I think my differential just threw a fit

[MegaHertz]

I was on my way to the store and got a little pedal happy on the interstate. As I was approaching the exit I slowed down and a grinding noise started from the rear end. With the clutch out it made less noise but still some grinding. Any hints on narrowing this down? I'm thinking it could be the transmission or the drive shaft but my pumpkin was smoking when I looked at it quick on the side of the road. I think it may have been leaking oil. Perhaps today was the day it finally got aggravated enough to do some damage. I'm thinking i'm going to take the cover off the differential later today or tomorrow. I recorded the noise on my iPod but it doesn't want to play it back now :(.

[97RSSM90]

Re: I think my differential just threw a fit

man 1st of all you cant say you went 100 or even 80 on a public road on this forum, and 2nd yes the ring and pinion need gear oil to avoid whine. where is it leaking from? the cover or the pinion seal? a pinion seal wont cause much of a problem but if its the cover its best to remove it. and reseal it. u might get lucky and the diff will work fine after adding more oil. worse comes to wore it will whine with oil and ull need new bearings and ring a pinion gears

[MegaHertz]

Re: I think my differential just threw a fit

My apologies for the inappropriate portions of my post. I had a feeling that was the case and should have went with my initial instinct but wanted to be honest.

There is a good amount of oil under my car. It looked like it was leaking around the differential cover but the torque arm is covered pretty good as well. I will look a bit more tonight when I get home.

[MegaHertz]

Re: I think my differential just threw a fit

Got the back jacked up and it looks like fluid had been leaking out from the pinon seal - the arm that goes from the differential to the drive shaft coupling was soaked. Cover looked pretty dry. I won't have time to get to the differential until the weekend as I have about 1/2 hour of light when I get home from work.

So I'm guessing a tooth or something inside broke free and its grinding around in there. I'm likely going to need a new diferential (yay excuse to finally get a limited slip). I'm curious if the carrier is scratched to hell inside and that will need replacing too or if they can survive events such as these?

[97RSSM90]

Re: I think my differential just threw a fit

man im not sure, you really won't know until the cover is off. i got a 3.42 3 channel lsd rear here that needs one axle replaced. if you got no luck im willing to part it out and send you the lsd carrier unit with the ring and pinion gears at a decent price.

[crazytrain65]

Re: I think my differential just threw a fit

I'd take the cover off and asses the damanges. Mine blew the lock pin through the diff cover just coasting down a hill one night.

[IceHammer]

Re: I think my differential just threw a fit

I'd take the cover off and asses the damanges. Mine blew the lock pin through the diff cover just coasting down a hill one night.

No ****!? Thats wild. Did your diff by any chance may a weird, iternmittent rattling / clunking noise before this happened? Mine has been making some noises for a long time, but seems to have increased in volume lately. I'm racking my brain trying to figure out what could be moving around there so much and not be making noise all the time.

The lock pin is held in with a set screw right? I can imagine that getting loose, never heard of anything like that before though.

[crazytrain65]

Re: I think my differential just threw a fit

yea for a long time there was like a clunk coming from underneath the car I couldnt diagnose. It would like pop/clunk a couple times whenever I let off the accelerator. one of the spider gears welded to the lock pin and broke it. heres a picture:

http://a7.sphotos.ak.fbcdn.net/hphot...07330652_n.jpg

Also the c-clips fell out, im lucky the axeles didnt pop out lol

[MegaHertz]

Re: I think my differential just threw a fit

man im not sure, you really won't know until the cover is off. i got a 3.42 3 channel lsd rear here that needs one axle replaced. if you got no luck im willing to part it out and send you the lsd carrier unit with the ring and pinion gears at a decent price.

I appreciate the offer. Once I take a look this weekend I'll hopefully know what route I'm going to to fix this. At this point i'm thinking the axle bearings could also be screwed so I'm going to take the differential out and remove the axles and inspect the bearings. If the axles are good and its just the differential I'll just do the differential and gears if need be. If the axles bearings are bad too I'll probably be looking for a donor rear with 3 series carier, 3channel abs and posi (unless those axle bearings don't need pressing to change).

I'd be shooting for the pre 98 so I don't go too big on the back brakes with my stock v6 rotors up front. Posi, disc brakes and shocks will probably be on the to do list soon. I'm half tempted to just find a rear and then swap what I need but I'm wondering if i don't need everything if just getting a diffy and gears will be less.

[MegaHertz]

Re: I think my differential just threw a fit

yea for a long time there was like a clunk coming from underneath the car I couldnt diagnose. It would like pop/clunk a couple times whenever I let off the accelerator. one of the spider gears welded to the lock pin and broke it. heres a picture:

http://a7.sphotos.ak.fbcdn.net/hphot...07330652_n.jpg

Also the c-clips fell out, im lucky the axeles didnt pop out lol

Luckily mine didn't fail that catastrophically. I think I may have come across your thread while searching for differential issues and pics. Bet that caused quite the scare when it happened. Did it completely lock up on you?

[IceHammer]

Re: I think my differential just threw a fit

You can replace axle bearings with a slide hammer to take em out and then a regular hammer to put them back in.

Crazytrain, thats awesome. I do however hope that won't be my fate. It looks like those spiders came from an open diff? I have the 3.42 torsen, so hopefully mine isn't about to explode just yet. I think I'll get in there this weekend and poke around a little.

97RSSM90, I may soon be in the market for that diff if I determine mine is going to die soon. I'll be in touch if I need it.

[97RSSM90]

Re: I think my differential just threw a fit

opened up the look diff i had and the posi unit all destroyed and the magnet was full of shavings, only thing i could use from the diff would be the driver side axle shaft. the rear end came out of a trans am that crashed at 70 mph against a wall and the diff took all the hit. check up ur local creglist and ebay for used complete axles. here in miami they go for around $150/200 for an entire axle.

[MegaHertz]

Re: I think my differential just threw a fit

For the complete rear end I've been on ebay and craigslist. I'm looking at 400-600 shipped on ebay. Car-parts has some locally, they're going for 250-500. Craigslist has come up with squat locally and I'm not having much luck searching outside my locale there. Haven't tried junk yards yet and I need to get in touch with my friends dad who runs a shop / small auto sale lot not far from here as he deals with a lot of f-bodys.

[crazytrain65]

Re: I think my differential just threw a fit

Luckily mine didn't fail that catastrophically. I think I may have come across your thread while searching for differential issues and pics. Bet that caused quite the scare when it happened. Did it completely lock up on you?

nope it would just coast along but the the driveshaft wouldnt move bc the gears had lodged in there.

For the complete rear end I've been on ebay and craigslist. I'm looking at 400-600 shipped on ebay. Car-parts has some locally, they're going for 250-500. Craigslist has come up with squat locally and I'm not having much luck searching outside my locale there. Haven't tried junk yards yet and I need to get in touch with my friends dad who runs a shop / small auto sale lot not far from here as he deals with a lot of f-bodys.

I got 4.10's and an auburn for 250 shipped and 200 to have it put in

[MegaHertz]

Re: I think my differential just threw a fit

So I got the cover off - nice big metal chunks stuck to the magnet and in the bottom of the differential case. Maybe a quart of fluid came out - i haven't measured it yet but gosh it stinks. Was taking the wheels off to take the axles out and I broke wheel studs on both axles :mad: Also broke both u-bolts holding the sway bar to the axle in order to get it to move enough to get the bottom bolt off the diffy cover.

So the metal chunks to me mean I need a new differential, as well as new axles with the broken studs. I'm thinking its going to be cheaper to get a complete rear than buy replacment parts.


Edit: I have since learned that wheel studs can be replaced.