'90 XJ suddenly stops when backing up?

'90, 135k miles, 4.0L HO, Select-Trac (? not sure by which name, but the higher end 4WD), Dana rear end (Again, I think, but it's the one with the flat part on the pumpkin).

So, my girlfriend is backing out of the garage this morning and her Cherokee suddenly stops. Just stops. No noise, no clunking, nothing.

I get in and try it. The truck will move forward fine but when backing up stops dead. Stops in the same place, makes no other noise. I tried in neutral and rolling it back, stops in the same place.

I gave it some gas to see if could overpower it a bit, not much though, I wanted to see if it was the brakes and if I could push through them. It moved a bit and the brakes gave me a groan.

I don't have much experience troubleshooting the XJ, but do have garage experience, I did replace the rear leaf springs on this puppy. To me it sounds like the brakes locking up. I was thinking tranny, but unless I misinterpreted the sound of groaning brakes...

I could be wrong, but what could cause the brakes to lock up like that?

TIA

That happens for various reasons, one of the more common is stiff adjusters. The star wheel and the threads need to turn freely. The springs need to be strong enough to retract the brakes. When the shoes get covered in oil or brake fluid they can grab. Brake fluid makes the shoes swell and get soft. Your problem may be a combination of all of the above. The shoes swell and grab, drag pretty much all of the time because the springs are tired. When backing up and the brakes are self adjusting, they over adjust and/or the shoes because of the weak springs, rock some and jam. The adjusters because they are partially jammed, over adjust. Some tiimes one return spring will pop off, causing an imbalance
If your pinion bearings are shot or the collapsible sleeve has completely collapsed it can cause the pinion to jam in the ring gear when backing up and make the rear chatter when starting out in forward gears. The rear usually gets pretty noisy, before in gets that far though.
Most likely time for a rear brake inspection and some new hardware.

I had this happen once it was from a front brake caliper missing a bolt it would torque over when going in reverse and lock up the front wheel.

Well, being that it's in the garage, and that there are so many possibilities out there, Ill throw this one out there...

The centering pin came out on the rear gearset on my old dana 35... Would allow me to roll back to a certain point, then would stop as if i was hitting a stump or something, but gentle, and would only roll forward the same distance, 9-12ft.. one full turn of the carrier would let the pin slip out and hit the inside of the diff cover...

Not a huge issue, cheap fix, but a PITA...

Only reason Im throwing this out there, since ur in the garage, you dk if its gonna stop going forward or not

And 8Mud's the winner! It was the rear brakes.

I had it towed and the shop said to me $1,800 for a reman'ed tranny installed. I asked if they had looked at the rear brakes, they hadn't. Took the drums off and the innerds were all rusted up, making them bind.

Awesome, thanks guys, you've been a big help!

:clap:

I assume you've avoided that particular shop since then?

And the rear end is a D35, the ones with the flat part are chrysler 8.25's... not danas... 8.25 didnt come out til mid 90's

I don't know about that.

Could be a 44 maybe. I thought 8.25's existed back then? D35 doesn't have a flat bottom.

lawsoncl said:

I assume you've avoided that particular shop since then?

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Well, it's still there, it's being picked up today. But yes, the gal and I agreed to avoid these jokers in the future.

ZacSquatch said:

And the rear end is a D35, the ones with the flat part are Chrysler 8.25's... not danas... 8.25 didn't come out til mid 90's

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Blaine B. said:

I don't know about that.

Could be a 44 maybe. I thought 8.25's existed back then? D35 doesn't have a flat bottom.

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Just going from memory... I redid the rear leaf springs a couple months ago, all I remember from ordering the parts is that the pumpkin had a flat part. Might be an 8.25, for some reason that rings a bell...