I have been away for a while on work related stuff... allowed an employee of my company to use my truck while I was gone and transfer case exploded. Employee put truck in local shop and had it replaced with rebuilt unit. Shop said double cardan joint grenaded causing failure. Anyone else heard of such an occurence before??? I thought new process transfer cases were bullet proof (for the most part). Rebuilt unit seems to be just fine, just wondering if anyone has similar experience......


Thanks

Gary

 

what was he using it for, those cases can take alot of abuse. I know mine has

 

The "double cardigan joint" is the joint on the front drive shaft where it connects to the t-case. IF the joint came apart it could possibly allow the drive shaft to beat the transfer case to death. Usually if there is any looseness with that particular joint there will be quite a bit of vibration associated it (hwy speeds).

 

Thats exactly what happen to my T-case on my 95. It took alot of beating though. 265,000 miles, racing, and off roadin. It was about time for mine to explode though!

Eric

 

I saw one explode one time.... of course the truck was pushing 500+ hp and hooked to the sled at the time... turned out to be a non-HD transfer case.

 

I caught my first CV failure before it actually came apart, vibed and made a noise like gravel in a tin hubcap,
removed the front shaft and got it replaced (Tom Woods)

2nd time was slow crawling offroad, then punched it in some mud, heard the same gravel hubcap noise and pulled off the road and removed the driveshaft.

Warranty replacement is still sitting in the garage, just haven't had the need or incentives to put it back on.

I guess I was lucky and caught it before it damaged the transfer case.

I'd check your warranty, if the truck was originally sold during the right time in 2002, you have a 7 year/70,000 mile drivetrain warranty, might be able to get some of the cost reimbursed.


phox

 

Thanks for the replies. As far as abuse, the truck is a daily driver mostly hiway @ about 165K miles (no warranty left)...occasional off road use in hunting season. The employee was using it only on hiway and not pulling any loads. They saved cardan joint and it was fairly well grenaded (needle bearings became small welded bits of metal fused to swivel ball). I guess the vibration just torqued the guts out of the unit.


Gary

 

From what Ive been told the Transfer cases they put in these trucks is barely strong enough to put behind a Jeep engine let alone the mighty Cummins. If you want something a lot tougher, look at the gear driven NP205.

 

Gary,is your 02 a late year model? Does it have the full-time rotating front driveshaft? Is the front axle vent on the differential cover? If so, I believe there might have been an internal bulletin on this, and here's why. I took my 02.5 in for a growling noise at high speeds. When the suspension compressed at high speed, the noise would grow louder. The dealer told me the joint at the transfer case was shot (70,000 miles) and needed to be replaced. They called me back later in the day to tell me they needed to order an entire front driveshaft because the old part was no longer being spec'ed as a replacement. It's a good thing I took mine in because there was a lot of play in the joint itself and was it close to failure.

 

Commatoze,
I will check into design...I think mine is a late model cause I bought it in april of 2003... I will look into design of what you speak, but it is still way out of spec cause of my mileage... but at least I can lay off of employee (even though he knows how much I baby my truck and he tried to maintain my strict standards...hell he paid out of pcket for diesel oil changes at 4500 mile even though I told him to do it at 7500-9000 miles, plus he is a semi-wrenchead...)


Gary