Front Dana 44 housing fail

[tpietzsch]

Bummer day at the office in my 2013 JKUR while at an off road park (SMORR in Springfield Mo) this weekend. Broke the frt housing, between the upper and lower control arm mounts, on the passenger side. I have gussets but no sleeves (lesson learned). You know the story, wasn't getting rowdy. I heard a "new" strange noise but couldn't spot it until I felt it in the steering. Was grateful my buddy was able to weld it up on site which allowed me to complete the 3hour drive back home at normal freeway speeds. Currently have 24k miles on my ride so I tried the local dealer who looked at me strange and said no dice on warranty. I suspect the guts are ok with the exception of an angry oil seal. So the debate begins......perform surgery on the existing housing or go with a new aftermarket offering like Dynatrac/G2/Currie etc. Pics below.




Haha, one of many stops trying to figure out "what the hell is that noise"!

 

[10frank9]

Wow that is a bad situation. To be clear you are running 35's?

Just my $0.02 but I don't think sleeves would've prevented that break. Looks like a legitimate manufacturing defect.

And I would definitely get a PR44 if you can swing it. If not, maybe re-tubing might be the way to go.

 

[cozdude]

i dont think sleeves would have prevented it at all sadly. i would look into a PR44 housing. if your internals are ok you can get the PR44 that will allow you to swap in the stock internals.

 

[wayoflife]

Damn, that sucks. I have personally seen this happen 3 times but not in long time... A very long time. As mentioned, sleeves would not have prevented this, trust me, one of the 3 breaks I had seen had sleeves installed. All it did was make it easier to get off the trail.

Question, you would happen to have after market adjustable control arms, would you?

As mentioned, I would look into a ProRock 44.

 

[jeeeep]

I would think you have a legitimate warranty claim, I'd contact Chrysler direct.

Have you contacted your insurance company, they may cover it since your Jeep is fairly new.

 

[tpietzsch]

Good to know on the sleeves as I was kind of beating myself up about it. I am running 35x12.50 Nitto Trail Grappler M/Ts and lower RK adjustable arms with stock units up top. Insurance may be worth a call, thanks for the recommendation.

Another angle for ya. Top view.

 

[wayoflife]

Good to know on the sleeves as I was kind of beating myself up about it. I am running 35x12.50 Nitto Trail Grappler M/Ts and lower RK adjustable arms with stock units up top. Insurance may be worth a call, thanks for the recommendation.

Another angle for ya. Top view.

View attachment 103874

Unfortunately, the modifications you have on your Jeep would void a factory warranty. If you can get your insurance to cover it, that would be great but unfortunately, I doubt they will unless you have some great coverage.

Regarding your control arms, is there a chance you may have tried using them to add a bit of cross caster?

 

[Canvas JK]

Just a thought but have you tried your insurance company. They might be able to assist. Take what they would give for a factory D44 and pay the difference on a PR44.

A buddy works at a Jeep dealership in FL and he stated he has replace two front axles under the owners insurance. Worth a try.

 

[bkac]

You hit something, right? Sounds like an insurance claim to me...

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[H8ROADS]

There's no question in my mind - you replace it with a new one, not fix it. I'm shocked you would even consider the former, because you know it'll happen again if it's happened once. No amount of welding is going to fix that.

 

[tpietzsch]

Unfortunately, the modifications you have on your Jeep would void a factory warranty. If you can get your insurance to cover it, that would be great but unfortunately, I doubt they will unless you have some great coverage.

Regarding your control arms, is there a chance you may have tried using them to add a bit of cross caster?

Yes, I wanted to achieve a little more caster without using cam bolts.

 

[tpietzsch]

There's no question in my mind - you replace it with a new one, not fix it. I'm shocked you would even consider the former, because you know it'll happen again if it's happened once. No amount of welding is going to fix that.

I hear ya, I think it was Overlander who wrote "going cheap always cost ya more in the long run".

 

[OverlanderJK]

I hear ya, I think it was Overlander who wrote "going cheap always cost ya more in the long run".

It's expensive to be cheap.

I have said that but actually it was Mcpuck who I heard it from. There is just a lot of truth to that statement so I've said it to others.

 

[JayKay]

Yes, I wanted to achieve a little more caster without using cam bolts.

Achieve caster or cross-caster as Eddie had mentioned? Cross-caster can cause a twisting affect on your axle if you use the control arms to adjust it. This can cause a break in your axle.

 

[JAGS]

Damn, that sucks. I have personally seen this happen 3 times but not in long time... A very long time. As mentioned, sleeves would not have prevented this, trust me, one of the 3 breaks I had seen had sleeves installed. All it did was make it easier to get off the trail.

Question, you would happen to have after market adjustable control arms, would you?

As mentioned, I would look into a ProRock 44.

Unfortunately, the modifications you have on your Jeep would void a factory warranty. If you can get your insurance to cover it, that would be great but unfortunately, I doubt they will unless you have some great coverage.

Regarding your control arms, is there a chance you may have tried using them to add a bit of cross caster?

Yes, I wanted to achieve a little more caster without using cam bolts.

This is crazy Eddie. That you can see a picture and basically diagnose cause within a few questions. I'm guessing the caster set up put extra stress on the axle tube and proved to be weak spot in the set up?

 

[tpietzsch]

This is crazy Eddie. That you can see a picture and basically diagnose cause within a few questions. I'm guessing the caster set up put extra stress on the axle tube and proved to be weak spot in the set up?

Anythings possible I suspect but the intent of extending the lowers a touch was to gain a tad more caster. It's been a while but I think I was in the 4-6 degree range. Seems like 20 1/4 or an 1/8 bolt to bolt comes to mind with these arms. That blows if it in fact was my setup. I'll keep you posted on the replacement choice and triple check that caster. Thanks for identifying potential cause and replacement suggestions.

 

[jedg]

Unfortunately, the modifications you have on your Jeep would void a factory warranty. If you can get your insurance to cover it, that would be great but unfortunately, I doubt they will unless you have some great coverage.

Regarding your control arms, is there a chance you may have tried using them to add a bit of cross caster?

At the risk of going slightly off-topic; I noticed that my front passenger LCA is 1/8" longer than my driver front LCA (I have factory front UCAs) producing cross-caster. I had thought this was normal out of a combination of seeing this in rear-wheel drive vehicles (cross-caster to compensate for the road crown) and ignorance of the alignment configuration on a jeep. This post caused me to go looking at the install instructions for my lift (2.5" RK Max Travel) and a few others and all that I looked at had the LCAs set to the same length on both sides. I didn't do the install and it looks like the installer built in cross-caster.

Finally, the question then. From your statement, I infer that this should NOT be done? It seems to make sense to me that this would stress the axle tubes and shouldn't be done.

 

[JayKay]

At the risk of going slightly off-topic; I noticed that my front passenger LCA is 1/8" longer than my driver front LCA (I have factory front UCAs) producing cross-caster. I had thought this was normal out of a combination of seeing this in rear-wheel drive vehicles (cross-caster to compensate for the road crown) and ignorance of the alignment configuration on a jeep. This post caused me to go looking at the install instructions for my lift (2.5" RK Max Travel) and a few others and all that I looked at had the LCAs set to the same length on both sides. I didn't do the install and it looks like the installer built in cross-caster.

Finally, the question then. From your statement, I infer that this should NOT be done? It seems to make sense to me that this would stress the axle tubes and shouldn't be done.

1/8" difference may not be enough to cause any issues, but I would feel more comfortable if they were the same length. Think about the OE arms are the same length. The caster on a straight axle should be adjusted with adjustable ball joints or cam bushings on some applications.

 

[wayoflife]

Whoa, hang on everyone. As mentioned, I was specifically asking about "cross" caster. There are some crazy people and even a few manufacturers out there such as TeraFlex who actually think it's a good idea to try and force a solid axle to have it. They attempt to do this by setting their control arms to different lengths and I can assure you that this is a really bad idea. In fact, it is in my opinion a major cause for breaks just like what you saw. Too much positive caster can cause issues like drive line vibrations and IF the significant caster causes you have enough bind in your joints, that can cause a break as well. Over the last 7+ years, a lot has been learned to mitigate this problem and I think that's the reason why you don't see much of it happening anymore.

Having said that, using adjustable front lower control arms IS a good way to correct your positive caster BUT, I would hazard AGAINST adding more than what came stock and that is +4.2°. Cam bolts are a terrible solution for caster adjustment and adjustable ball joints will only help correct "camber" which is NOT the same thing and if you have it, you most likely have bent c's.

 

[wayoflife]

At the risk of going slightly off-topic; I noticed that my front passenger LCA is 1/8" longer than my driver front LCA (I have factory front UCAs) producing cross-caster. I had thought this was normal out of a combination of seeing this in rear-wheel drive vehicles (cross-caster to compensate for the road crown) and ignorance of the alignment configuration on a jeep. This post caused me to go looking at the install instructions for my lift (2.5" RK Max Travel) and a few others and all that I looked at had the LCAs set to the same length on both sides. I didn't do the install and it looks like the installer built in cross-caster.

Finally, the question then. From your statement, I infer that this should NOT be done? It seems to make sense to me that this would stress the axle tubes and shouldn't be done.

If it were me, I would make sure they are set to the same length - just in case.