not a r.b.v. but check out these spiders!

[racsan]

'97 S10 blazer 4dr 4x4, 177,000 miles. found rear diff oil low last august, pumped out what was in in through the "add" hole. refilled. noticed about a month later that the drivers side axleshaft seal was leaking. today was "maintenence day" for the blazer, front end got new cailpers, pads,rotors and steering fittings greased. back end got new axleshaft oil seals on both sides, cleaned shoes off on drivers side that had oil on them, painted rear drums and diff cover, filled with oil when done. i was shocked at the wear and pitting on the spider gears, ring and pinion are fine. there was some wear on the axles where the bearing and seal ride. could this damage be due to oil level being low? seems many dont think about servicing the differential. when i changed the diff oil in the ranger all the gears looked great, granted the ranger had only about 125,000 miles on it at the time, this gearset has 177,000 miles on it. going to run it as it is and see what happens, have a parts blazer with 3.73 gears that i can swap axles with if needed. only downside is that i will need to do both front and rear swap, the "good" blazer has 3.42's id rather have 3.73's but swapping that front axle is a major job. and i ought to see what that gearset looks like, the parts blazer had 198,000 when it was parked. it does have the limited slip carrier though. maybe i'll rebuild it this summer and have it on standby.

 

[scotts90ranger]

my bet is it was either ran with two different size rear tires for an extended period of time at some point in it's life or a previous owner did a fair amount of burnouts...

 

[kunar]

i would definitely think that the low fluid had something to do with the bearing/seal issues and the spider gear wear. if there was still enough fluid that the ring gear was dipping into it, thats why it's not worn like the spiders. like you said though, i would just run it and see what happens. it probably won't cause any major problems.

 

[racsan]

i just happend to still have the washer fluid jug i used when i pumped out the old oil last august. after i put tools away yesterday i poured the old rear diff oil out from the drain pan into the same jug. i had marked where the level was with the "oringinal" oil. was less than half of the 1 gallon jug capacity. after pouring in the oil from yesterdays draining, it was nearly full. id say it was all about oil level. while you can do one -wheel burnouts all day on snow, its just geared way too high and weighs too much to be able to do that on dry pavement. the different tire size therory i had though about, but youd have to run for alot of miles with different sized tires to do that, i would think the handling isues would be too annoying to do that, plus the pitting that is there seems to be more of a lack of lubrication issue versus the spiders merly working overtime. i do know of a crysler minivan that spun its one front tire so much in the winter that it caused a spider to friction weld to the cross shaft, breaking the small roll pin used to retain it. then the friction weld didnt last and the cross pin was able to "float" freely in the carrier. ended up gouging a hole through the case of the trans behind the tourque converter, then massive fluid loss/cooked bands. but that van did have 180,000 on it. i pulled it back to its home with my ranger, and it had a 4x6 trailer hooked to the van full of firewood when i was pulling it home.