OK, talked with a motorhead buddy of mine about the front diff, he thinks there is probably front bearing damage with that amount of heat. His recommendation was to remove the front driveshaft (done already) and rotate the input shaft of the front diff. He mentioned that if I feel any roughness at all after going 360 on it then there is damage to the input bearing or something else in there. He suggested to clean it up and put it back together and drive it to see if there is any noises coming from it. Well, the input test was negative, nothing out of the ordinary, both wheels spin like they should. So Bud's cleaning up the diff now so we can put the cover back on and fill it with some fresh diff oil. worst case, we're out the $5 bux of oil.

 

Thats why you blame it on Jr.

 

was this on the CTD or ur son's dak that you guys just got??? i'm guessing the dak. I second/third/however many it's at the bearings and backlash problem.

 

Hey Steve any update on this? Did you throw in the new t-case?

 

yup, slapped in a t-case already. put in fresh oil in the front diff and left it at that... a little bit of bearing noise from the front, nothing I'm going to deal with now. the t-case seems to be working fine but it's leaking, so I get to yank it back out at some point.

 

oops forgot to mention... put about 250 miles on it over 2 days trying to get it smogged (needed the mileage to go thru it's obd II diags prior to test. gets pretty good mileage if I can keep my foot out of it. over 18 mpgon the lie-o-meter...

 

Thats more fun for you Steve. Nothin like getting it back together and then finding out it has to come back apart. I'm impressed by your lie-o-meter. The one on our durango says something like 14 and when I put it on instant economy I see it drop into the very low single digits pretty often (I can't keep my foot of the skinny pedal-I love how the 4.7 sounds)

 

I also love how the 4.7 sounds... has a flowmaster dual out on it and it sounds sweet. just picked up a K&N intake kit for $120 bux for it... the previous owner said it was too loud lol.

pulling it back out a 2nd time should be really quick now that I've done it once... all of the crap that slows you down is now all figured out. shouldnt take hardly any time at all

 

I have an 03 Dakota that the wife drives mostly with the 4.7, even with the stock exhaust the engine has a nice rumble. That engine in that truck is a nice combination. Is a little rough on mileage though, even driving like an old man the best I could ever get out of it was about 16mpg.