A little back story, last year, I had a transfer case seize up at highway speed. The results were less then desirable....



There's the stepdown, for those that don't know, it should be straight. Bent when spit out by the truck, bouncing off the pavement at roughly 60 MPH.



That's the top half of the transfer case housing, blown apart by the step down deciding it wanted to break free and go for a walk. Driveshaft on the left there, nice and shiny from the grinding job the asphalt did on it, it's bent as well.



That's the end cap off the driver's side of the front bumper, it was blown off by a piece of debris I'm guessing. The rest of the pieces are exhaust hangers, drive shaft bolts, exhaust bolts, and pieces of the transfer case.



The carnage on the underside. That's the cat on the bottom left, the exhaust from there back is toast. You can also see where the shifter is free now, it has been emancipated from it's transfer case duties.



As you can see the transmission was not safe from the carnage either. Parts of the transmission housing broke off the back, and decided to hang out with the transfer case.



Another shot of the transmission.



And one more for good measure.

So I lost an R151 setup, and didn't have the cash to replace it atm, so I put a W56 in it's place, with a new transfer case.

While the transmission was out, the rear main seal, pilot bearing, and release bearings got replaced, the clutch was still in good shape.

I got a new exhaust fabbed up, so that got fixed.

I got a driveline from the guy I got the transmission and transfer case from.

I got it back on the road, but had a vibration at anything over 40 mph, so I had to investigate further.

My first instinct was that possibly the 3rd member got it too when the driveline hit the ground, but after pulling it apart, it still looked brand new, with no play, and everything checked out. I was glad to see this, because the whole drivetrain had less that 5000 miles on it.

So back to the drawing board with it, and noticed that the output flange from the transfer case was wobbly, and that was because the nut that holds it on the output shaft was loose, so that got tightened back down. The output flange is now tight, and doesn't wobble, even at 70 MPH (driveline disconnected and truck up on stands).

So that leaves the driveline. I hadn't noticed it before, but there is a crack in the slip yoke, and it has a little play in it, which I assume is where the vibration is coming from. So that leaves me with trying to find a new slip yoke, or better yet a new driveline.

My question is, does anyone have any experience with using the Marlin Long Spline Drive Shaft kit to fab another rear driveline?

Or does anyone have any recommendations for a new rear driveline?

Any input would be greatly appreciated.

 

http://highangledriveline.com/

 

Now I see that they offer a pretty much stock replacement with longer splines on, but says it vibrates at anything over 5 mph. I also don't have $900 to spend on the CV joint setup.

With less angle on the driveline, I would assume that the vibration would be lessened. I use my truck for hunting, fishing, camping, that sort of thing, and highway use is not avoidable.

 

i fully feel your pain bro...my t-case blew up at highway speeds as well....but this was a few years ago lol

 

That is some nasty carnage. I can't believe something like that can happen!

Do you know what caused your t-case to self destruct?

 

Still un-determined how, but it appears the transfer case got low on fluid (even though I had just topped it off the week before). It looks like it built up heat with limited lubrication, and finally seized.

Still don't know exactly what happened, I thought possibly the diff had gotten some play in it, causing vibration, which wiggled the transfer case output shaft enough to let the fluid leak out, but later found the diff had no play in it, and still looked brand new. Possibly a U-Joint vibration, but no way to really be sure.

I'm going to try the slip yoke off the front driveline to see if that improves my vibration problem on the rear any. If that doesn't work, I'm going to replace the drive shaft, just haven't decided what to replace it with yet.

Trying to get the truck back in good working order, but don't want to have to sell the house to do it. As I said, the fun continues.

 

On another note, has anyone had any dealings with the Driveshaft Super Store out of Phoenix?

 

With driveline shops, you do not need a long spline rear driveline.

And when you swap yokes, make sure you put it back together in PHASE...

 

Yeah, it was put together in phase with the cracked slip yoke, but was still too much play, and was creating wobble.

However, last night after work, I went home and swapped the front and rear slip yokes, got everything put back together and went for a test drive.

Low and behold, I got on the freeway and did 65 with no vibration other then some tires.

So it's fixed for now. I can get by with the degraded slip yoke on the front for a while, at least until I can get that front driveline replaced, whether new or finding one in a junkyard, or somewhere online.


Thanks for all the input folks, glad to have the truck back on the road.

 

Shouldn't be hard to find something you can use at a junk yard.

 

Yeah, I'll be fine. Just glad to finally get it figured out. I will find another front driveline at some point I'm sure, but can get by with what I have for now.

And thank you to whoever changed the title of the thread, I meant to do it and got sidetracked at work.