Bllllrrrrrgghhhhllppppguhhhh

It's always amazing to me when I'm reminded of exactly how much activity is often required to ensure that nothing happens.

As I'd briefly mentioned before, the focus of my latest efforts had been to get Eagle and the Gremlin in good enough shape to be featured in a small budget movie.  I was on a time crunch as it was, but made sure to schedule things to get Eagle maintenance done last Wednesday, get towing for the Gremlin worked out Thursday, and use that Friday to tie up any loose ends that may have been dangling at that point.  Seemed like I had my ducks in a row, so naturally I was certain that something was going to fly into the fan and make sure that my carefully managed time took its place in the toilet.

After leaving Napa with the remaining brake drum kit I needed for Eagle on Wednesday, I encountered some of the special style of disregard for other humans that you have to wade through while living in Seattle. I'll spare you the details of what happened and get right to the result: my transmission no longer went in reverse.  Park and neutral were also funky, in the "go forward when giving gas" kind of way.

Totally certain that my transmission was shot, I limped the wounded Eagle to my buddy's place and started looking for compatible Jeep transmissions on Craigslist while we looked into diagnosing the behavior.  After a bit of searching, we found someone else describing the exact same behavior with their a998.  The consensus as to the issue's cause?  Locked clutch packs.  Being that I'm not really in the market for the expense of a transmission rebuild (though it wouldn't be bad to have done at some point in the next 25k miles), we started thinking that the packs should be able to get unstuck if we put Eagle in reverse and pushed it backwards.

Eagle put up a little resistance at first, which started to give way gradually, and then suddenly- with an unexpectedly loud "BANG!", followed by behaving as normal in all gears.  So far, so great, right?  Well, yeah.

And no.  As we did a restrained test drive around the block, we decided it was time to goose it just a little to make sure all was well.  By just a little, I mean "tap, tap, press, hold" on the pedal.  Just enough to give a couple jumps up before pressing down about 1/3 of the pedal travel, peaking at maybe 3,200rpm (from just under 2k) in the space of two to three seconds.  Then a CV axle exploded.

Since we were going uphill, the fact I had yet to do my rear brakes became a particularly pressing concern when considering there was a medieval mace attached to my passenger hub, flailing around in my wheel well.

Bizarrely, the damage to my brakes turned out to be (comparatively) minimal since the CV happened to strike the soft line just right and wrap itself up in the hose, as opposed to just shredding it like wet cabbage.  I had also managed to stop just in time and minimize my turn just enough to keep the wound line from being twisted to the point of getting ripped apart.  It was probably the luckiest misfortune I've encountered in recent memory.

Tasked with repairing this and not just throwing parts at the problem, I started to go a little crazy trying to establish an actual, demonstrable cause.  I was certain that the transmission event and the CV joint being rent asunder were isolated incidents that had been bizarrely timed, because how the hell could they be directly related?  That said, I wasn't about to dismiss the idea that they may have shared a common point of inspiration.

My thoughts turned out to be correct, from what I can tell.  After I assessed the state of the Eagle's front end, chased a few red herrings, and cut some CV axle stubs, I found the front axle end play was roughly 3/16-1/4".  That's faaaaaar in excess of the service manual's max value: .003”.  The jarring event that resulted in transmission fuckery had likely allowed for axle shift to take place to enough of a degree for that CV joint to bind and disintegrate.  With the level of play I found, the fact that the opposite CV joint was completely ground out as well, and the point of failure/degradation of both CVs being up at the axle flange and not at the stub joint, it looks as though the CV failure was one that was going to happen sooner than later.  A bad morning was all that it took to tip things over the edge.

It's amazing that both CVs didn't go, all said.  It also looks like I've got a pumpkin that needs scooping (or bearings that need replacing, at least), though I've decided that I'm probably not going to solve the mystery in any greater detail than that.  I just don't have the time to devote to it, as my being side tracked for the movie that wasn't to be (on account of all these delays, you see) has already set me way backer than I ever would have thought.

What I've done in the meantime is this: made sure I was in 2WD, cut the axle stubs from the busted CVs, and torqued the spindles to spec in the hub to retain and secure the front wheel bearings I drove myself to madness to replace (and keep the wheels on, I guess).  From there, I disconnected the front driveshaft between the transfer case and front diff, and set to doing the brake maintenance and repairs from the CV club's whirling rampage that were needed to get Eagle back in service.

While Eagle's fine, if somewhat reduced in operating capacity, I'll miss the 4wd for sure.  Luckily, the driveshaft looks a little tired (though usable), the u joints were probably due to be replaced anyway, and the diff/bearing work should be easy enough with everything already disconnected.  If I find that I have more time in the future than I'd expected (unlikely), or the need for the increased resell value that putting the ~$500 plus labor to repair the 4wd would bring (more likely), I may just take care of it myself instead of expecting someone else to after I sell it.

Now. . . where was I before all this shit started?