Rear wheels locked solid

Iz6023

Low Mileage
Help! just fitted my cd58,s had to roll the car forward for some space all going good. Started her up engaged reverse let out clutch no movement some resistance and then a metallic noise. So now no gears shift rod is moving but have a pool of gearbox oil directly under the rubber bellows and when I jacked up the back of the car the rear wheels are locked solid…..
 

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Lets try an easy thing first. Take the wheels off and see if you can rotate the rotors. Did you change to new lug bolts with the new wheels? If they are too long, the lug bolts will contact the brake rotors. That's not good. Been there, done that. Fortunately, I noticed before I let the car down because I tried to spin the wheel. Oops.

The puddle of oil could just indicate you need a new shift rod seal. With the car jacked up, the gear oil will move towards that seal.

Hopefully this is nothing serious.
 
Also check that you have the standard ex-factory wheel spacer fitted. I don't know what the clearance to the caliper body is across the various types of wheel, but that spacer exists for a reason :)
 
Lets try an easy thing first. Take the wheels off and see if you can rotate the rotors. Did you change to new lug bolts with the new wheels? If they are too long, the lug bolts will contact the brake rotors.
How could the lugbolts contact the brake rotors? The bolts go through the 4 holes in the wheel, then through the 4 holes in the factory spacer & the brake rotor (hat), & then thread into the hub.
 
How could the lugbolts contact the brake rotors? The bolts go through the 4 holes in the wheel, then through the 4 holes in the factory spacer & the brake rotor (hat), & then thread into the hub.
I expect that @JimD was writing carelessly, meant to say that the lug bolts may be contacting the uprights. They only need to be a few mm too long to reach all the way through the spacer and the hub and stick out enough beyond that to hit the upright.
 
... a pool of gearbox oil directly under the rubber bellows
That is most likely unrelated to your wheels-locked-up problem. It's easy to mangle that seal enough to get a leak through it, and also possible that you've developed a leak through one of the transmission mount bolts being too long.
 
I expect that @JimD was writing carelessly, meant to say that the lug bolts may be contacting the uprights. They only need to be a few mm too long to reach all the way through the spacer and the hub and stick out enough beyond that to hit the upright.
Oops, yep, Eric is right.
 
There's several things that bother me about the original post.

One is he stated the car rolled normally when pushed forward. That tells me the wheels/hubs/lug bolts/calipers/ uprights/etc are NOT contacting one another and the axles turn as they should. Therefore the issue may well be within the trans unit, after shifting it into reverse. The "reverse gear selection" aspect is always cause for a potential failure with the very vulnerable reverse gear assembly.

Another is the "metallic noise", and the new lube leak. These might support the possibility of a trans failure. Lots of potential internal trans failures that will act as described.

And another is the statement "So now no gears shift rod is moving". That is suspicious of a trans issue as well.

However definitely eliminate the easy stuff first. A internal trans issue is the last thing you want to adress.

If you don't find any other reason for the failure, try disconnecting the "lollipop" and "shift" the selector input rod (on the trans) manually. See if it goes into any gears (you'll hear them clunk into gear). I had one that broke just inside the housing and allowed the trans to select two gears at the same time, so the unit was locked up. And the shifter inside the car did nothing.
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I guess it depends on how one extracts a chronology from the post. I read it as 1. Rolled the car forward to get some space to fit wheels. 2. Attempted to reverse post wheel fitment. 3 Drama ensued,

@Iz6023 ?
Ahhhh, that's different from what I thought. Hopefully it is something simple.
 
I guys as soon as I loosened off the new lug nuts the rear wheels were free again. So I swapped back to the original steelies and was able to get the car to drive forward and then back. Haven’t gone for a drive yet to check all ok under driving loads. So now I need to shorten the lug nuts and get the CD 58’s on. Appreciate all the help
 
I have CD58s on my car and I did not have this problem. To my knowledge, the lug bolts that came stock on a car with steel wheels are slightly shorter (27mm) than those that came stock on a car with alloy wheels (33mm), so all other things being equal, the issue should be "they're too short" as opposed to "they're too long."



My car (and I gather most that came stock with some flavor of alloy wheel) also used 5mm thick spacers. Are you using the spacers?

 
Dan raises the same concern I had, the steel wheels would have had shorter lug bolts than alloy wheels so something goofy is going on here and I don't think it's the length of the lug bolts. Could be the alloy wheel is hitting something and loosening the bolts allowed the wheel to move away from whatever it was interfering with?
 
On my Jeep Compass I had bought winter wheels intended for another Jeep. We mounted tires and bolted them up, went to back it out of the bay and the car wouldn’t move.

Apparently the rim had a slightly different configuration on the back which interfered with the brake caliper, locking the rim to the caliper carrier bracket. A 5mm spacer solved the problem.

Perhaps there is something about his particular rims and brake combo, which would indeed be odd.
 
I guys as soon as I loosened off the new lug nuts the rear wheels were free again. So I swapped back to the original steelies and was able to get the car to drive forward and then back. Haven’t gone for a drive yet to check all ok under driving loads. So now I need to shorten the lug nuts and get the CD 58’s on. Appreciate all the help
You haven't mentioned the stock spacers. Are they still in place? If not, installing the spacer may solve your interference issue.

Here is a "spacer" story from my 85X. I switched to 15" wheels a couple years ago and was attempting to solve some fender rubbing issues by removing the spacers. I took the front spacers out, put the wheels back on, torqued the lug bolts and the front wheels spun freely. However, when I took the rear spacers out and torqued the lug bolts, the rear wheels were locked in place. I have run into this issue before, so I put the spacers back in and the tires spun freely.

I knew the front and rear uprights were different, but I was surprised that given the same length lug bolts and same wheels, the rear needed the spacer to prevent interference.
 
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