ok so my long weekend project was to change the overdrive housing in my 99 ram 1500 5.2....everything went together good. after i drove back and forth in the driveway and it seemed ok

Went to pull out of the driveway and when i stopped in reverse the rear driver tire clunked then locked up to the point of squeeling on the pavement. put in drive to go back in the driveway and it drove fine but tire locked again when brakeing.

could this be something in the rear end? we took off the pinion yoke because all the driveshaft bolts broke. We put the nut in the same spot so if anything it would be a little loose on the preload. but from what Ive read if the preload is off it would just whine when driving.

Anyone ever heard of this problem with a rear end or could we have damaged the brakes when taking the pinion nut off.

 

Sounds like a look at the rear end may be in order - sounds like the pinion is not set correctly and may be flopping around a bit or perhaps there is an issue with the ring gear.

Can you explain what is causing the need for the overdrive housing to have to be replaced? It would be helpful to understand the whole story of the overdrive housing issue and all that has been done to correct it..

 

The overdrive housing was cracked where it went into the transfer case. I found a new housing and swapped the guts to a new one. looking at the old one it looks like it had cracked before and someone did a very poor job of welding it, probably without removing it.

Im assuming the housing cracked because of bad ujoints since the one on the front was completely seized and fell apart. so ujoints got replace too.

While removing the rear drive shaft all four of the bolts holding the shaft to the yolk broke off so we had to remove the pinion yolk to have a machine shop get them out and helicoil the threads.

I've read how to correctly set the pinion nut but was told by a few that if it was all back how it was it should be ok...but I've read people who had it to tight or too loose got a whining in the diff not a brake locking effect. just wondering if a loose nut could do that.

 

oops double posted...

 

After reading the story more closely, I'd pull the rear driver wheel and drum to see what might be going on with your brakes. Before pulling the wheel off, once you have it jacked up off the ground, use both hands and grab the wheel at the 12 o clock and 6 o clock positions and shake back and forth to determine if you have a bad bearing. Also check at the 9 o clock and 3 o clock positions. Perhaps the brakes are frozen on that side due to a bad adjuster or parking brake cable.

 

Lsd clutch packs or spider gears are going out or are done for. Pull the diff cover as suggested and see what's going on in there.

 

Malcolm28, please let us know what you find - your issue has gotten my curiosity going..

 

went out and got all the stuff to do the pinion yoke right and that didnt fix the problem......checked brakes and everything looks ok.......taking rear diff off now will let ya know what i find

 

well everything in the diff looked almost immaculate spun the driveshaft by hand to get the pinion to spin all the way around and it looks great. no slop nothing broken or missing.

wheel bearing seems ok, brakes feel loose like you can move the whole drum around to much, so I'm replacing that now. If this doesn't work I'm lost so if anyone has any other suggestions feel free to post.

 

All the teeth on the ring gear and the pinion? No damage to the spider gears inside the carrier of the differential? Is the parking brake cable moving freely? Are the brake adjusters moving OK and not frozen?