2000 ram 1500 drive line confusion

[94ToyBear]

So I'm working on a 2000 Dodge Ram 1500 pickup 4x4 and it has confused me more than I could have imagined. The driver of the truck was driving 35 miles an hour on a dry Road and his rear pinion nut came out.
The pinion gear got sucked in the the diff, Locked the rear wheels up , breaking a tooth off the ring gear.

The confusion part of this is, the threads on the pinion and nut are fine aaaaand the front Passanger side Axle shaft is busted too......driver said he was not in 4x4 at the time. I checked the t case lever and it was in 2wd.

Damage known so far, rear diff is trashed, rear drive shaft is a tad twisted, front pass axle shaft u joint busted.....
Help my brain someone! I had dreams/nightmares of this last night.

[Brian]

Could it be the front axle shaft has been broken for a while and he just never noticed?

[Patrolman]

When was the damage done?

[94ToyBear]

Nop, chucks of the ujoint bearing caps are sitting on the kuckels. And its fresh metal exposed.

[94ToyBear]

When was the damage done?

Few days ago, while driving on dry road.
35mph.

[dieseldoc]

Adam, the rear axle is a known failure.
This is not the 1st one I have heard of.
The 9.25 as well as the 8.25 are known for the pinion nuts coming lose.
As for the front end, I would open the T case and check for damage.
The electronic controls are crap. We have had them shift in to 4x at 70 mph thus trashing the case and front drive shaft. Mind you We are running 3500/5500 with the solid axles.
I bet the rear pinion issue affected the case as well as the computer running to mom a when the pinion failed.


The rear is a factory issue, the pinion nut is not detented to the grove or the stover( lock nut) was not as tightly pinched as tight as it should have been.
We ( partner at work and myself) have been known to use a punch on the threads to keep things from backing off, we even tack weld stuff on the trailer suspension.

[dieseldoc]

Sorry Adam I was just thinking about this....you said its got a floor shifter.
So the front shaft....could be failure from the locking up of the rear. But not likely.
Unless the truck spun and hit something.

One other source of damage we have in some of our trucks is the front drive shaft the CV has a very small grease zirk burried in the CV, if the thing gets dry it will come apart taking all kinds of stuff with it.

[94ToyBear]

You got it right, its a Manuel shift.
How can it have danaged the front U joint if it was not,in 4X4?
Only thing i can really come up with is the driver tried to shift the t case in to 4 high while driving.

[Jim]

My guess for the busted front end:

I question if it was not in 4WD. If the system was in 4WD and the rear driveshaft seized while the vehicle was moving (specifically on bare ground) the "stopped" drivetrain parts - with front wheels still rotating - would likely fail somewhere up front - and it did.

When the vehicle came to a stop the operator likely tried "moving all of the levers" to get things rolling (and it was left in 2WD).

[dieseldoc]

I have to agree with Jim.
Things were moved after the fact.
Your driver is lucky the case didn't . split.

[94ToyBear]

Im on the same page to....the drive has to have been lying to me!
I put the pinion flange and nut back on the rear fo i can move it forward, in 4x4. The front joint is so damaged its binding up. It feels like the t case will be ok.
But like you say, he lucky the t case didnt go...seems to me the t case should be the weak link here but that seems fine as of now.
Ill get a front joint in it and see what i come up with

[dieseldoc]

Front out put would be the week link.
If you don't see cracks aro7nd the front housing it should be fine.

Our 5500(2012) tore the front out put off, tore the fuel and DEF lines as well as the wire harness, to the tune of $8500 but that's with a T-case, a Borg Warner unit, the dealer had to have one built....they told us there was no availability in country....go figure that for the case they changed to...

[Patrolman]

Since it was recent, I was going to guess that the driver had it in 4wd for the snow storm last weekend, and simply forgot to put it back in 2wd before driving on the pavement.

[94ToyBear]

Thats my original thought.
Iasked him about ten times if he was sure we was not if 4x4.
He said he had it in 4 high last week from Boulder to denver and thats it.......that explains the front shaft damage ifthats the case but what about the Pinion nut?
Will driving in 4x4 on dry pavement back the nut off?
Its allmost like 4 things were wrong and they all when at the same time.

[Patrolman]

My guess would be the unknowingly being in 4wd on pavement killed the front shaft. I would guess that it is just coincidence that the rear happened to fail at the same time. Maybe driving on the pavement in 4wd helped a bit by binding up the drivetrain.

[Jim]

My thought (part two - with a couple questions that might bust my two assumptions)...

1) is this an auto trans vehicle? I'm leaning to it being an auto as if it were auto the motor is somewhat disconnected to the hard connected driveline items.

Vehicle in 4x4 mode. The pinion nut backed off because it was not torqued properly. No relation to 4WD vs. 2WD causing it to back off - it should stay put no matter so long as it's properly fastened. Nut backed off, pinion changed position and grenaded the rear diff. Q2: when the rear diff stopped rotating was the driveshaft, via the splines on the pinion & yoke still engaged? If they were not engaged, the stoppage of the rear diff/pinion should not have caused the rear driveshaft to stop spinning. If the rear driveshaft rotation was connected to the non-rotating pinion then I could see my thought process fitting events. How are the splines of the yoke/pinion - any damage to either mating surface [with proper install they'd be ~100% connected but as the pinion slid into the diff and exited the yoke perhaps only 20 or 10% of the spline surface was in contact - a lot of force on a smaller area. Is there a smaller surface area of either mating spline torqued?].

[Hypoid]

I can't count the times I thought I was in 4-wheel drive, or my Mrs. thought she was in 2-wheel drive. Before you put this truck back on the road, inspect the shifter linkages and engine/transmission mounts.

[dieseldoc]

Jim, thechrystler 9.25 rear axle (the newer ones ) are pron to this issue. started with the big truck fender body style.
this is also when manufacture moved south of the border. I bet the truck was in 4x4 and the pinion moving stoped all motion and well SNAP.