- Joined
- Mar 13, 2005
- Location
- Raleigh, NC
As some of you guys know, we had to take our 2003 Cummins to Lee Crawford at TLC Transmission back in January because of a bad pilot bearing. Lee rebuilt the NV5600 and installed a South Bend Con O clutch while he had the truck in his shop.
We only had the truck back for a few days when we hopped out on the interstate to run a few errands on a Sunday afternoon. It was the first time I had the truck up to highway speeds since it came out of the shop. We were rolling along, doing fine, when I noticed a new, high-pitched whirring noise. Cydney heard it too. I took my foot off the gas and the noise got louder. We were coming up on our exiit at this point, so I moved over, chopped the throttle again, and this time it sounded like there was a lawnmower sitting in the truck bed. By the time we got to the bottom of the exit ramp, the rear of the truck was shaking violently.
While Cyd took care of the shopping, I crawled under the truck to see if I could find the source of the vibrations. After a few minutes of inspecting parts, I decided with about 90% certainty that at least two of the u-joints and the carrier bearing on the rear driveshaft were bad. The diagnosis matched the symptoms, and corresponded loosely with the truck's recent shop visit. I assumed that after ten years and 150,000 miles, the transmission work probably disturbed some old u-joints that had been barely clinging to life.
I drove the truck back to the house (vibrating pretty harshly the whole way) and parked it.
I called Carolina Driveline in Spartanburg, SC, the following morning. I essentially had two options available to me: For about $250 in parts and my own labor, I could swap out all three u-joints, install a new carrier bearing, and be back on the road in a couple of days. Or, I could use the repair as an opportunity to upgrade. Carolina Driveline could replace my old, rusty, two-piece steel driveshaft with a shiny, new, one-piece, 5" aluminum shaft for about $500. All I had to do was remove the slip yoke from the transfer case end and the flange yoke from the axle end and mail them to Spartanburg. As Brett explained to me over the phone, those two parts were worth about $150-200 in additional charges, but they could mate my old yokes to the new driveshaft and balance the whole assembly before shipping it back to me.
As anyone with an early third-generation Dodges can attest, these trucks are notorious for having driveline shudder at low speeds. You can reduce the severity of the shudder by adding (or removing) shims from the carrier bearing spacer to change the driveline angle, but changing the amount of cargo in the bed changes the driveline angles, causing the shudder to return.
Dodge fixed this problem in the later model trucks by installing a one-piece rear driveline. However, the OEM Mopar driveline was designed for the shorter G56 transmission, and will not work with the NV5600.
The following evening, I bundled up and braved some sleet and freezing rain to remove the two yokes from the truck and pack them up to ship to Carolina Driveline. The driveline came out with just a few bolts, the u-joints came off without too much effort, and in about an hour's time, the yokes were boxed up and ready to ship the next morning.
However, something was wrong.
When I have replaced universal joints in the past, the joint always seemed to feel better when installed than it looked once I got it apart. A joint that had a tiny bit of slop when installed on the truck would turn out to be bone dry, missing all its needle bearings, and have worn flat spots on the trunnions. However, both u-joints that I removed from the rear driveline looked pretty good. They had plenty of grease, and the needles were in fine shape. If I put the caps back on, it still seemed like they had a little bit of slop, but not nearly as much as I would expect, given how violently the truck shook at 35 mph.
I went back to the truck bed where the rest of the driveshaft was laying to check the carrier bearing and center joint. The carrier bearing could stand to be replaced. The bearing was tight and spun freely, but the rubber isolator surrounding the joint was badly cracked and torn. The center u-joint also felt pretty good. It was tight, no slop at all. I flipped the shaft over to check the center joint from the other side.
At this point, I was starting to worry that maybe I was barking up the wrong tree. I started brainstorming, trying to think what else could be wrong that would make the truck act like this. Maybe Lee missed something... maybe I've got a tire with a broken belt... I wonder what kind of shape the rear end is in...
Then I realized that the driveshaft wouldn't lay flat. One end was sticking up at a 15* angle. I grabbed either side of the center joint and tried to force it to move. It wouldn't go. The center u-joint had seized on one axis.
That's when I noticed something was definitely wrong.
Ha. There's the problem. Satisfied that a new one-piece aluminum driveshaft would cure what ailed me, I boxed up the yokes and shipped them to Brett at Carolina Driveline. I also included a sheet of measurements that they would use to determine how long the new shaft needed to be.
Old and busted. Both yokes have been removed for shipping. The transfer case end is at the far side. The carrier bearing can be seen near the middle of the shaft.
We only had the truck back for a few days when we hopped out on the interstate to run a few errands on a Sunday afternoon. It was the first time I had the truck up to highway speeds since it came out of the shop. We were rolling along, doing fine, when I noticed a new, high-pitched whirring noise. Cydney heard it too. I took my foot off the gas and the noise got louder. We were coming up on our exiit at this point, so I moved over, chopped the throttle again, and this time it sounded like there was a lawnmower sitting in the truck bed. By the time we got to the bottom of the exit ramp, the rear of the truck was shaking violently.
While Cyd took care of the shopping, I crawled under the truck to see if I could find the source of the vibrations. After a few minutes of inspecting parts, I decided with about 90% certainty that at least two of the u-joints and the carrier bearing on the rear driveshaft were bad. The diagnosis matched the symptoms, and corresponded loosely with the truck's recent shop visit. I assumed that after ten years and 150,000 miles, the transmission work probably disturbed some old u-joints that had been barely clinging to life.
I drove the truck back to the house (vibrating pretty harshly the whole way) and parked it.
I called Carolina Driveline in Spartanburg, SC, the following morning. I essentially had two options available to me: For about $250 in parts and my own labor, I could swap out all three u-joints, install a new carrier bearing, and be back on the road in a couple of days. Or, I could use the repair as an opportunity to upgrade. Carolina Driveline could replace my old, rusty, two-piece steel driveshaft with a shiny, new, one-piece, 5" aluminum shaft for about $500. All I had to do was remove the slip yoke from the transfer case end and the flange yoke from the axle end and mail them to Spartanburg. As Brett explained to me over the phone, those two parts were worth about $150-200 in additional charges, but they could mate my old yokes to the new driveshaft and balance the whole assembly before shipping it back to me.
As anyone with an early third-generation Dodges can attest, these trucks are notorious for having driveline shudder at low speeds. You can reduce the severity of the shudder by adding (or removing) shims from the carrier bearing spacer to change the driveline angle, but changing the amount of cargo in the bed changes the driveline angles, causing the shudder to return.
Dodge fixed this problem in the later model trucks by installing a one-piece rear driveline. However, the OEM Mopar driveline was designed for the shorter G56 transmission, and will not work with the NV5600.
The following evening, I bundled up and braved some sleet and freezing rain to remove the two yokes from the truck and pack them up to ship to Carolina Driveline. The driveline came out with just a few bolts, the u-joints came off without too much effort, and in about an hour's time, the yokes were boxed up and ready to ship the next morning.
However, something was wrong.
When I have replaced universal joints in the past, the joint always seemed to feel better when installed than it looked once I got it apart. A joint that had a tiny bit of slop when installed on the truck would turn out to be bone dry, missing all its needle bearings, and have worn flat spots on the trunnions. However, both u-joints that I removed from the rear driveline looked pretty good. They had plenty of grease, and the needles were in fine shape. If I put the caps back on, it still seemed like they had a little bit of slop, but not nearly as much as I would expect, given how violently the truck shook at 35 mph.
I went back to the truck bed where the rest of the driveshaft was laying to check the carrier bearing and center joint. The carrier bearing could stand to be replaced. The bearing was tight and spun freely, but the rubber isolator surrounding the joint was badly cracked and torn. The center u-joint also felt pretty good. It was tight, no slop at all. I flipped the shaft over to check the center joint from the other side.
At this point, I was starting to worry that maybe I was barking up the wrong tree. I started brainstorming, trying to think what else could be wrong that would make the truck act like this. Maybe Lee missed something... maybe I've got a tire with a broken belt... I wonder what kind of shape the rear end is in...
Then I realized that the driveshaft wouldn't lay flat. One end was sticking up at a 15* angle. I grabbed either side of the center joint and tried to force it to move. It wouldn't go. The center u-joint had seized on one axis.
That's when I noticed something was definitely wrong.
Ha. There's the problem. Satisfied that a new one-piece aluminum driveshaft would cure what ailed me, I boxed up the yokes and shipped them to Brett at Carolina Driveline. I also included a sheet of measurements that they would use to determine how long the new shaft needed to be.
Old and busted. Both yokes have been removed for shipping. The transfer case end is at the far side. The carrier bearing can be seen near the middle of the shaft.
. Needless to say I left that place not on such good terms and limped it back to the campground. Took me about twenty minutes to take the DS out and the same to put it back in but after an 80 minute round trip to Carolina Powertrain in Hickory I think I had $92 dollars in it and CP installed the bearing on the shaft for me.
