So you push your 1st gen offroad - what cracks next?

8” rear cracking. 5.29s arb and 35s. Stock shafts still look fine.

 

Did you just decide to pull this and inspect it or did you have any symptoms?

 

Seal was leaking. I was welding up a couple skid plates on it and decided to pull it and reseal with rtv. After I put on the rtv I was spinning the pinion and came across two tight spots next to each other. Pulled it back apart and this is the only thing I found.

I never keyed in on vibrations from it but it has been 4 months since I got it over 50 because the tires are so unbalanced from loosing a few beads.

 

A lot of cracking going on with the old 1st gens.

 

FTFY

 

So I’m seeing a lot of hairline fractures in this thread, but have any of these actually resulted in a structural failure?

You all seem really proactive about looking for these kind of issues before they could leave you stranded, but not everyone is so vigilant. I’m wondering at what point the cracks shown above on the coil buckets and elsewhere would become a safety issue, if it wasn’t already.

 

I think someone's coilbuck did collapse .

 

I'd say if you have cracks in coil buckets. You want to get it fixed asap. Plenty of folks have had them give out and that'll leave you high a dry.

Other stuff is a bit less critical. But still being proactive is best. Radiator support and bed are two very common areas and can be hard to combat and keep alive untill it's just toast and replacement is needed

 

As already said, coil buckets have failed. I'd hate to see the aftermath of a spring perch or axle tube crack the whole way through. If you beat on your truck it's best to inspect things after every trip. I'm typically in the middle of doing other maintenance when I find cracks. I guess one positive of living in a place where they use salt and mag chloride is that it makes the cracks pretty obvious with rust.

 

I often wonder how any other rig would hold up to the abuse I put mine through.

 

I was thinking about the axle housings, those would be pretty dramatic if left long enough to fail completely. Or the LCA rivets/ball joint piece.


Otherwise yeah, a lot of the things I've posted about weren't about to fail completely, but I wouldn't want to find out the hard way!

 

I find most of my broken things while fixing something else. I also make a point of checking out things while I'm on trips and when I return.
My usual routines is roll into camp pop the hood, check all the fluids and give the underside of the truck a look to see if anything is broken.
Sometimes I'll smoke a joint and lay on my back under my truck staring at things looking for broken stuff.

 

When I am on my longer trips the biggest thing I check for during is leaking rear axle seals. My pre trip checks cover most other things like the front end suspension components.

 

Gonna try to skirt the coil bucket failure, I have mild hopes haha

 

While you have the engine out, might want to consider strapping the back side of the coil bucket.

 

I'm considering it, I think I just want to join the bucket top to the backside of the tower better with a chunk of angle iron.

 

Yeah, that might be enough. Spread out the load a little. No need to go all the way down to the frame/motor mount area.

 

Why not just run the full gusset from Ryan?

 

I have my reasons, honestly I just don't think it will be necessary given how the sides are loaded and with the addition of a tower brace

 

After reading the whole thread one thing seemed to jump out with the coil buckets. What Weight coils are being run for those who experienced a coil bucket failure? I wonder if more failures have come from 600 vs 650 vs 700lbs vs ect. The possibility of having that much more force on the coil bucket at all times, compresion, rebound, and static. Along with heavy weight springs not having the same super small high frequency vibration damping ability and that transfering through the frame more.
Just a random thought.
I have been inspecting for cracks and have only found a couple small front bed cracks from 15+ years of washboard roads with a fiberglass topper. But being a 4c single cab 4wd it seem like a lot less weight moving around.