 4x4 is turned on)

The Durango doesn't have that, the front axles move with the hub no matter what.... that isn't really auto-locking, its more of a permanently locked hub. The transfer case is what will put the power through to the front wheels when 4x4 is engaged on the Durango.

 

I haven't looked at ours, but they probabally have the old AMC set up whiuch is a vacumn operated shift fork that slides a splined collar to engage the pass side axle.
It engages when the trans. case is engaged.
If they didn't do this, mileage would suck and with all the turning it would wear the spider gears down in the front differential.

 

The hubs are locked in all the time. When you put it in 4X4 the transfer case locks and put's power to the front. If you disasemble it you would see. I did a report on this and here is my reply's. Try this.



https://dodgeforum.com/fb.asp?m=368218&key=