Hole in my Differential Case?

I found a large hole in my differential, I heard of folks breaking their cover but I haven't heard of the actual case breaking, is this a common issue?

Also does anyone sell a loaded differential (sealed case with the lsd) so I can do a straight swap?

Thanks

wow, that's definitely NOT a common issue - in fact i am wondering how that could have even happened. did the gears explode from the inside?

P49Y-CY said:

wow, that's definitely NOT a common issue - in fact i am wondering how that could have even happened. did the gears explode from the inside?

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Yeah I was shocked too , specially because car drove fine afterwards, only reason I noticed was that it started to smoke when the case puked the oil thru that hole.

Something had to break.

Found out what happened. Some of the bolts that hold the ring gear came loose. One finally came off completely and shoot out of the case, here you can see a good bolt fully torqued, then another that is half out and finally the one that left the diff, wow

Who ever was in your diff last forgot to put red loctite on the bolts. I've heard of them backing out but this is the first time I've seen it. Your lucky you didn't loose the whole car going down the road.

All you can do from here is pick up a used diff, have it gone through and swap it. I'd use the opportunity to upgrade to a Torsen or a Truetrac. The funny part of situation is your lucky if that ABS sensor is still good, damn things are getting harder and harder to find.

I think so! either that or failed to torque some of them down, this was the stock OEM differential too :/

But yes I got a complete replacement with Truetrac going in this weekend. That's interesting about the ABS sensors getting harder to find I didn't know that...

Maverick-4 said:

I think so! either that or failed to torque some of them down, this was the stock OEM differential too :/

But yes I got a complete replacement with Truetrac going in this weekend. That's interesting about the ABS sensors getting harder to find I didn't know that...

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From the look of the bolt hole you posted I don't think they put any loctite on the bolts. There's always some left on the threads when you pull a bolt.