Diff exploded. Best way to clear the swarf out?

[BigDaveGrrr]

Id been having some drive line judder for a few weeks, Id been under the truck so many times trying to find out what its was until last wednesday when it started klunking and by the time I reached the end of the street the judder got really bad and the knocking got louder and more constant until it turned into grinding and I lost all drive. I had to put it in 4x4 to turn it round and drive it home.

I disassembled the diff today. Look away now if you dont like seeing exploded precision engineering!

As I removed the diff casing one end fell off!

The spider pinion gears were definitely not well

The reason for the damaged spider pinion gears became apparent:
This is how a side gear should look

This is the other one!

Im still not sure what caused the failure, Im assuming the casing broke first which just screwed up the tolerances for the LSD allowing it the slowly chew itself until it finally gave up.

The problem I have now is that there are bits of swarf in every nook and cranny in the casing, should I splash some diesel around in there to try and wash it all out?

Ill be making some calls tomorrow to try and source an Eaton TrueTrac to replace the diff. Id quite like one of their MLockers but either they arent available yet or they are only supplying them for OEM applications because I cant find any other info other than what is on the Eaton website and a YouTube video I found from India explaining how it works. It does look really clever though, a good mix of LSD and full locking diff.

 

[kbushnz]

Gee that really made a mess....
I would be changing all the bearings and shells....they would have had metal smashed into them by now.
Best way to clean all the bits is to get to a wash rig where you can wash the bits away.
Or a big drum of diesel / cleaning fluid and all the heavy bits can fall away and sink to the bottom of the tray / drum. This will work for the diff head...
The axle housing all you can do is rag it out.....

 

[Ron R]

Sjeesh, what a damage...is going to be costly...:whoops::whoops:

About cleaning....I would take apart the pinion as well and inspect the bearings, good chance they are damaged as well, regarding the damage done to the diff.
After you've taken out the pinion, thoroughly clean the housing and every part you're going to re-use with diesel or white spirit.
After washing it all out, get it dried and then blow with high pressure air every corner and hole to remove eventual residue.
Then start reassambling with 'some' new parts.

 

[BigDaveGrrr]

Surprisingly the diff case bearings seem fine, there are no marks on the races or shells and they still rotate freely and smoothly. I will disassemble the pinion and check the bearings there too. I might just replace them anyway to be sure, it all depends on how much they cost.

I think Ive been lucky really as the damage happened very quickly and I didnt travel very far with the diff in this state. As broken diffs go this in my opinion is a cheap fix and will result in an upgrade to a locker/LSD. It could have been a whole lot worse had it damaged the ring and pinion and/or the diff head too.

Id still like to know what caused it to fail though.