Well I was planning on going down to Hollister with a few other Bronco drivers, today. So yesterday in my driveway I was checking out and preparing my rig for today. While I was checking the new linkage for my twin shifter for the Atlas II transfer case, I heard this loud pop and then grind. First enitial reaction, I thought that it might be the tranny, since I have had nothing but problems with it, from day one of owning this beast of burden.

The more I investigated, it turned out to be the rear-end. So I drained the oil and poped the cover off. Turns out that the diff carrier broke in half into pieces. At least one of the spider gears is in half, and it looks like the pinion gear is a little chiped. I'll find out more when I start pulling it apart. This dif is an Eaton limited slip with 4.10 gears, that was installed about 3 or 4 years ago. so it was only a matter of time. especially with KlunV and Atlas II. I just didn't expect the rear to go first, thought more like front would go bump & grind first.

Turns out that I just puchased an ARB and new gears(4.56) for two weeks ago. I knew I was going to be doing this install at some point this month. But not like this. It seems like perfect timing that this happened at home yesterday, and that I've already got the diff and gears already on hand. Instead of on the trail in Hollister today.

I will be pulling the rest of the broken piece of -- today, and I'll find out what else is going on. And hopefully I'll have this done today.

 

wow... lucky for you. that could have been a disaster situation. trust me ive been there... what size tires are you running?

 

Yea, it could have been a whole lot worse. Thank god it happened in my driveway. My current tires are 33x12.5. A got the 4.56 gears mainly for when these current tires wear out I'm planning on putting 35's on. I thought about 37's and 4.88 gears, but then I would have to do at least 2" more suspension lift if not 4"s more.

Got every thing stripped out and cleaned. The carrier was in a thousand pieces. Then I drilled and taped a hole in the housing for the air line fittings for the ARB. Plus I had enough time to press in the bearings. To dark to contenue, so I will have to take off work tommorrow to finish setting the back lash and torque everything down. Then I'll have to run all the wiring and air line to the rear.