I will start with a little story...

A penguin was driving through a small town when his car broke down. He called AAA, and his car was towed to a local garage where the mechanic told him he would need a couple of hours to check out the problem. The penguin wasn't in any particular hurry, so he wandered off to look around.

Entering a local supermarket, he bought some fish sticks and some vanilla ice cream for lunch, and then hung out in the frozen foods section until it was time to return to the garage.

The mechanic, seeing him enter the garage, came over wiping his hands on a rag, and shaking his head, saying "It looks like you blew a seal."

Blushing, the penguin quickly wiped his bill with his flippers, and replied, "Oh no! It's just ice cream!"

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Alright, that said, I think I blew a hub tonight. I was climbing a sand dune and couldn't make it. The front started bouncing. The front tires were spinning and when they dug in I heard some loud clanking, popping, etc.

I backed down the hill, put it in 2 wheel drive and had no problems. Later when I put it back in 4 wheel, I could hear clanking from time to time from the left wheel. Sometimes it seemed like it was periodic (like with each rotation of the wheel) and sometimes it seemed to be random. Sounds like broken parts in the hub. In 2 wheel drive there is no noise.

I was hoping that someone here could help me know how to check if the hub is blown and not the ring and pinion or something worse?

Thanks in advance!

Now, time for some fish sticks. :p

John

Hub or a Half shaft, I have seen both come from the same situation. The half shaft when it blew sounded like a gunshot, followed by no 4wd.

Thanks Gbizzle!

I should have added that I still have 4WD, it just makes that noise and lurches a little at the same time...

John

you may have poped the splines on the shaft. That would give you a little bit of 4wd untill you put some torque on it. Then it would make noise as teh spider gear rotated around the shaft (due to broken splines)

Happend to me at GOX two years ago.

Not to take the spot light away, but I have heard that before and actually have a MPEG clip from a comedy central that has a bar full of monkeys and on of the monkeys tells a similar joke to the monkey bar tender. I laughed my ass off when i first saw it.

Sounds serious... . Was it expensive to fix?

Thanks,

John

Pulling an axle is not that bad of a job...all things considered. Provided that your CV is ok (on both sides) you don't have a ton of work ahead of you. You will need to get a new circlip for sure though. They are not that expensive and can be had at a Nissan parts dept. It's what hold the outer CV onto the axle. They're cheap. I do have an axle for you if you need it. I can't use it anymore anyhow.

Thanks EditorX!

I will keep in contact with you once I know for sure what I nuked. :p

John

Not bad at all to fix. I got a new part for the shaft from Xterraparts and did a rebuild on the axle. Took me about 30 min to fix it.

Thanks to everyone for their input...

I have been researching this throughout the day (on the web) and it sounds more and more like I have a broken ring or pinion.

I took the X out during lunch, put it in 4Lo and drove slowly. It goes for a couple of feet and then clanks. Another couple of feet and then clanks again. At one point, it actually stopped dead in its tracks.

If I have to replace the ring and pinion, I wonder if the price is similar for a set with a lower gear ratio (of course I would have to replace the rear at the same time).

If it is the ring/pinion, I wonder why the hub didn't break first.

John

I seriously doubt you've broken a ring and pinion. The CV shafts are weak as hell; I've broken 2 in the past 3 weeks. You can practically look at them crosseyed, and the joints will explode...

Do yourself a favor, and get under your truck... Grab hold of a CV shaft, and try to move it in and out (in the same plane as the shaft). If you have any movement at all, then you've blown a CV shaft. If not, move to the other one, and check it.

That clanking noise is your broken cv shaft, most likely. I'll be extremely shocked if it's a ring or pinion...

I know of at least one person who blew up the front ring and pinon.

Happened several years ago at GOX.

I could see it happening on slickrock, but not in sand. That's why I still think it's a CV.

Bad news...

Last night I checked both hubs and they were fine.

I checked both halfshafts for CV damage and both were fine (they both had very little play in them. Maybe 1mm at most).

There is no visible evidence of damage but the periodic clanking continues in 4WD.

At this point I gotta believe the damage is in the carrier (ring & pinion area).

My brother's a mechanic and he pretty much came to the same conclusion.

At this point I will take it back to the stealership and fight to get this covered under warranty

In the meantime I will be spending time in the 2WD room

Thanks to everyone for their help. I will let you all know how it turns out.

John

Sorry to hear... but hey, at least you didn't blow this seal, either...

Yeah - I blew a seal....



Now it won't stop following me around....

Some news on this...

A friend of mine who used to be a Nissan mechanic told me that this problem is for sure a broken CV joint.

I called the stealership and they told me that they would have to check it out before saying whether this would be covered by warranty. They asked if my X is lifted or had bigger tires.

Well, I have done the poor man's lift and have put on 32's.

Because of this do you all think that they will screw me on the warranty? It's not like I have a 3" lift and 34's.

What do you all think?

Thanks,

John

no, they aren't going to cover it.

Good news is, a new CV can be bought at Autozone, Advance, etc., for only around $90. And it'll come w/ a lifetime warranty (though I haven't heard of anybody getting them to honor that, for an offroad break...)

CVs on Nissans break by just looking at 'em cross-eyed. I've broken 2 in the past month. They're easy to replace, though, and are a "wearable" part for the IFS...

Thanks Porsche and thanks to everyone else for their input.

If they break so often, I suppose I could learn how to change them myself and probably get good at it at the same time :-).

John

I drove all over the Salt Lake Valley yesterday trying to find a CV shaft. Every place told me that they have to be ordered and that it would take several days to get one.

I finally decided to take it to the Stealership to try my chances.

I just got a call from them saying that I blew my front diff!! They had only heard of that happening once. Fortunately, it's going to be covered under warranty :p

John

Mine is destroyed as well.

Powerguy -- How did you manage to do that? Did you also do the "wheel spinning in the air then hitting the ground" thing?

Are you going to do all the work yourself?

John

I'm not sure how I did it. I try to be very careful and not do the front end hop. Last time I did that I destroyed a half shaft. When the diff went, I was just trying to get over a rock, gave it some gas, and bam. I think I had done some damage prior though. It's been making some noise for six months or so.

Yeah I'm changing it myself. As you can see, the old one is out. I'm picking up a used one today to put back in. It's not too bad a job to change it out.

Too bad you don't live closer. I would like to help and at the same time see how all this is done.

Will you be doing the backlash, preload stuff on the ring and pinion? I hear thats the hardest part.

I've also heard that aftermarket shocks like the bilsteins help eliminate the suspension hop. If thats true, it sounds to me like a good investment even if they are $400.

John

Hell, now's the time to put a locker in.