Blew half-axle... or something more?

[Achillesinvention]

I clearly don't post enough, but I've been here a while. Please help.

Replaced driver's half-axle and hub bearing about 7500 miles ago because I had noise in the bearing, and the outer CV boot was torn. Everything was gravy.

This morning I had the "clicking" that goes with full-turned wheel turns (i.e. parking spaces and U-turn stuff). Then I got the vibration in accelerating that accompanied the bad axle I replaced. Drove it nicely. On the way home from work today...

*SNAP* scraping, grinding noise (sound of something broken and rotating) and no gears.

Put it in park, and it's silent. Car doesn't move. ANY other gear, and the noise comes back. Putting it into park from any other gear makes a grind/click noise like the sound of a GIANT zip tie.

Nothing hanging below the car. No fluid leaks.

Reached in and grabbed the driver's half-axle, and it's definitely broken somewhere. While in gear, it rotates, but in neutral, I cannot rotate it.

So I'm thinking it's just the half-axle that went because the car is stopped while in park. But why didn't the passenger side axle do anything to help me get to the side of the road? I mean, nothing from either side.

Thoughts?

Blake

Click to read more...

 

[C.Evans]

It's an open differential. The driving wheel (theoretically) is the one that the axle broke on, hence why you couldnt get to the side of the road. The trans is still spinning its parts internally when you are stopped because the axle is broke, so nothing is stopping the parts from spinning, and thats why you hear the zip tie noise when trying to put it into park from another gear. Same concept as trying to put a vehicle into park when its rolling down the road.

 

[Achillesinvention]

Alrighty, then I'm going to pick up a new half-axle under warranty and get this done.

Thank you for the quick response, and the peace of mind. I'm proud of myself for not absolutely losing my mind on the side of the road, but that voice saying, "Oh you're fuct now Blake. That's gonna be expensive. Sucks to be you" is a hard one to ignore.

This helps me feel like it'll be fine. Blake = not ready to pay for a new transmission this week.

Thanks again!

 

[C.Evans]

Was that the new axle that broke? Should be under some type of warranty I would imagine.

 

[Achillesinvention]

It WAS the new axle, so I'm going to file it under warranty with Autozone. It was a Duralast Gold (non-reman / no-core) model, so I thought I'd get at least 30k out of it. No dice. Quite a shame.

I'm having a friend with a dolly and an F350 come out and take me up to my brother's shop. I'll figure the rest out from there.

 

[PANDA]

Id buy a NAPA axle. I have had good luck with them.