Help! stuck in the woods!

[NorthernRyan]

So i was Offroading with some friends, 2 rubicons. Ones stuck which i pulled and pulled with a snatch strap and it would seem that i blew my rear diff. It started with my rear right tire freezing up and now i can move slightly but at the same point i seem to lose all power and it makes a god awful grinding noise. So is there a way to disconnect the rear driveshaft and run just the front. If i put it in neutral and get towed out do u think it will get worse? Any pointers would be appreciated since my other friend will be here in an hour. Typing this on my phone.

 

[Acidmeld]

You can pull the 4 bolts that connect the driveshaft to the rear diff. If the diff itself is blown and won't move you might be able to pull all the nuts that hold the diff in the axle and free it up enough to move.

 

[BlackWorksInc]

Oooh... had this happen to a FJ40 on the 120 Forums when we went to Hollister in March. The rear wheels locked up because the pinion bearing blew out and the shrapnel bound up the gears. We ended up having to partially dissasembly the rear diff enough to remove the pinion shaft and bits so it was just a open axle, then limped it to the parking lot to get towed by a flatbed.

Its going to be really hard to get that 4Runner unstuck if the rear axle is locked up. Can you guys do a field strip on the diff?

 

[Antman]

SUCKS!!!

If you can free up the rear wheels to turn, you can still drive it out in FWD with the rear driveshaft out.

Good Luck!

 

[NorthernRyan]

Update

Thought I would give you guys a little update from home. Thanks for those who replied and many who read and couldn't contribute (I wouldn't be able to ). The original post was short and lacking detail as I wrote it on my phone.

The whole idea of the trip was to go camping with a little bit of off roading on the side. So on the first day, Friday my one friend (call it rubicon 1) got stuck up to his sliders in muskeg, more or less mud and grass. After 4 hours of pulling and digging gave up on it and left it there overnight and I drove the 1.5 hours back into town to get real shovels and gravel. Next day we try again with some serious digging and bags of gravel and me reefing on it with the snatch strap. No go, and then my 4runner starts making rather load clicking noises and I notice my left rear wheel is freezing up each click. So I barely get myself out of the worst of the one spot with the wheel freezing up. Then the car started to make a grinding noise and started losing power, or at least I think so. In hindsight I should have done more trouble shooting but at that point the second rubicon starts shutting off. So I don't want to move my truck on its own power, for the god awful sound its making, up the hill to flat ground and there are no vehicles left running. Buddy in Yukon and ATV comes out, gets stuck up before us trying to tow the rubicon 2 out. Get rubicon 2 running, tow out Yukon, get them to the road and basically call it quits somewhat ahead ish.

So as it stands my buddies rubicon 1 is sitting out in mud up to the rails with no doors on it in the rain, and my 4runner 40 feet away from it on the hill. We figured by shaking rubicon 2s (12.5km btw, jeeps suck:lol fuse box we could get it to run and limp it to the highway where it gets towed back to town, and we get someones uncle to drive out in a truck to pick up people and all the camping gear.

I think the plan is to go back in a few days with some heavy equipment, some more vehicles and mechanically experienced people but that's still in the air. I'm still playing with the idea its just the drum parking brake all mangled on the left rear. That I can gut in the field in 20 mins if I can get towed to level ground, then drive out. If it's the rear diff, that's another story involving field work a little over my head and some serious towing to get me dead through the mud.

Will update with the some pics and all when we go back again, till then my baby sits in the forest for 3-4 days :happens:, I got work tomorrow.

Any comments are appreciated, curious if anyone has had the parking break fail before and catch. I repaired this once before on that side so I may have done a lack luster job I suppose...

 

[smichaelq]

Fun trip!

I would love to see the looks on some hikers as they come across what has to look like a post-apocalyptic / mass murder crime scene as they try to get back to their RV without getting chopped up themselves!!

Good luck!

 

[aha2988]

There's hope its just the parking brake on, I've set mine when offroading to stop on a flex pose to take a picture and then got back in the truck to keep wheeling and left my parking brake on it starts clicking and theres a grinding rubing noise. You can't feel it drag when the trucks in 4lo so Then i go oh **** what did i mess up just to remember oh its the parking brake, release it and the noises go away. Good luck. If The diff is damanged it's one of a few problems
1.) broken axel shaft
2.) broken ring gear or pinion gear teeth
3.) broken or shattered spider gears.

Field solutions to get the rig back to moving if these are the cases
1.) get one rear tire off the ground at a time with a jack with the truck in gear try to turn the tire by hand if you cant turn it the axel shaft is still in one piece. If you can spin it and you hear grinding noises the shaft is broken..
pull the wheel off, remove the brake caliper suspend with a strap or rope from the frame rail, theres 4 bolts that hold the hub to the axel housing remove these bolts pull the shaft out use an extension magnet to get as much debree from the axel shaft out of the housing. Using a cuting tool saw the axel short enough to go back in without interfering with the carrier. rebolt replace any lost fluid keep center diff locked drive out in 4wheel drive. you can try just removing the drive shaft so you dont force the axel shaft to turn and see if it will roll freely but this could cause damage to the carrier assembly it would be best to get the broken pieces of the axel out if posible.

2.) disconnect the rear drive shaft at both ujoint connections keep center diff locked and drive out in 4wheel drive (yes the teeth will grind posibly cause slightly more damage) however you gota get the rig out and your gonna have to overhaul the third member of the axel anyway

3.) Try disconnecting the the driveshaft as mentioned in the solution to the number 2 problem. keep center diff locked and drive out in 4wheel drive. the broken/shattered fragments may cause the carrier to lock up but both wheels will still roll (at the same speed like you have a locker).

with the drive shaft disconnected and running center diff locked in 4wheel drive your only going to have one main drive wheel which should be your driver front pulling because of the open center front differential. Your atrack system may start kicking on if that one wheel starts spinning trying to get out of your situation. If you can't get enough wheel speed out of the spinning wheel to pull yourself through the mud. if you just take the gas cap off it will throw a check engine light code which also turns off your traction control and stability control this will alow you to push all the power to whichever front tire wants to spin and pull to get you out of the mud.

 

[Sungod]

I hope it is safe out there. You leave a truck on a trail around here overnight and you will have a shell sitting there the next day.

 

[Red]

I hope it is safe out there. You leave a truck on a trail around here overnight and you will have a shell sitting there the next day.

He's in Northern Alberta on a trail in the muskeg, not much up there and being a weekday most of the people up there are all in the camps or working in the mines and plants. He should be ok.

by the sounds of it you guys dug a pretty big hole, going to need a back hoe to dig those vehicles out of the muskeg, that **** is awful for swallowing vehicles.

 

[NorthernRyan]

Update 2!

Lets pick up where we left off. I spent 4 sleepless nights till we could get a convoy of vehicles together for the rescue mission (3 stock pick ups and 2 very offroad jeeps). My house mate posted on the Jeeps of Fort McMurray forums and two random guys that we have never met before offered to help us out and wouldn't even take money in return. As they put it, your always getting stuck out here, so it's karma.
<a href="http://s1183.photobucket.com/albums/x477/engryan/car/?action=view&current=IMGP0215.jpg" target="_blank"><img src="http://i1183.photobucket.com/albums/x477/engryan/car/IMGP0215.jpg" border="0" alt="Some Jeeps to the rescue."></a>
One is a Rubicon on 35s and the other is an old CJ5 on 40s.

So I was very worried that when I got to my vehicle there would be a burnt husk left as many vehicles get stolen, stripped and burnt out here. While we were 1.5 hours out of town, turned out that we were right next to a notoriously bad native reserve, had no idea. But I guess the rain kept them away as when we got there they were untouched. :guitar2:

So we tested my car briefly. If I locked the center differential I could move forward with something binding up at a regular interval making a loud click and freezing the rear axle. If I left the center differential unlocked it would move forward to a point then I would lose power and something slipped and made a terrible grinding noise. So between the Tcase and the rear wheels something was broken, since both Jeep guys had night shift that day we were on a timeline so we decided to limp it back to the main road on its own power for a lot of it and tow it through the bad mud.

Here's a pic of where I got stuck when it started making the noise. Had to go around where my buddys Jeep was stuck. Couldn't/didn't want to give it full power due to the noise and the rear axle kept freezing up and dragging. Got through 100 feet of the worst of it but lost speed and got stuck 5 feet from dry land, easy pull out.
<a href="http://s1183.photobucket.com/albums/x477/engryan/car/?action=view&current=IMGP0212.jpg" target="_blank"><img src="http://i1183.photobucket.com/albums/x477/engryan/car/IMGP0212.jpg" border="0" alt="Last Stuck"></a>

I don't have any pictures of my buddies Jeep but if I get some off him I'll show ya how stuck he was. Took the CJ5 about 6 progressively aggressive yanks to pop him up and pull him out. He was taking 20 foot runs at it with the strap slack, thought for sure something was gunna break but it eventually pulled the stock Jeep out like a rag doll taking out a stand of three 3inch saplings, bushes and came to rest on a log on the other side of the trail. I hate myself for not getting a video of it.

But we got our babies out.
<a href="http://s1183.photobucket.com/albums/x477/engryan/car/?action=view&current=IMGP0219.jpg" target="_blank"><img src="http://i1183.photobucket.com/albums/x477/engryan/car/IMGP0219.jpg" border="0" alt="Our babies finally out."></a>

Got a AMA membership the morning we went out and they honored it for what would have been a $700 tow. Safe to say they have me as a Gold member for life. Here's me admitting defeat.
<a href="http://s1183.photobucket.com/albums/x477/engryan/car/?action=view&current=IMGP0222.jpg" target="_blank"><img src="http://i1183.photobucket.com/albums/x477/engryan/car/IMGP0222.jpg" border="0" alt="Addmitting defeat."></a>

So now down to what I broke. One of the Jeep guys was saying it could be the slip yolk and that that was a cheap part so I took a picture of the joint (I think) to ask if it looked like excessive leakage from a possible break.
<a href="http://s1183.photobucket.com/albums/x477/engryan/car/?action=view&current=IMGP0224.jpg" target="_blank"><img src="http://i1183.photobucket.com/albums/x477/engryan/car/IMGP0224.jpg" border="0" alt="Slip yolk?"></a>

However after some testing outside my house so see where it was slipping I'm almost 100% that it's the rear diff. Am I wrong?

Don't have a garage yet so I need to figure that out but with the video and the regular binding but moving information how bad do you guys think it is and who has messed around with them? Is there a better aftermarket replacement? Time for a rear locker? :biggrin2:

 

[aha2988]

It didnt sound like a diff issue to me from the video, it could just be the sound qaulity on my end but i couldnt see your drive shaft moving. that could also just be bad angle of the video. you would have had to break every tooth off the pinion gear and or the pinion gear is grinding against several broken teeth on the ring gear to creat that sound. Mud shouldnt provide enough traction to your tires to create the torque pressure requirements to break a differential I wouldnt think anyway. I broke a few teeth in a dayna 75 rear axel on my old 1st gen cummins 2500 deisel truck and it still drove down the road it just poped everytime it tryed to turn the broken part of the ring gear IMO it sounded like the grinding was coming from the center of the vehicle like something inside the transfer case. A better way to test it would be to jack the vehicle up and place it on 4 jackstands Very securly. Then run the vehicle attempt to spin the wheels without a load on the axels this will give you a better input to the problem as you will see what the power is getting to and what its binding up at.

edit!!!!: ok so i tryed watching the video in full screen and deffinantly saw the drive shaft spinning. theres something broken in there for sure. ok heres what you need to do next...
Jack the truck off the ground and secure on jack stands. Put the truck in neutral and spin each tire my hand this will tell you if its a broken axel shaft the grinding may be the sheared axel ends grinding together. (its an open center diff so if one axel shaft breaks it wont transfer power to the other side at all just sends it to the side with less traction i.e. the broken axel shaft side.

If you can turn each tire by hand and one axel shaft is broken the grinding noise will be heard no matter which tire you spin what your looking for is which tire you can spin and turn the drive shaft and which tire you can spin and not turn the drive shaft the side that isnt turning the drive saft will be your broken axel shaft side. (I'm just gonna bet passenger side cuz thats the one that free wheels the most in my experience)

If neather wheel will spin the drive shaft then it's posible you've broken eather A.) teeth on the ring gear B.) teeth on the pinion gear c.) shattered the spider gears. All of these issues will need to be diagnosed by disassembling the carrier from the axel houseing. I would check for broke axel first that way you just have to pull that one side of the axel appart and can probably handle that yourself if its a carrier, ring gear, pinion gear issue you'll probably want that done by a professional or someone experienced with drivelines and differentail rebuilds. Yes this is a great time to install a locker as it will transfer power to both axles equally, lowering the stress of the axel shaft that free wheels most often, while engaged. also if you were interested in a lower gear ratios this would be a good time as well (only if you have to go into your carrier assembly) If its just a broken axle shaft replace the shaft and keep wheeling my friend. Unless you want lockers like i do then just buy one anyway if you have the money. ARB number one name in lockers. You can go true trac (limited slip) but thats lame/cheaper IMO.

 

[BlackWorksInc]

I'm going to call that a internal differential failure. Chances are you snapped some teeth on the pinion/ring gear (rarely see one grenading without the other following in some fashion). You may have had a bearing give you and the bits flying around inside (had this issue on a T120 Forum Trail Ride up in Hollister Hills on a member's old FJ40, ended up having to tear apart the diff in the field.)

AHA2988 Pretty much said what I would have, so there's little reason to repeat it. Pretty much, if you're good with a wrench, I'd see if you can get the differential cover off and look at the physical unit to see the extent of the damage. If you plan to rebuild the unit (rather than replace the entire rear axle) make sure the bearings are still in good condition and clean them very well to reduce the chance of shavings or small chips being left inside them.