I had 5th gear go out in my NV4500 tranny. It was the nut that backed off the shaft routine.
I was too busy to do it myself so I had a local shop/friend fix it. I had him use the upgraded nut kit from the dodge dealer .
NOW I have a vibration in the drive train . It happened right after the fix. Its not bad but its noticable. I checked the u joints, they "feel" fine , I replaced the carrier bearing . The bearing was good but it seemed to have a little too much slop in the rubber cushion.
It still vibrates . Only in 5th gear at freeway speed. The gear was in perfect condition .
The U-joints are all lined up straight on the drive shaft.

Any ideas guys ?

Thanks a bunch.

The advice ? If you have one of these trannys and you have the transmission out for ANY reason, do the upgrade while the tranny is out , BEFORE this happens to you. I had the tranny out about 6 months ago for a clutch. I had read about this 5th gear problem. Now Im kicking myself for not dealing with it then.

 

I had a friend who fought this battle. How did he fix your trans? If he welded the gear nut on the extra metal has thrown the shaft out of balance. Your only real repair option in my opinion is to buy the upgraded shaft and replace.

 

Yea , that crossed my mind . The guy said that he put a tack weld one on each side (oposite) of the nut.
I also asked him if he grounded the welder to the shaft. If not, there might be a possibility of a bearing getting "zapped" to the shaft leaving a pit and then causing a vibration. He said he grounded to the shaft.
This out of balance possibility could very well be it , thx for the reply .
I am still open to any /all thoughts.
I will probably tackle this thing myself in a week or so to see if I can figger out the prob.
so all input is welcome.
Thanks again , this place is great !

Dewey.

 

I posted this for a freind a while back and came up with no real answer. He is still driving with it. Since the repair he said the vibration in mainly in 5th when decelerating. Would be nice to find a solution?? Good luck

 

I was thinking about this situation today . Im wondering if a couple tack welds could REALLY throw the balance out enough to create a vibration. I really dont think my buddy piled on enough metal in those tack welds to do that. I could be wrong, I need to talk to him I guess. I asked him to merely tack weld it and he's a pretty fart smeller...oops... I mean a pretty "smart feller. "

Im pretty sure he did just enough to guarantee the nut would not back off again.

I was wondering if the possibility exsists that in the last fraction of a second just befor the gear slips off of the shaft that the gear gets cocked and that the torque from the motor puts strain on the gear/shaft enough to tweek the shaft enough to put it slightly outta round.

What do ya'll think about my reasoning ? Am I way out of whack ?

I may have access to a couple of these trannys so I may just do some swapping WITH the upgrade.

Thanks.

 

I have heard that welding on the shaft is a big no-no, but I don't think it would cause the balance problem. When I do mine next month (no 5th gear problem, but don't want one later) I am having the driveshaft balanced just to be sure.

Tom

 

Well I need to tear back into this thing to try and figure out my problem.

The guy who did the work is a GREAT manual tranny,trans case, rear end mechanic. We will be doing this together after work sometime in his shop.

He said that he doubted that the tack welds would throw the thing out of balance enough to be noticable . They were two equal sized tackes , 180 degrees apart on the nut . He said the the Upgraded clamp nut that I bought from Dodge would be MUCH more likely to cause the vibration as the nut is out of round/not balanced. He also doubted that it was enough to cause a vibration. hmmmm.....
Well this shaft must be turning at about 2500 RPM in O/D at say 65 MPH. Spinning that fast I wouldnt think it would take too much to cause me a vibration problem like this.

Heres my thought . If we find nothing else obviously wrong , I thought of taking the old nut and pinning it to the gear using a hardened set screw so that it cant back off. AND throw away the 'new and improved' nut !
Well the only problem is he threw my Old nut away. The dealer said it is superceded with the new style nut . ( I dunno , this guy didnt seem really sharp on his computer so maybe he just couldnt find what I was looking for , besides, he probably didnt want to spend to much time on a guy who just wanted to buy a nut !)

Do any of you guys have an old style nut that you could part with ? Or know where I could get one ?

-Or- any other ideas/things to consider that might help me with this dilema?

Thanks for all your earlier input . Hopefully we will find a solution for other guys down the road.

Thanks in advance , I will keep you posted.

Dew

 

My kid is rebuilding mine right now, if he hasn't gotten rid of it yet you can have it.

 

Check the cluster shaft bearing and make sure it's good while your in there.

 

Look at the Torque King 5th gear fix from Quad 4X4, that's the hot ticket, but you will have to replace the mainshaft if it's been welded on. If it has considerable miles on it, you probably should go through it totally just to be sure.

Tom

 

HEY DEWCLAW

Havin trouble returnin your PM, but the 5th gear nut is enroute. Hope you get something worked out. Just got all mine put back together tonight. replaced the stock gear with the full spline setup from quad4x4, so far so good. man, is it nice to have 5th gear back. 40mph has been high speed for me for a couple of months now.

 

Hey 99,

Wow , what can I say !
Thanks a bunch ! I may eventually end up going your route with the shaft upgrade. Sounds like the right way . But hey , Im always looking for a reliable cost effective fix. Many times it just would have been better for me to spend the bucks the first time around.

Yea I remember a L O N G ride home from north Calif in 4th gear . I ran between 55-60 mph at about 2200-2400 rpm's. I have 3:55 gears so it wasnt too bad. Are you runnin 3:55's ? or lower ?

Thanks again bud, its nice to know that there are still some really nice people around. I run into plenty of the opposite here on the left coast.

Oh and , click on my "WWW" . You can put a face to my name and see some of the stuff I like to do out here in Kalifornia.
I have plenty of kin right next door to you in Missouri.

Dew.

 

I'm jealous, I do some fishin and huntin but you look like you do it a lot bigger. I'm mostly after Deer around here, but working on a Black Bear Bow hunt for next year. The extent of my 4 wheelin anymore is just slippin and slidin around the pasture.