A couple of months a swapped out front axles because i had a spare one laying around and felt it would be a good time to do some necessary upgrading. But i believe i created more headaches...

I needed to replace my ball joints and u joints, axle shaft seals and do some general maintenance to my front axle. So i decided I would go ahead and replace those things on the spare dana44 that I had laying around outside, get it all shined up put together nice a pretty then jack my truck up pull out the current axle replace it with one with all new parts yay! all done!

well it wasn't quite that simple. I got in a hurry, i didn't lay everything out in order didnt have a good plan and quite frankly i had no idea what i was doing. I replaced the shaft seals and the u joints and the hubs were no problem, i even got the axles swapped out, but that was pretty unnecessary in the long run. And now i have problems when i engage my four wheel drive. there is an awful whining coming from the front differential. and that's where i believe i screwed up.

The sleeve on the two axles shafts in the CAD unit doesn't slide very smoothly, in fact it gets stuck. (yesterday i took off the cover at the cad unit with the fork to try and move it with my fingers and it should glide pretty easily back and forth and even though there was plenty of gear oil it for some reason was getting stuck, even when disengaged, and then when it was straddling both axles shafts it would then get stuck again on that side, not sure why) and then i noticed the intermediate shaft in the middle of the axle the one between the differential and the right tire there was a lot of play in from left to right as if there was some shims or something not right.

the driveshaft for the front axle appears to have alot of play in it from front to back to. i think my problem is maybe the crush sleeve. Im not very familiar with all of the little parts inside the differential and what was supposed to be replaced when i took the gears out. Ive been doing some research and i was thinking about a master rebuild kit like this one

http://www.justdifferentials.com/ind...oducts_id=3518

has anybody rebuilt these before? would this solve my symptoms, and fix my axle?
i haven't seen any metal in the pumpkin. When i engage the 4x4 there is a whining not really a grinding or a binding noise, i think there is to much play in the system. i haven't bough the kit yet, but have downloaded the exploded view of the axle from dana

i know there is alot of information here but i wanted to lay it out and the ones that really know how to help will read it hopefully.

 

Is the pinion sloppy? (the part the driveshaft bolts to at the differential) If it is, that will most certainly make some rude noises in 4x4. Setting up gears, even if just taking them out, and putting them right back in with all the same parts can sometimes be a pain....

There is a bushing that goes between the two axles that keeps them in alignment. Probably left that out....

You need some special tools for setting up gears..... might be able to rent them from the parts store.... buying them would not be cheap. (in fact, probably cheaper to pay someone else to set up the gears....)

 

+1 on what HeyYou said.. The pinion will cause some weird noises if it is sloppy.. Seems that is the issue you are having.. That would be where I would start looking.. A good 4x4 shop should be able to do that job for not to much $$..

 

that could be it. I do remember when setting the pinion back back in (i removed it and replaced the pinion seal) so that's probably what happened i didn't get it it set properly?

how about that intermediate shaft having play in it? would that be caused by a similar issue not having the bearing set properly with the main gear set?

 

If there is slop between the inner, and outer shafts on the passenger side, you are missing the bushing that goes between them.