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Center diff, transfer case ...what's broken?

moduleunknown

Well-known member
Joined
Oct 30, 2008
Messages
193
Location
Elk Grove, CA
Pulling in to the garage last night, I noticed a light clunking/clicking in the front while turning (at a low speed crawl). It felt like it was on the driver side. First thought, maybe an axle, i'll check it out tomorrow.

Now today, which just happens to be "tomorrow", i had to take the car out to run a couple errands. During this time, this issue progressively worsened. By the time I got home and was again slowly pulling up to the place, the sound had turned into a knocking that I could feel. It felt like something suspension related was loose, or maybe an axle was just toast.

So up in the air the car went! Looking around underneath I couldn't find anything that looked or felt loose. After wiggling, jiggling, yanking, and tugging on everything, I then proceeded to turning... It was at that point I said "uh-oh" as I was able to keep spinning the front wheels with the back on the ground. Also, when I'd grab a wheel and start turning, there was a bit of play - spin it a bit, hear a clank, then the opposing wheel would start to spin. Now, I also noticed that the driveshaft would twitch ever so slightly when spinning a wheel in either direction...

At this point all four corners went up in the air. I started the car, put it in gear and sure enough, FWD status. In fact, the front passenger side would spin as expected in relation to rpm/throttle and the driver side would slowly drag along. Additionally, it was much harder to get in gear while in the air, would sometimes make a grinding/crunchy noise when trying to put in in 1st. Once in first, clutch out, and me outside looking around, there was a horrible screeching sound and the car stalled out.

That was the end of it. I walked away at that point and decided I'd drop the transfer case tomorrow and go from there...

Any ideas? What steps can I take to pinpoint the issue and diagnose properly before just taking things apart one by one.
 

DynastyLCD

Well-known member
Joined
May 12, 2006
Messages
761
Location
Harwinton, CT
center differentials are always trouble. ive heard of them breaking and leaving a car RWD or FWD. when i broke mine, my car was RWD, and the fronts were making terrible noises. a few steps to begin diagnosis on this issue: inspect the trans fluid. if you broke spider gears in the center diff, you will obviously see lots of metal. pull down the transfer case, and then try spinning the wheels again. check to see if the transfer case output shaft still spins. with the transfer case off you can try spinning the output shaft and making sure the input spins with it consistently. besides all that, you could pull your trans apart and remove the center diff, find out for yourself. diagnosis over the phone/computer is never a good idea, but my educated guess would be a center diff problem.
 
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