R&P or axle may be broken.

Turtle · November 17, 2006

Recently purchased 2000 Yukon 4x4, 115,000 miles.

I did a search and did not find much, other than the rears are weak.

Not sure what rear, or axle ratio. My son took a hard right hand corner, and he heard some ticking noise. Parked it and it rolled while in park. Put it in 4 wheel drive to make it home. before he made it home he put it back into 2WD and he made it home before having to put it back into 4WD.

I drove it last night and if you lightly accelerate you can hear the ticking progressively get faster as you increase speed.

Also if you hit the gas hard it sounds like the R&P or or the axles are stripped, it makes a bad sound and does not accelerate.

Any ideas what it might be? I will try and pull the rear cover off as soon as I have time. Just looking for some ideas before diving in.

While I'm at it I might as well replace all bearings, seals, and those rusty rear brake covers. Oh yeah all U-joints too.

lagrange151 · November 17, 2006

I'm guessing spider gears.

R&P would sound worse.

Axle shaft breaking would allow the wheel to slide out

Turtle · November 20, 2006

Removed the rear end cover and it is the spider gears.

Should I just replace, or is there a better option?

Thanks

Turtle · November 20, 2006

I need to order these in the morning. Just so I am correct: 8.5", 30 spline, correct??

Turtle · November 22, 2006

So it looks like the spider kits available are for open rears, mine has

a GM LSD unit, and I am told it is a GM part only. $415!

What are my options? PowerTrax or something similar?

Please help, I wanted to use my truck for Thanksgiving weekend.

Thanks

Terry

2000 Yukon 5.3, 3.73 gears

ZZebes · November 22, 2006

Powertrax

TrueTrac

OxLocker

The list goes on

pm26 · November 22, 2006

So it looks like the spider kits available are for open rears, mine has

a GM LSD unit, and I am told it is a GM part only. $415!

What are my options? PowerTrax or something similar?

Please help, I wanted to use my truck for Thanksgiving weekend.

Thanks

Terry

2000 Yukon 5.3, 3.73 gears

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E-mail gmpartsdirect.com for a quote on the OEM parts. You may be able to get them at half the dealer retail price. This may be the most economical approach at this point.

Mr. Smith · November 22, 2006

Removed the rear end cover and it is the spider gears.

Should I just replace, or is there a better option?

Thanks

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

Summit has the gears for about 110 bucks.

Rolandd · November 25, 2006

Having blown up my share of rear end gears, I would take the simple route and find a used diff complete from the wrecking yard. Once you blow up gears, you need to replace everything in the diff because you have ground hardened metal bits into the bearings, the ring and pinion, side and spider gears, as well as the guts of your limited slip unit. While you can replace the broken parts (spider and side gears in this case) you will likely always have a noisy diff because everything else is pitted. Also, it is a lot easier to replace the entire diff as a unit than to mess with setting up gears.

Any idea why this failed? I had one that I rebuilt two times until I realized the axle housing was slightly bent--I looked through from one side to the other while horsing around with a friend who was helping, only to see that the center was pushed forward about a half inch. There were no visible marks on the body of the diff, so I can only assume that it came from the factory this way.

Loomis462 · November 26, 2006

i would bet your son was doing more than taking a "hard right turn" !!!!!!!

Turtle · November 27, 2006

Having blown up my share of rear end gears, I would take the simple route and find a used diff complete from the wrecking yard. Once you blow up gears, you need to replace everything in the diff because you have ground hardened metal bits into the bearings, the ring and pinion, side and spider gears, as well as the guts of your limited slip unit. While you can replace the broken parts (spider and side gears in this case) you will likely always have a noisy diff because everything else is pitted. Also, it is a lot easier to replace the entire diff as a unit than to mess with setting up gears.

Any idea why this failed? I had one that I rebuilt two times until I realized the axle housing was slightly bent--I looked through from one side to the other while horsing around with a friend who was helping, only to see that the center was pushed forward about a half inch. There were no visible marks on the body of the diff, so I can only assume that it came from the factory this way.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

Maybe I should do the used thing. This was in an accident at one time, so the rear end could be tweaked. Also I have it all apart now and the pinion gear got beat up on a couple of teeth.

They want $750+ for one used in my area (metro MN). If it's not bent it seems like it would be cheaper to go with a new LSD unit ($390), R&P ($250 w/install kit), and have someone with a pinion depth tool set it up. This would be about the same money but would be all new with a tougher LSD unit.

As far as why it failed, I'm not sure. My son said he did take a hard right, and then it broke.

Any thoughts appreciated.

Thanks,

Terry