Rear end locked while driving

[kagedws6]

I have a really bad feeling I broke a tooth off a gear in my diff. I noticed a sound when I would let off the gas and let the car slow down on the way home Tuesday night.

I had ended up staying home from work Wednesday and forgot about it this morning when I went to leave for work. I had pulled out of my parking spot and drove down the road to an intersection that would take me to the main road.

I start driving and get maybe 5-6 feet and I feel a pop (like the feeling when you release the emergency break **which I had already done earlier just wanted to compare the feeling to something**) and the wheels locked up. I wasn't going more then a few miles an hour as I was just trying to make the turn.

Needless to say I was stranded there till the tow truck arrived, got it home, and took off in my wife's car to work. I'm hoping to crack open the cover to take a peek *whether its in the rear or something to do with the brakes as when you type in rear wheels locked up usually comes up with a brake issue I have to replace the gasket as I noticed a slight leak on the rear end (it wasn't dripping)*

I will try to take pictures as I go and if anyone has any suggestions please feel free to throw them out there. I've never worked on a rear end before and I have worked with drum brakes in the past it was few and far between and its been awhile.

Anything I should check first?

Specs:
1999 Ford Ranger XLT
Single Cab
Flairside Bed
3.0L Flex
5speed
3.73 gear in 7.5 rear

 

[--weezl--]

i would pull the cover off and take a look at the spider gears, sounds like a few of them are crunched up... had a similar issue on my dad's f-150, IIRC we got replacement spider gears and shims from ford for about 60-70$, and had them installed in about a day, using only hand tools... make sure you have a haynes or chilton manual and you should be ok

to get the diff out, you'll have to remove the tires, and the inspection cover, spin the diff and find the lock pin/screw, it holds the large cylindrical pin that runs through the middle of the diff, take both of those out, push the axles inwards, one at a time, and remove the c clips from the end of the axles, then pull the axles out a bit, to get them out of the way, take off the cap bolts, and remove the diff...

it would be a very good idea to have some strong magnets to help you pickup debris out of the axle, and also to take pictures before you take every piece off, i know i had to refer to my phone for pics many times, because i wasn't sure which way things went back in... installation is reverse of above, i don't recall getting the gears in and out of the diff it's self though, i was drinking beer when my dad did that

 

[pillen140]

could you have kept driving or did it lock up solid? take the diff cover off, if parts and pieces come out, its bad... you're better off just getting a junkyard rear end if you have never worked on one before. those metal shavings can ruin bearings and gears in a hurry.

 

[--weezl--]

Depends on what happened, if teeth snapped off, chances are they are mostly large pieces with little surface area, which tend to fall to the bottom, most likely no shavings, and the bearings should be fine


Sent from somewhere naughty!

 

[kagedws6]

Ty so much for your input. I'll hopefully get home early enough to start opening it up. and once I do I'll make sure to take as many pictures as possible.

and yes it locked completly at one point I even tried to rock it from outside the truck and then again driving it and it wouldn't budge. they dragged me up on the flatbed. I gotta manage to straighten my truck up in the parking spot before I start ripping it apart as I'm blocking 2 spaces instead of one I just gotta go pick up a rolling jack so I can slide it right over.

total side note my original plan on getting it out of the intersection involved something I had seen on a youtube video of imports. putting some mcdonalds trays under the rear tire and pushing the crap out of it hoping the truck would slide on the trays. the video was of imports putting them under their rear tires, putting the ebrake on, and hauling ass around sliding all over the place. I told my wife of this BRILLIANT idea. she said no. lol good thing too because in my omg I'm in the middle of an intersection panic I probably would have done it.

 

[kagedws6]

here are some pics. spider gears are clear. with both rear tires off the ground they will spin (one forwards while the other reverse like normal) but when I try to grab the drive shaft in neutral its frozen. went to remove the driveshaft from the rear to see if it would spin then but the bolts were frozen on and it was getting late so I'm going to work on it this coming up weekend with my nephew as he has some more tools and a breakerbar I can use

 

[kagedws6]

gotta wait up early tomorrow and take another crack at getting this fixed. it sucks because I take public transportation I'm dead tired by the time I get home from work so I'm limited to what I can do on the weekends. Glad my nephew will be able to come out and help me again tomorrow

 

[Rowdy Fitzgerald]

here are some pics. spider gears are clear. with both rear tires off the ground they will spin (one forwards while the other reverse like normal) but when I try to grab the drive shaft in neutral its frozen. went to remove the driveshaft from the rear to see if it would spin then but the bolts were frozen on and it was getting late so I'm going to work on it this coming up weekend with my nephew as he has some more tools and a breakerbar I can use

Sounds to me like it's your transmission. A similar thing happened to me but with a 4wd fm145. I blew up 5th gear and chunks of it got lodged between other gears. If your tires will move and the spider gears spin the only other thing it could be is one of the bearing on the side of the carrier or the pinion bearing. I've never heard of one of those locking up not that it can't happen I've just never seen it. So that leads me to think your trans locked up for one reason or another.

 

[--weezl--]

Pinion bearing/gear, transfer case of transmission...

Sucks, those are more expensive than the spider gears...


Sent from somewhere naughty!

 

[kagedws6]

progress was slow today due to a family emergency. after me my brotherinlaw and nephew finally got started we we having issues with everybolt we came across being stuck so wd40 was definately our friend today lol. I can safely say it is either the pinion gear or the bearing now. we got the driveshaft off and it spins fine on the trans side but the rear is still locked up. realized I can't find my 8mm wrench anywhere and will have to pick up one in the morning so I can start taking the spider gears out. that and I'm glad I haven't had a flat because the rims are froze on the damn car. I've been kicking the wheel so hard I moved the damn truck.


I think soon I will have to take the bed off the truck and scrub down every piece of metal I can find and spray coat it because its a nice rusty mess down there.

 

[Rowdy Fitzgerald]

Glad to hear it wasn't the trans! It ought to be a quicker and cheaper fix!!!

 

[--weezl--]

one would hope!