The Saga of my Front Differential (1 Viewer)

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Joined
Nov 13, 2016
Threads
5
Messages
63
Location
California
In 2016, the gears in my front diff on my 99 disintegrated. I got new gears and an ARB, pulled the diff, and brought it to Tucson Differential (I lived in Tucson at the time) to install the gears and ARB. Boy, did they **** up.

Fast-forward to labor day weekend. I now live in the Central Valley of CA, and I went on a trip to the Lost Coast. On the way home, we pulled into a one of the state parks to look at the trees. At one point, I need to turn the car around, so I put the car in reverse. The front wheels lock up for just a second, and then break free. "Weird, I think, maybe I bumped it into park or something."

We are slowly driving out of the little campground we had entered, and I am getting strong whiffs of gear oil. I stop at the exit gate, and figure, probably nothing, but I'll just check underneath the car to see if I can spot any leaks. I take a peak, and gear oil is pouring out of my front diff onto the ground. That looks bad.

I pull out of the way, and pull the front skid plate. As you can see below there is a nice hole fairly high on the diff. Extremely unlikely it is from smacking it with a rock, plus the metal is jutting out, suggesting something internally forced the metal out.

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I make a quick call to my brother to brainstorm some trail fix. He brilliantly figures out pulling the front drive shaft and the flange on the hub that connects the axle to the wheel. This way the front differential won't spin in any way. Flange off in the photo below.

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I put the wheels back on, lock the center differential, and drive home without an incident.

A few days later, I pull the front diff and CV axles to take a look at what happened. I pull the front cover off the front diff and notice a lot of copper shards, the airline had been shredded somehow, and what's that in there... A BOLT. I spin the gears and notice one of the bolts holding the ring gear has fallen out. The remaining bolts are easy to loosen BY HAND. I inspect the bolts, and there is absolutely no trace of thread locker (lock tite) on the bolts, which is required so the bolts don't loosen while you drive and lock up the diff. Tucson Differential had neglected to put thread locker on the bolts!! I called them, and they assured my they usually put thread locker on. There wasn't much I could do without being able to show them the bolts without any thread locker.

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There should be a bolt in there...

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The bolt spent a little time being worn down before it blew a hole in my diff.

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Remnants of my air line.

So the bolt is what caused my front end to lock up and the hole in the front diff. I'm very lucky it happened when I was going so slowly.

I figure I should have the whole thing inspected and re-installed. I decide to ship the whole diff off to my brother who can make sure there is no damage and can install it properly. I pick up a nice reinforced plastic bin and pack it up in a ton of bubble wrap. And off it goes.

Well, while the folks at UPS are chucking my 80 lb diff around the pack cracks and eventually breaks leading the diff with installed ARB to fall out. Apparently, no one noticed an 80 lb piece of metal rolling around because UPS called and told me they lost my diff. They spend a week or two looking for it, and did not find it.

I have submitted a claim for to replace it. With a replacement price of $3k from Toyota and an extra 1,000 for the ARB, I am not super hopeful UPS is going to shell out the $4k to replace it.

I only have the one vehicle, so I am just driving around a 2WD Landcruiser with the center diff. locked.
 
Wow. This story just gets worse and worse the farther down you get. I'm so sorry this happened. I wish I had advice or more to say, other than somewhat hollow words of sympathy via a forum post. Truly hope this gets resolved for you.

Edit: RIP @gee314's Front Differential, 1999-2016. Gone but never forgotten.
 
Sub. was the package insured?
 
Wow. This story just gets worse and worse the farther down you get. I'm so sorry this happened. I wish I had advice or more to say, other than somewhat hollow words of sympathy via a forum post. Truly hope this gets resolved for you.

Edit: RIP @gee314's Front Differential, 1999-2016. Gone but never forgotten.
Thanks!
 
X2

If you insured it for 4k then I would expect a check from UPS.
No... Like an idiot, I looked at insurance cost and thought, "I've shipped a ton of stuff with UPS, they've never lost anything."
Ooops. Some lessons are learned harder than others.

We'll see what they say. I submitted a decent amount of evidence that I shipped what I said I did, and what it is worth. Fingers crossed.
 
No... Like an idiot, I looked at insurance cost and thought, "I've shipped a ton of stuff with UPS, they've never lost anything."
Ooops. Some lessons are learned harder than others.

We'll see what they say. I submitted a decent amount of evidence that I shipped what I said I did, and what it is worth. Fingers crossed.
Good luck man!
 
No... Like an idiot, I looked at insurance cost and thought, "I've shipped a ton of stuff with UPS, they've never lost anything."
Ooops. Some lessons are learned harder than others.

We'll see what they say. I submitted a decent amount of evidence that I shipped what I said I did, and what it is worth. Fingers crossed.

Bummer man! Fingers crossed for you, FedEx misplaced a Skidplate of mine for about 2 weeks this summer until i finally got on the phone with somebody worth a da#n who walked around the warehouse and found it after the label had "fallen" off.
 
Sorry for all the trouble. You cannot trust anyone for a perfect job.
 
This sucks...why couldn't you prove there was not thread lock on the bolts? Is pretty obvious from the pics. Hopefully UPS wont find it and you get your $4k. ;)
 
Not necessarily for your case since it sounds like you shipped the housing too, but 5 gallon Home Depot buckets with a lid are a great way to ship a diff. Good luck with the repairs.
Yeah, I heard that, but wouldn't fit with the housing.
 
Bummer man! Fingers crossed for you, FedEx misplaced a Skidplate of mine for about 2 weeks this summer until i finally got on the phone with somebody worth a da#n who walked around the warehouse and found it after the label had "fallen" off.
I have to figure out which warehouse it made it to. I'll try tracking down how far it went. It's incredible that no one would mention a huge piece of metal just lying around without a package to a supervisor, who could then check their flagged packages. Too much to expect I guess.
 
I got check from UPS!! $281.36... Dang!
Anyone know where I can get a locked front differential for $280? Haha. I'm laughing so I don't cry.
Looks like I have a 2WD cruiser for a while.
 
I ordered a front receiver for my Ram once and UPS pulls up and he hands me what feels like an empty box. So I say, "Hey bud, this box feels empty and I'm pretty sure a large steel part should have some heft to it." So we open it up, and sure as s*** it was empty. :hmm:

I got my money back, but man was I glad I was standing there when he pulled up and I didn't have to try to prove after the fact that the box was empty upon arrival.

That is quite amazing that your diff could fall out and mysteriously disappear.

I've also had bolts back out of a ring gear. Fortunately I caught it before a catastrophic failure like you had.
 
I got check from UPS!! $281.36... Dang!
Anyone know where I can get a locked front differential for $280? Haha. I'm laughing so I don't cry.
Looks like I have a 2WD cruiser for a while.

omg :( damn, that's bro.
 
I've also had bolts back out of a ring gear. Fortunately I caught it before a catastrophic failure like you had.

How did you catch it? Was there some noise or something? I didn't notice anything before my wheels locked up.
 
How did you catch it? Was there some noise or something? I didn't notice anything before my wheels locked up.

I think I was just changing the gear oil and there were bolts laying in there (it was on a Dana 30, which requires removing the diff cover to change the oil). I did have a wheels lock up briefly incident like you did, but fortunately nothing came busting out.
 
UPDATE: I got a pre-built front diff from @just differentials. It arrived a week ago or so, and I was going to bolt it in today. Really looking forward to having a 4WD cruiser again. I've been driving around with the center diff locked so it is 2WD. The box it arrived in was a bit damaged on one side, but I didn't really think anything of it. I took the diff out and...the companion flange is bent to s***. I'm concerned the impact required to bend that flange could have caused some internal damage. I'd hate to have something fail in 20k miles due to some weakness from that impact. Just differentials is working with me on next steps. As always, they have excellent customer service.

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