Sunday wheelin damage

[chuzie]

So I managed to sever the front driveshaft at the yoke on the transfer case.

The yoke looks fine. There is some fresh metal on the ears where the u-joint thrashed out but otherwise looks ok.

I will need new bolts to reconnect the shaft to the yoke and I will have to extract the two remaining broken bolts from the shaft side of the yoke.

Since there are only two broken bolts I am going to have to take the blame for this one. Four broken bolt or even three make more sense than two and on the same side at that. I guess I either failed to properly torque or failed to inspect in a timely manner. my bets are on the first of the two.

I also found a puddle of gear oil on the floor coming out of the front right side so I hope it is just a seal an nothing more.

Was deep enough to justify, at a minimum, fluid/oil inspections across the board.

We will see what happens with this on the weekend.

[chuzie]

Decided to tackle the front axle seal leak first. Before I tore down the front end to replace the seal I tried to exhaust my other options first.

Has anyone experience oil leakage due to water displacing the oil? Would this be enough to force it out the seal?

I ask because when I removed the fill plug to inspect the condition of the oil a significant amount drained so I knew there was water. When I removed the bottom bolts from the front cover I had about 3+ cups of water drain so I know that is the displacer here.

Thoughts before I go tearing this down?

[blazinchuck]

take the cover off, clean all the contaminated oil out and fill it up with fresh gear lube. Your gonna get some oil out the tubes when on angles...dont sweat it. Just wipe it off and fix the drive shaft...you will be fine.

[broncomatt]

if that was the first sign of the leak, it was all the water. Flush it good, and be sure to tighten all the bolts ; )
Broncomatt

[chuzie]

thx. I threw some lucas gear oil in there too just in case the seal was going. i will know if it hold in the morning.

[chuzie]

anyone have an of the shelf source for the yoke bolts on the front driveshaft at the transfer case?

[chuzie]

My vent shimmied its way down into the wheel well from the engine compartment and was more than happy to suck in the water.

Good call on the seals. I will file that away for my next leak. I am going to see how it goes for now though. If I repack my hubs I will likely go ahead and change the seals though.

Thanks for the info.

[johnpaulgolf]

I don't think my front has any seals at all...:hysterical:

Everytime I go into any water I get filled up!!!:banghead:

Even when I flex a little some gear oil comes out...:crying:

So if you do your seals please please do a tech article!!!:biggthumpup:

[chuzie]

its pretty easy to do but I will be happy to make a write-up if I decide to change them. Thanks for the suggestion

[chuzie]

Houston we may have a problem.

I extracted the two sheared bolts from the CV on my frt driveshaft and cleaned out the threads. I had to use the drill to clean two of the holes on the yoke in order to get the bolts through.

I am having issues with getting two of the bolts tightened. One will go almost all the way but it is has way too much resistance for freshly cleaned threads and the other bolt on that ear will not even engage the threads. I am thinking I may have slightly bent the yoke when the driveshaft came off.

I rotated the shaft 180 on the yoke and the same hole locations on the yoke are giving me the same problems (1 too much resistance and the other not threading). This tells me that the driveshaft is ok but the yoke is jacked.

I did file down some gnarled and malformed metal on the ears that I thought was protruding enough to interfere with proper mating but that obviously was not the issue.

Unless someone thinks I am going down the wrong path with this line of thinking, I am going to assume I need to start looking in to a new yoke.

Is the yoke on the front the same as the yoke on the back in terms of hole spacing?

I could do one last confirmation and try swapping the front and rear driveshafts just to finally eliminate the driveshaft as the culprit.

Is the yoke a line replaceable item (i.e. can change it without dissembling or removing the transfer case)? Looking at the illustrated parts breakdown, it appears that a couple of bolts and the retaining nut will allow it to come off. Is this correct? If so, anyone have a yoke for a D20 xfer case?