I am wondering if any one has heard if the differential pin is a common thing to go in a 96 Dodge Grand Caravan 3.8 L tranny and place a hole in the side of the tranny housing. My mechanic just rebuilt my tranny 4 months ago and now there is ATF leaking right through. He says after looking at it that he found that the pin had gone and put a hole in the side of the housing which he will try to patch up, or I will have to buy a new rebuilt tranny or a new tranny. Should he not have seen if the pin was going or replaced it when he rebuilt the tranny? He also said that it is a common problem with these vans and Dodge is denying it or else they would have billions to pay out if they recalled this defect. Has anyone else had this problem or shed some light on this? I would appreciate it before I get charged an arm and a leg for something that may not be there? Thanks

 

That pin is one of the most common failures in these trannies. In the rebuild, he could have use what are called "case savers" which eep the pin from destroying the case. If you are just leaking fluid, then your case is still salvagable. I've had several where the pin catches in the case and grenades a hole in the side which is really not repairable. On my 91GC , the last time the pin broke, I JB welded (its an epoxy your mechanic will know about)the hole in the case, and then welded the differentiial pin in so it could never come out. So, in answer to your questions, yes this is a common known problem.....No there was probably nothing he could have seen if he is a consciensous mechanic that would have indicated this would happen to you and by that i mean unless the pin showed great signs of wear or wobble in the housing, he probably cleaned it and put it back in, The single biggest reason these pins break is from spinning the tires or slamming from reverse to forward. Getting stuck in mud, on wet grass or in the snow are likely times the tires will spin in such a way as to cause this. Now if he is going to fix the differential, the bigger issue is, when that pin was eating through you case, a lot of metal was abraded and had to go somewhere. The solenoid packs collect this fine metal and fail and it will damage the front pump and such. A full rebuild is probably in order. Good luck