Okay folks, had a leaky wheel seal the other day on the rear end, took it upon myself to change it out and it went pretty easy. Got it back together and drove it about 20 miles yesterday with no issues. Today, I take off and get 4 blocks and notice a couple real quick "lugs" in the powertrain somewhere. Turn around and come home to check things out and fluid was full and nothing was obvious, went back out and got almost 1 mile and the back tire locked up and then came free for a second and it sounds like something is really binding up somewhere. Idled all the way home and it did that about 15-20 more times, it doesn't lock up and stay locked up but you can hear when it's going to happen.

Could I have F'ed something up changing the seal? I remember having to tighten that jam nut pretty darn tight to get the key way to line up but other than that everything seemed pretty straight forward, would make sense though if a bearing was locking up cause that's what it feels like, and sounds like. Could it be the transmission at all or wouldn't that cause the lock up? Seems to coincidental to me.

Looking forward to your responses....

 

sounds like a caliper could be locking up?

 

Would it automatically apply the brake and lock up on it's own, cause this is happening at times other than when I'm applying the brake.

 

see if it does it when rolling in neutral to basically rule out the tranny, either the rear end went too low on fluid and got damaged? or caliper probably. Maybe a bearing somewhere? Does it cause the car to like pull to one side or anything?

Could also be ABS kicking in for some reason. Try maybe pulling the ABS fuse and see if it does it?

 

Jacked it up and it would do it by turning the wheel by hand and I could hear things weren't right. Popped the axle out and so far the outer bearing is shot, smells like it got really hot also, I'll bet the inner bearing is in the same shape. The fluid is full to the hole in the pumpkin but it doesn't look like there is any oil up to the bearings? My initial thought is that I tightened that jam nut too tight.....

The inner bearing is disinigrated, the main part of the bearing is stuck to the shaft and the rest of it is nothing but shrapnel. Not sure how I'm going to get that part off without taking a torch to it???

I'll post pics later, not pretty.

Still trying to figure out why this happened and prevent it from happening again. The smell is horrible.......