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Sterling 10.5 Carnage

5K views 8 replies 4 participants last post by  polish pete 
#1 ·
Bought the truck about 2 months ago. No noticable problems other then some slop in the steering which i was aware of at the time of purchase (i fixed it the weekend i picked it up) But lately i have been noticing some excess noise coming from underneath. Sounded like bearing noise when i would be in that in between stage of in the gas or out of it. But no noise when i would coast. Figured it was either a bearing in the trans (zf-6) or a pinion bearing in the rear axle. Decided to change the fluid and inspect it. Heres what i found....




What i dug out the bottom of the diff...


Ive been in the offroad community for a while, building jeeps for rock crawling, so ive had my fair share of carnage. big tires+beadlocks+deep gear ratios+alot of torque+some skinny pedal= epic failures. But what would cause this in a daily driven truck? Too many clutch dumps on pavement?

Truck is a stock 7.3. 4" lift on 315's. ZF-6.
 
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#2 ·
I was in an accident once and went from going 35 MPH forward to sliding backwards

the truck was fixed but the rearend sounded funny

they added posi lube

but a month later one of the ring gear chips found it's way back up into the ring and pinion mesh it destroyed the whole thing

So I imagine lots of things can do that but I don't recall the sterling carrier having gear marks in it like yours?
 
#4 ·
yeah, the pinion marks did puzzle me as well. it doesn't seem to have any play in it but my hand pressure is alot different than the torque of the motor. so who knows whats going on when im driving it.

I found a complete 10.5 for sale on craigslist. But i can also get it redone for reasonably "cheap" (new ring and pinion, all the bearings, shims, and seals, etc) I'm gonna pull the carrier tomorrow and see what type of shape its in, if i can reuse it or not.
 
#7 ·
Yeah, i kinda thought the same thing. If im going to do it, might as well do it right.

But im stuck between the two choices right now. Though the take off swap wouldn't take more than an a few hours at most and i'd be back and running in no time. Well I'll see what i can get a hold of this weekend.
 
#8 ·
Yeah, im hoping it was just poor maintenance. The oil was really thick, alot thicker than any other gear oil ive changed. Also very shinny (never a good sign).
 
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