Just curious what I need to fix since i dont have much experiance working on axles. My Dana 44 is making a popping noise when under load and feels like its slipping. It does it on hills and i can recreate it doing a brake torque (does it a lot worse in reverse) I know i have one u joint thats lacking bearings but I've been running that for a while with no probs (will replace both when i do this teardown). I'm just wondering if this is a ring and pinion prob or hub prob. Its original equipment for my 74 K20. I just upgraded from a tired 305 to a cadillac 500 and it seems the axle didnt appreciate the 550 lbs of torque.

sounds like a hub problem to me just my $.02

im going to put money on the spiders. after bust a d44 and a 14b spiders set[ seperate occasions] the pop and slip sounds familiar. a cady 500 is alot to put on a d44

i know you said its coming from the front axle, but i had a similar problem with my jeep. sounded like it was the front axle popping when i got on it hard in 4wd and i could re-create it with a foot on the brake punching it in 4wd. checked out everything in the axle and it turned out being the tcase slipping.

Ive personally experienced 2 front axles popping under load and both times the pinion bearings had some slop in them, but never had any slipping. I would also bet its the spiders. The hubs are easy to pull and check, so you can easily eliminate that, or easily fix it, if indeed thats the problem, but I doubt it.

spiders would be easy to check too,. just pop the cover off and see if anything falls out.

What t case do you have??? if its chain drive, id bet on the tcase chain jumping, ive seen it on anything from a 84 k10, to a 99 nbs 3/4 ton chevy.... just my .02

or if ya see some of this peeping out of the carrier.

yeah, my chain was worn out and was skipping over teeth on the front output shaft sprocket.

same sound from my chain drive cases, went threw two doing that same thing till i went with the 205

I had some spiders out of my D44 that did the same thing. I oringally thought it was the NP203 chain that streghted. That being said, I think that you should pull the axle shafts out and inspect and repl. the u-joints because you have to do that anyways. Its a good place to start. Just use spicer 760's. If that's not it then you can check what is next. You already know that it needs axle u-joints.
Just my $0.02.
Come to think of it, with all that work done, just pull the front cover off and inspect the ring and pinion along with the spiders and side gears. Then you know what you got.

welcome to the caddy world. :grinpimp:

what size tires? stock hubs? my guess is the noise is either from the hubs or the transfercase.

is it a stock motor? if not, did you build it? or someone else?
are ya still running a q-jet? got any pics of that thing? gimme some details here.

OOOK some details on the truck. Its a 1974 3/4 ton long bed. it has a what i believe is a 74 Cadillac 500 (lower compression than the earlier models) with an Edelbrock 1406 car and Holley Digital ignition. (Crawls nicely under 1000 RPM with PLENTY of torque) Behind that is a built TH-350 being backed with the original NP-203 T-case. Front axle is a Dana 44 (obviously) with Aftermarket Manual hubs (Were on the truck when i got it) Rear axle is a corparate 14 bolt.
Has stock suspension and 31 inch tires for right now. Was originally an IL farm truck used to pull grain wagons but its out here in Wyoming now getting body damage on the rocks. I've been really surprised what a longbed with stock suspension can do actually.
Future plans include rebuilding the front axle if it needs it, new steering components to eliminate the loose steering, and 4 inch lift in front and shackle flip in the back. then maybe 35's if i can afford them. I also plan to pull the engine back out later when i get to my High proformance engines program here at WyoTech and give it a good rebuild (although it runs pretty good right now). I also have BOP TH-400 which I'm going to rebuild and hopefully find a better T-case to fit it. I'll get some pics up here pretty soon.

Here ar some pics if you want to look.. http://community.webshots.com/user/juztyn00

God I wish I could find old Chevy's around here that are that clean.

Looks like I'm driving to IL...

If you do find out that it is the spiders, you should probably replace the carrier(I think that's what it is called) that holds the spiders and ring gear. In my experience, once you kill the spiders once, it wears the carrier, and the spiders wil break easeier after that. One thing that always killed my buddies spiders was when the front end started hopping. If he didn't back out of the throttle, they would always break. Having said all that, I would reccomend finding a d60. I'm not one of the guys that recommends it for everything, but with a 500 inch big block on the rocks, I think you're going to have a hard time keeping that thing together. just my .02

God I wish I could find old Chevy's around here that are that clean.

Looks like I'm driving to IL...

dont bother they ussually are rusty there too.. i got lucky with this one, it was a farmer's truck and had been sitting in a dry barn for a while.. had a 327 in it when i got it but I'm currently rebuilding that engine. but anyway all of the body work was done when i got it cab and bed are off of an 80. besides the mouse nest in the seat it wasnt a bad find. :D

Yer gonna drive to IL to find a good clean body!?!?

AAAAAAAHHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!!!!!!! !!

Good luck with that!!!

HAHAHAHAHA!!!