Got a surprise in my rear end today.

[GilpinGuy]

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.

[jmg8550]

Who rebuilt that diff? Or was it factory?

[GilpinGuy]

Who rebuilt that diff? Or was it factory?

I bought the entire axle with the locker already installed from a guy on CL almost 5 years ago. He's a cool guy and we touch base now and then. I plan on asking him that exact same question.

[BuffCyclist]

I had something similar happen. Had a local guy replace the clutch in my 2004 Xterra (friend of the father in law), he did it for $250 in his garage plus the cost of the clutch. Took him 9 days to do it, because he didn't remove the crankshaft position sensor before dropping the clutch. Then, he ended up damaging it and destroyed the sensor, and claimed it was like that.

So a couple months later I finally bought the new CPS and after finding out that the local NMSU branch community college's auto department will have the students repair NMSU faculty vehicles FREE, I called to schedule an appointment. The professor told me they had never done a 4WD vehicle before, but several of the students jumped at the opportunity to get the experience. Dropped it off for them and explained the situation, saying I wouldn't be surprised if other stuff was wrong inside.

They ended up having to drop the tranny and crack it open because the sensor fell inside when they tried getting it out. Turns out, I was missing 3 of the 7 bolts that hold the bell housing onto the engine. The 4 that were present were FINGER tight! The guy stripped out several bolts holding the clutch plate on, totally screwed it up and even left a couple extra bolts INSIDE the bell housing as a present. I sure was lucky one didn't bounce up and get in between the gears. But the students did a spectacular job putting it all back together FREE of charge, would have been about $1200 at the dealership after already paying the guy to do the clutch job.

Sadly, was never able to bring it up to the father in law directly, my Fiancee warned me to steer clear of it, that her dad felt so horrible this happened to me.