Alright I’m pretty new to differentials and anything to do with rear ends really so any advice I could get would be much appreciated. Long story short about 2 days after hitting the trails my 97 TJ started having some serious grinding and vibration issues coming from the rear end. I just opened up the cover on my Dana 35 rear axle and found metal shavings in the fluid and also wear marks caused by the opinion (I watched pictures of this). My question is if my grinding and vibration could be coming from this or if I just happened upon a different issue before it actually broke. If that is the case, then I will need to continue searching for the cause for my grinding/vibration. Any ideas on if this would be the cause? Or am I looking for something else. This to me almost seems like it couldn’t be causing me this much vibration but like I said I don’t know about differentials. Thanks!
97 TJ rear end grinding / vibration
- Thread starter Cbruggie
- Start date
I am also not a differential/rear end guy, but that's from too much pinion lash. There's a crush sleeve on the pinion, and the pinion nut sets the lash. A few guys on here have had this happen and it was from the lash being set too far in. If the pinion seal was replaced and the nut was overtorqued, that could be a factor. That's all I know.
First off, post some pics of your spider gears. They are the smaller gears located in the carrier. Secondly, the pinion nut doesn't set lash. It just holds the pinion snug to the bearings, also known as pre-load. The side shims on the carrier set the backlash. Don't mix those up or you will be doing an entire rebuild.
Does the pinion have ANY in/out play? Rotational play is normal, but it should not move in or out at all. My guess is your spider gears are probably toast but we won't know until you post pics.
Does the pinion have ANY in/out play? Rotational play is normal, but it should not move in or out at all. My guess is your spider gears are probably toast but we won't know until you post pics.
I’ll take some pictures when I get home of the spider gears but I did inspect them right when I opened up the diff and they looked like they were in perfect condition. When I get those pictures I’ll also disconnect my drive line and see how much play there is. From some videos I saw online there’s supposed to be a very very small amount of in and out play on the pinion but not more then about a 1/16 of an inch or so is that right?