Dan Marino

Well, I finally broke something. I got a knocking noise in my front punkin - forward and reverse. Not U-joints...Any ideas what might have come apart in there. I can drive it but it makes a loud knocking noise - it actually started while I was cruising along at 65 mph.

PourinDiesel

Did you take the cover off yet?

Any abuse of late that would have caused this?

Dan Marino

Just 7 hooks over the past 4 weeks. I have been daily driving about 30 miles over the past 3 days. Havent used the locker for anything but pulling and havent had 4WD locked either. Havent got the cover off yet -it just happened. What I have been geetin abuse wise is my front end bucking, shimmy-ing, jumping. Ive got Thuren track bar and steering stabilizer in the works.

PourinDiesel

Keep us posted...
Not many of us here have front lockers...

I can only think of you, myself and danshss.

K5KRAZIE

A friend of mine just had this issue with his e-locker!! The cross pin bolt backed out the ruined the wiring before it shot out the front cover!!!! Take the cover off and check everything, make sure that bolt and the ring bolts are all tite!!!

JohnInNH

"The cross pin bolt backed out"

Same here.... It stayed in the housing and made a "few" spins around the ring gear and finally popped off a tooth the last time it got caught up in the gears.

When I popped the cover off the smushed bolt, now in a few pieces, and the gear tooth bits all came out into the pan... not a fun sound.

New gears and new bolt. (now loctited in). I was lucky more damage was not done. Have to say not good for confidence. I keep waiting for a "BANG" from the front end. Yep.. I'm paranoid now.

If you put one in... Check the torque .. or better yet.. remove and add some loctite and re torque


Other thing to watch for is the wire routing .. make sure you do not let slack in the wire let it get caught up in the bolt heads as they spin around. It's tight in there. I have my wires coming through a hole in the front cover and added a drain plug.

With the DynaTrac hubs the gear oil is not being challenged as much since I am in 2 wheel drive 99.9% of the time.

Dan Marino

HOLY CRAP !!!! this is exactly what we found - cross pin grenaded!!! This is an issue guys. From the pre inspection no gears are ruined.

I got a good one for you guys on the runaround I got today. I called Randys ring and pinion and asked about warranty -its got a year. Mine is out in two days. I got to take it out and send it. So I ask the first guy I talk to about just sending me the pin and bolts and they said they dont provide parts for the Eaton and gave me the number to 4 wheel offroad. I called them and they say"we dont have parts for that, we have to call Eaton." I said Randys sent me to you and he then says "thats crazy, we dont have parts for the Eaton". So I call back to Randys and the new guy is alot more helpful. He somehow finds the pin and bolts that the first guy said they didnt have and I should have by 12:00 noon tommrow. What gives with this cross pin? It shouldnt be doing this.

K5KRAZIE

My buddy says he is having to wait for a whole new carrier as the wiring got all fubared when the bolt backed out. The gears looked good but the locker is dusted, maybe he should look into the warrenty. They still say the carrier is weeks out.....

Dan Marino

My wiring is ok. As far as warranty - the bad thing is you have to drop the carrier and send it in. Randys said its a pretty lengthy process. I hope I can repair myself. Bolt/Pin was around 30.00.

gus's 03

not sure if this helps..
ive seen quite a few frontends have issues with the cross pin. its not just the aam front or the eatons.
what we've figured out is most aftermarket carriers that have a removable x/pin come with it just snug, and a lot of installers dont check it because they dont remove it on the front. i used to see atleast 1 tru-track a month with that issue before they went to a snap ring.
i know it sux, but 90% of the time it looks like installer error.
and yes eatons warrenty process is lengthy and a pain .....
hopefully we see some eatons this time, theyve been on b/o for 6months now.

Dan Marino

Just to update anyone who wants to know...One gear on pinion was chewed up and one on the ring. We kept it in and it mated back up. I have drove it 250 miles, changed oil again and pulled with it Saturday. No issues...but I did go ahead and get a new ring and pinion for backup. Pay 650 bucks and a 50 cent bolt messes you up!