Rear axle lockup
 

Hey guys and gals - can you help me?

What happened:

I coasted to almost a stop (5 mph?) in my 72 C20. Right before putting the clutch in to put the trans in neutral, the truck lurched to a complete stop while making a grinding noise coming from the rear of the truck.

I was able to put it in neutral without issue. I then easily put it in gear to try driving slowly, but the truck did not move, and you could feel it was "stuck." I put it back in neutral.

I got out of the truck and tried to push it while in neutral -- still felt stuck regardless of which way you pushed the truck. Checked the driveshaft and all looked good.

A few other guys helped me push it, at which point, it eventually broke free and rolled smoothly.

I put it in gear and drove 15 minutes more to get home. After starting home I could hear a rotational, metal-on-metal, scratching noise which eventually went away after the first few minutes.

Today, I finally opened up the rear cover expecting to see loose metal pieces, but everything looked good to my untrained eye. I jacked up the driver rear wheel and spun it by hand and watched the gears rotate fine for several revolutions. Did the same thing on the passenger side. No metal, debris, etc was found.

What do I do now? Fill it with new lube and drive it? Where else could it have bound up?

I believe it is a HO-52 rear end with coil springs.

Re: Rear axle lockup
 

Brake shoes come loose?

Re: Rear axle lockup
 

???

Seen the carrier bearing do some crazy stuff

Re: Rear axle lockup
 

Me thinks everyone is afraid to speculate a diagnosis on this one.

Re: Rear axle lockup
 

I think I will check that tomorrow.. Possible I guess. I replaced the shoes several months ago.

Re: Rear axle lockup
 

I wonder if a piece of one of the bearing cages came apart and jammed the roller bearings. I had that happen on the steering head bearings on an old Honda dirtbike once. The steering completely locked right when I was riding through a creek. Caused me to tip over into the water. I was able to get it steering again with some forceful twists of the bars. When I took it apart later, a piece of the bearing cage had been steamrolled as thin as tinfoil by the bearings.

Re: Rear axle lockup
 

ding ding--that turned out to be it. I got the hub off yesterday, and there is some loose metal shavings in the bearings. The inner bearing is definitely toast. I'll be replacing both bearings. Hopefully that will solve my problems.

Thanks everyone for the input!

Re: Rear axle lockup
 

You may want to think about pulling everything apart cleaning and possibly replacing all bearings in the rear end. Metal particles have a way of moving thru the entire assembly and you could have issues later on.

Re: Rear axle lockup
 

Yes, I agree. I think I will do that. It needs new brake shoes too, so I think I'll just replace everything.