I mean I just think it's too early to contemplate bailing on this truck. It's a beautiful pickup truck with a ton of power, and I've putten too much work and time into it to just give up on it. Yes, this is a very painful experience, but summertime is arriving, and the engine and transmission are running perfect. What I need you guys to do for me is help me find the cheapest possible chrysler 9.25 rear axle for this truck so we can get her installed. The mechanic said it'd be about 8 hours to take it off and put the new one in with all the parts, so it won't too bad, especially if I find a reasonably priced axle. As bad as I want my fricken truck back, I am not rushing into anything. There is just no point in doing that. Besides, the more time I spend, the more money I can gain. I already plan to put my IRS check towards this now. I'm banking on slomojo for a good deal with his rear axle. Hopefully it's in good condition and I'll be able to use it. I wonder how much shipping will be for it though. Slomojo, let me know when you can get a ballpark estimate to send me that axle. I cannot begin to thank you enough for the offer, and I hope it works out, thank you.

 

So the actual housing tube has a chunk gone or is the C piece a removeable piece?

What about towing it across the street? Or pushing it? Get your brother or someone to pull it over there. I really think you should have someone else look at it for a second opinion. Atleast thats probably what I'd do.

 

If time is not a huge issue, and you get another axel, put it on yourself. You'll save about $500 in labor. Buy your brother a case of beer or something and make him help you. Your parents might stop giving you **** too if you go out there and fix this **** by yourself on the cheap.Plus then you'll know how to do it. So when your dad or your brothers truck blows up or something "uhh hey Joe... you think you can fix my truck man? c'mon..."

It works good like that.

 

I dont know , your gonna get some money into this , doesnt matter which way you go. shipping , axle ,switch gears , inspect the other housing , bearings ..

 

yeah. I'll get on top of that. Now I guess I'm out of a extra rear end but at least I'll be able to help you out. I just need to inspect it before anything.

If I ship it there are a few different rates. One, I can deliver it to a terminal and have it delivered to your local terminal for about 385. Two, I can send it from a business to a business for about the same, which I can do if I send it from my Moms shop to that shop that's doing the work or wherever you prefer if you can use a friends business address, or I can send it from the local terminal to your residence for 515.

Edit: http://www.freightcenter.com/QuickQuote.aspx is where the quotes are from for a 6' x 2' x 2' crate that weighs 200 lbs, more or less, and is in the 150 freight class.

Also, do me a favor. upload that picture once more, and don't point to the messed up area. circle it because to me I can't see anything wrong with the area in which the carrier is seated.

And where are the extra pics of the gears and everything?

 

I took the pictures with my cellphone. I didn't have a battery left for my camera. But the mechanics are telling me the rest of the components can be reused. So I didn't take any pictures of them. They had everything out of the differential besides the pinion gear I believe. Here are all the pictures I have. And I circled the problem area that is chipped, and apparently not repairable. They are saying since that C shaped object has a big chunk missing from it that the bearings can't sit properly or something. It's all new to me, so it's tough for me to follow if it's true or not. Here are the pics, with the problem area circled. I'll also leave a couple of the original pictures so you the drawing won't interfere with your vision.








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Two people on PS say it looks fine as you can see in your thread there both whom are some of the guys that seem to know what they are doing. I don't know though it's your choice.It may just not be showing the damage well in the pictures or it may not be bad enough to worry about it. Them saying it looks fine even more so makes me think it would be worth the money to have a second opinion. Why do you like having second opinions after something is done and you don't think it's right but you don't want to pay to have a second opinion first to avoid having it done wrong?

 

I picked up my truck from the shop tonight, and I talked to my guy about your issue. He said he thinks what I described is not enough to warrant a full rear-end swap. He thinks it would be fine to use as is. Of course, he was only going by my description and hasn't seen it first hand.

I think you should seriously get a second opinion from a 4x4 specialty shop.

The shop that was working on my truck said they did 4 front and rear gear swaps just this week, and they had another in the bay that they were finishing up this weekend. That's 5 in one week. He said that's the norm too. Image how many gears and differentials they see in a year or more. That's the kind of people you want looking at this issue in my opinion. Seriously do yourself a favor and get a second opinion!!!!!!

 

[:@] damn it !!! posting in wrong threads...

 

Ok, now I'm starting to see the chips. Still kinda hard to see everything clearly but tell me if I'm wrong.

in the first pic there are some minor chips affecting the side of the bearing race closest to the pinion gear along the legnth of it, but not actually on the bearing race seat area for the bearing correct? If so, not much to worry about.

in the second pic there seems to be a small fragment missing from just above the side of the mid section of the bearing race but nearly nothing from the actual seat area for the bearing, correct? Seems relatively intact from what I can see. Nothing seriously affecting the bearing seat area in the race.

in the third picture, it's hard to make anything out. I'm guessing there are minor chips on the side of the bearing race but I can't tell for sure. - Nothing to worry about there if that's the case.

fourth pic, I can only see light damage on the side of the bearing race but not on the seat area which is a good thing.

in the fifth, I see more detail and a nice chip towards the side of the bearing race in between the middle and bottom of the bearing race and minute chipping on the seat area of the race close to the inner edge which would'nt worry me a bit. If it were something to worry about, then you would've felt or heard something. When bearings start to go bad, you feel them and hear whirling, whining type of sounds coming from the rear end. If not, then everything is probably still holding together well enough to leave it alone.

Overall, I would tell the shop to just put it back together as an open diff with a cleanup, some new inner bearings, and the thickest lube you can find. At least 75W 140 for added protection inside the diff. I absolutely wouldn't replace the entire housing until i notice something other then what a mechanic is telling me. The stuff I see in those pictures wouldn't alarm me unless I started to hear or feel something first. I would deal with it then, not now. The bearing surface looks like its over 98% intact. It's not just going to fail even if you beat on it. Personally I would run with it until it breaks, if it ever breaks... And in the mean time, I would start saving up to get myself a brand new dana 60 axel with 4.10 or 4.11 gears unless you plan on making that truck into torque monster with a nice set of gears. For the cost of a used unit delivered to your door with 8 hours labor, you could probably just get a brand new Dana 60 unit with the gears you want in it. Then you'll have a 2wd truck until you can afford putting the gears in your front end but at least you'll be sitting pretty.

O yeah... When did that happen?