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Yesterday when I was pulling out of my parking spot in a tight left turn I heard a really loud clank/popping noise. At first I thought I had hit something but I got out and everything looked a felt fine. So I continued cautiously to the store. On the way out of the parking lot it made the loud noise again during the tight left turn out of the spot. This time I stopped and looked at the axles to make sure they were still there and that the tie rod ends were not loose. Took it back to school and parked it. the next morning I went to look at it and there is about half of my transmission fluid on the ground and the right side of the transmission by the axle is pretty wet. Could this be the cv joint and maybe it just pulled itself out of the tranny enough for it to leak? I just had both cv joints replaced around 15k miles ago for the boots being popped.

The diff housing might have cracked? It's possible that they didn't get the CV seated all the way and it finally worked out. It should have a circlip on the inner end that holds it in place. It could have failed. You're gonna have to get under it or take the wheel and fender liner off and take a look.

I got under and looked at it this morning. The passenger cv joint looks fine and in the transmission all the way. It kind of looks like the fluid was coming from behind the axle a little bit. It's hard to tell since there is trans fluid all over the right side. I'll take the wheel off when I get out of classes this afternoon.

bottom of busted housing 1

bottom of busted housing 2

Top of housing where crack may have originated from


Well when I was jacking it up I heard what sounded like a metal bracket hitting the ground. And the diff housing is definitely cracked. Now my questions are if anyone would know how the housing cracked in the first place? Something may have been out of balance? I always figured this type of thing would happen if I ever went to a dragstrip, but now pulling out of a store parking lot lol.

Next question would be if possibly that HD differential conversion kit like on zzp's website would possibly work? Can a differential be installed from the side of the transmission through the differential housing?
Thank you for all and any help.

Oh my.

I have an HD diff kit for half the price of ZZP.

I may be interested in that. I want to pull it apart and see if the ring gear in the transmission has got damaged first. I talked to a transmission guy here in daytona and he said that if the ring gear is damaged then i need to drop the transmission. He offered me 1700 to rebuild my tranny. ouch

I'm almost thinking it would be worth a shot to try the HD kit even if it doesn't work.

$200 shipped for the HD diff, diff cover and axle.

So do you know what is all entailed in pulling the differential out?

I had to remove the wheels and hub assemblies from the struts and lower control arms and tie rod ends. remove the cv axels, unbolt the rear trans to subframe mount, front and side trans mount, shift linkage, electrical connectors, bracket on the differential side of the trans, and all hard lines and things on the subframe. and then dropped the subframe.

I removed it by myself in 2 days. on mine the forward gear set's belt was busted. Me and my dad rebuild the whole thing with a transgo rebuild kit in a afternoon and he helped me re mate the trans to the engine and then it took me a day and a half to get all put back together. also my 4th gear shaft was almost dead.

all in all it cost me around 350 to rebuild mine. not including the 25 or so i spend on wood and some chain and hardware i used to make the engine support.

the haynes manual was a big help. i wish i would of had the legit GM manual at the time but it was a fun project since it wasnt a daily driver at the time.

harofreak do you know what gear ratio the HD differential will be?

I think they are 2.93.

So if I switch to a differential and it has a higher ratio like a 2.93 and my car has a 2.86 ratio, is there anything else that I would have to worry about or will it just run like that?

I haven't heard of any problems with the gearing when people put HD units in their non-HD trans.

Update. I finally had the time to pull out the differential.

This is the ring gear inside of the transaxle. All of the teeth look perfect and nothing was cracked.

In this picture you can see the planetary gear that broke clean in half.

And here you can see the scoring along the inside of the differential housing.
Andrew has shipped me out an HD differential kit. So as soon as that arrives the next step will be putting everything back together. I am really happy that the ring gear in the transmission still looks perfect.
P.S. I kind of wish I could change the title of this thread to differential failure. But I am not really sure how.