The read end on my Wrangler you filthy minds....

I was driving through a parking lot and heard a pop. I just thought I ran over something metal like a loose manhole cover or something or maybe it was just the Detroit locker making itself known like it does sometimes.

Later that day I'm cruising about 30MPH and I start hearing a rhythmic clunking coming from the rear end. Freaking great.

So I popped the diff cover and see this:


That's a mutilated bolt jammed in there. It turns out that 3 bolts holding the ring gear on were sheared off. This one got jammed in there good, the other two were not found, but there was a bunch of metal in the oil. Must have just been chewed to smithereens. It was a total bitch getting that bolt out.

The other 5 bolts were only finger tight. I have no idea how the entire diff didn't just explode when I was doing 60.