March of this year will be a black spot on my Dodge ownership, toasted 2 differentials in one week on 2 different trucks... not very proud of that fact, I do pound both trucks a lot but I also take care of them at the same time, royal purple oil changes every 6,000 miles and I don't beat them until they're warmed up. They both took quite a pounding and lesser trucks wouldn't have held up like these did despite having "F**ked by all standards differentials.


So my ol' reliable 97 I re-licensed while I was waiting on spider gears to arrive for my 04 Hemi Ram, and the first day it snowed big time and I just tore *** in the truck and pulled a few people out of the ditch and went to work. On the way back from work my abs light came on, I heard a clicking noise by my rearend, shrugged it off as being drum brake related, maybe a spring let loose or the parking brake cable end broke and is rubbing on something I figured...anyway it was too cold out to care anymore and the truck drove fine and I wanted to get home from work. A week goes by, and I put close to 500-600 miles on the truck (mostly highway) and the rear end just seemed to hum louder than it used to and it seemed to skid a bit on turns and that clicking noise that sounded like a rock stuck in a hub cap started to get on my nerves. Long story short I used the truck until I got my Hemi Ram fixed and then parked it and forgot about it.


Fast forward to yesterday, I go to get the 97 Ram ready for a winter backup truck and I started it up and drove it in my back yard and seen when I got out that my diff cover on the truck is wet and has an un-natural bulge in it that a 9.25 Chrysler rearend just didn't come stock with. I decided to investigate it and take the cover off and have a look...was totally baffled & surprised to see what had happened to this poor differential seeing that for the most part the truck ran great and had little to no symptoms despite what I was about to find wrong with it...






temp image upload



photo uploader



screen capture software



upload pic

 

Yeah, wow, the whole thing is toast.
The whole housing is damaged - Replace the whole axle - get new components.
Don't reuse anything.

 

I'm kinda sad, that was always one of my favorite things about that truck, was that it had a 3.55 limited slip and a strong running 360 that could pull 20mpg on the hwy. I'm probably just going to get a craigslist diff or $200 junkyard diff for it. Not sure when, but I don't think I'll be too ambitious before snow falls.