Hi,

I have a 99 Ram 1500 5.2 and an auto with the standard corporate 9.25 w/ 3.55 gears

Its snowy out, and obviously there is alot of spinning, well when I get the passenger side tire spinning but not the drivers side it makes a strange clunk, clunk, clunk like noise thats hard to discribe.
It doesnt do it at all if I get the drivers side tire to spin, but not the passenger...
The noise changes with speed.

I let my dad listen to it and he said it sounds like loose spider gears clucking back and forth on eachother from the lack of load on the tire.
This spring im pulling the cover off to inspect everything... Does anyone know if this is normal?

Im fairly confident that I remember my dads F150 doing this once when we got stuck, it just wasent as loud.

 

They shimmed the carrier assemblly to help adjust ring and pinion gear meshing. It could be possible that the shim on that side is bad and when you constantly spin that side you here the carrier slop back and forth. The good news is the shims are relitvley cheep and if you can see the number on your old one its not a hard task to change. However if you can't tell the size then it is a hit and miss game to find the right one or get the correct back lash specs for your truck and messure the ring and pinion for the right shim. Not more expensive dodge sells them in a kit.

 

That makes since kinda...

Yesterday I was messing with it more, and I found that my passenger side tire doesnt run perfectly true, and once the spinnign tire digs into the snow the tire kinda moves the back end of the truck back and forth slightly,The noise is consistant with the way the truck moves.

If I were to jack both rear wheels up off the ground and run it, its not nearly as loud.

I am planning on playing with it more this saturday because I dont work...


Thanks.