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Any Winter Damage?

sennister

sennister

Full Member
Joined
Jan 26, 2005
Messages
3,082
Location
Grant, MN (aka Stillwater, MN)
Well I have started going over some things on my truck looking for any damage or anything that needs fixing on the AV. I am just starting the list now and once the weather turns a little better to where I can ride the motorcycle I will start to tear into things that I find. So far all I have found is two things....

1. This one may need to be addressed sooner then later. On the way home from work I noticed the chirping while accelerating from a stop at slow speed and that normally indicates a bad u-joint. Although when I crawled under the truck today everything seems fine with the u-joints. So I am scratching my head. I will have to look again and see if I can find out what one it is or I will just have to break down and start changing all of them. I would start with the rear axle as they are more critical.

2. While looking at the axle I happened to look over to my rear wheels and noticed something strange. I could see the rear rotor on the passenger side. Then I looked at the driver's side and noticed that there was a backing plate on that side but the one on the passenger side was gone. Hmmm that is strange. I know people have had rusting problems with them but mine is gone. I wonder if I did that when I buried my truck in the back yard this winter.

See Pics Here

Anyone else find any winter damage?
 
winter was very mild here, never even made it up to the snow because there wasn't that much  :(
 
I have noticed that I get a chirping noise from my rusted out backing plate after I have gone through some deep snow.  It is caused by the backing plate rubbing up against the rotor.  You might want to check and see if you can't pull the backing plate away from the rotor if it is touching as this may be where your noise is coming from. 
 
The Shields are cheap, but a bear to put on, the chirping may be a fan belt are you sure it's coming from the back.
 
I am sure mine is as the last time I rotated my tires I got to looking at what could be causing my noise.  After I pulled the backing plate away my noise was gone.  It is back again but I have not gotten around to pulling it back out again.

I was just throwing this out there as an idea for an easy fix since he said that he had been in deep snow and was missing one of them. 
 
Yeah, it is possible that the backing plate on the driver's side is making the noise. I did however notice when I pulled into the pole barn that when I went from R to D and back that there was a fairly loud clunk (a tell tail sign of a bad u-joint). Since I had my work clothes on and no one else was around I figured I was going to look at it later as I had to do and oil change anyhow. Well I backed out to run the truck for a while and when I pulled it back in the clunking was gone and no more chirping. It seems to come and go. I have almost 100,000 miles and am still on the original U-joints so I think one is starting to go. Maybe one of the needle bearings gets noisey when it is in a certain position. I may just change out both u-joints on the rear axle when I get time. It isn't hard to do and I prefer the ones that I can lube.
 
This is my Av's first 'real' winter...and now I'm seeing surface rust on the frame. I guess I'll be doing some sand/primer/paint...then off to the undercoating before next year.
 
Well it still is doing it. I would say it is more often now. I'm still leaning toward u-joint. It goes away when I let off the gas and coast at 30mph or less. Any faster then that and I don't hear it. I think if I get set up to change a u-joint I am just going to do both. Since they really are not that expensive. With my luck if I don't the other will start to go 20 miles later.
 
Other than having some surface rust appear on the undercarriage (first winter for my truck)  :rolleyes:...  my Av was great.

~dig
 
Well I replaced both u-joints on the rear driveshaft. There was only one cup on the u-joint back by the rear diff that was bad. Since I had the driveshaft out I replaced both. Now I need to pick up one of those backing plates and things should be back to normal.
 
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