Rear Differential help.

[TruckLiddell]

Well I thought I was having a trannie problem at first because when I let off the throttle I would get some shaking and hear a bit of grinding. This would happen on and off sometimes it would be fine sometimes pretty harsh. I havent been driving the truck much because I needed to look further at the problem. Went for a short trip and pulled into my driveway and the truck gave a little skid and stopped.
I looked at the end of the driveshaft coming into my rear diff there was a lot of play in and out of the rear diff and oil coming out of the seal. So I pulled off the differential cover, there was the proper amount of oil in there and there was this.

There was lots of little metal peices in the oil. My questions is, where do I start? Help would be amazing at this point as I am truck less.

[Hoytster]

Total rear-end rebuild, unfortunately. Looks like the metal shavings were probably from the pinion grinding against the carrier. The metal could also be from the bearings since they are mosy likely completely shot. Either the pinion nut worked it's way loose (or the pinion bearings are that gone) and allowed the pinion to walk into the carrier or the carrier bearings are so worn the carrier is shifting around enough to contact the pinion. Your going to need a new carrier, ring and pinion (you want a matched set and your pinion is most likely fubar), carrier bearings and new pinion bearings, plus some other smaller items.

[terryknight]

Originally Posted by TruckLiddell

That's not very pretty looking.

You're going to need to rebuild the whole thing. New ring and pinion, new carrier and all new bearings. I would pull the whole axle and thoroughly clean it as well.

[NoRalPh]

WoW! That's impressive

I can't imagine the noise that it was making as the pinion was grinding into the carrier...

[TruckLiddell]

Damn! I thought that would probably be the case. It wasn't actually that loud, it sounded like it was coming from my trannie. But maybe with the engine and exhaust so loud I couldn't notice as much. I don't know if I am able to do the axle myself, but maybe I will remove it and bring it to a specialist. Maybe just buying a whole new unit at the scrapper would make my life easier/cheaper.

[terryknight]

Even if you bought one from a junk yard, I'd still tear it down and make sure everything was good, but chances are it'll have a good r/p and carrier so it could very well be cheaper. just change the fluid and any bearings that need it.