stickshiftram

I haven't had any problems and my truck has 136000 miles and i beat the hell out of it with jumps and burnout and all sorts of other good stuff

MrDestinE

Gonzo, you are like a dog with an old bone with this ****... you are wearing it out.... BUT.. I will add my 2 cents in here as well... My wife had this happen to her in a 98 Ram Sport with the same rear that is in our Hemis. The Axle flange just flat fell off at a very low speed and the truck just squated down on the tire. I pesonally examined the entire truck... Everyone will have to accept my expertise here, I am quite qualified to examine these items and determine the fault... upon examination I determined that the axle had a stress crack from the factory and it took a while to break. The axle was not bent, nor was the wheel bent, or the axle flange. There was no sign of abuse anywhere. An examination of the break revealed that only 1/3 of the diameter of the axle was holding prior to the failure. I am an automotive machinist and I see failure due to fatigue all the time. It is not uncommon for cracks to be left in any casting or forging during the manufacturing process and sometimes it gets by the screening process. ( that is why you always want to sonoflux your cranks and your rods before machining, don't chance it ). I am thinking that Dana makes these rears for our trucks along with a lot of them for ALL makes of trucks. I would be willing to bet there are recorded incidents of this on other makes as well.
Now I can tell you that the 98 Dodge listed above was not abused, raced or neglected.. it had a comptletely stock 360 in it which we all know would require a TON of modifying for it to generate anywhere near the HP to worry about twisting an axle.. Oh yea, there was NO twist on the axle evident either..
Now we all have seen the guy on the side of the road with the axle flange missing and most are probably the result of a bearing failure literally cutting the axle into.... but I have to wonder how many have just cracked off..... and they won't all be Dodges either.

TJ

gonzo 6.2

iTrader: (8)

http://www.allpar.com/model/ram/index.html

Common problems and repairsA number of pickups appear to be having axle failures - we believe around one in ten sold. The basic axle design seems to be sound, but there are problems around components redesigned at the orders of a Chrysler executive who is no longer there. A redesign is expected with the next generation of Ram trucks in 2006 or so; in the meantime, failures appear to be dealt with on a case by case basis. Since this is a known problem, owners who encounter axle failure should press Chrysler for no-cost or subsidized replacement even if they are a reasonable time out of the warranty period. The redesigned axle will apparently not be completely interchangeable with the current version


The one site you guys missed,I am certain had you seen this of course you would have posted it.

Tool

that sucks that the axles are breaking if that is really the case. i for one have hit a curb like bump while run from a crazy redneck guy at 90mph and my rearend didnt fall off. sure did scare the out of me though. and to say that dodges engines arent reliable lets see the chevy 350ci out last the dodge 318ci !!