Rear End Carnage (with crappy cell pics)

So, I get in my car to go up to the scrapyard, after not driving it for a month or so. I've been having massive headaches ever since my mini-stroke, and the drone was too much for me. I am cruising along, when I hear a strange whining, over my stereo. I turn off the radio, to confirm that it is in fact coming from the rear end. I get out and look under, to see little trickles of diff fluid pouring out. I hadn't so much as gave it quarter throttle the whole trip. I get my parts, and a guy gave me two bottles of diff fluid to throw in real quick to get me home. I jack my car up, and lo and behold, there is a hole in the diff cover. Great. I squirt the fluid in right there, and drive home, no noises at all. As I am approaching my parking spot, I notice a trail of fluid leading to the spot, and a puddle there where I was before. Hmm. Long story short, one of my incredibly honest friends had taken my car for a drive sometime without me knowing. Of course, noone will fess up to anything. I guess that's what I get for leaving my keys on my nightstand.

So, I took a look at it just now. The mini-spool broke off a few small chunks, and somehow the teeth from the ring gear cut a hole in the diff cover. Looks like someone didn't know to take it easy on the sharp corners with my car. Here's some crappy cell pics. It's a little hard to distinguish the rip on the outside of the cover because of all of this weird black crap that's all over the cover, but the closeup shows it.

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Chunks of the cheap mini spool.
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Kinda hard to see here, but there is a big chunk missing out of the lower part of the left axle mini spool coupler.
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To top it all off, the whole back of my car is covered in diff fluid. It has the whole bumper cover, and back of the trunk covered. It looks like hell.

I guess it's a good time to upgrade to 31 splines now. More money I don't have.

blackink00 said:

when you use a spool you dont have any limited slip. what are you doing with a mini spool anyways. just get a nice posi.

Click to expand...

I had it laying around with the open diff, so I figured why not. I had a mini spool in my 93 notch, and it held up to 650hp for years. Just, as a track vehicle. It really makes a world of difference for the launches. It also makes it fun to drive around parking structures. It goes 'chirp chirp chirp' every time I turn a corner

Well, went.

It does what a full spool does, but it doesn't require c-clip eliminators, and it fits into an open differential. What a spool does, is it essentially locks both left and right axles together permanently. Both wheels always spin together, at the same speed. When you go around corners, the outer wheel spins more than the inner wheel, so the inner wheel sometimes does mini burnouts. It's not as bad on the tires as you'd think. I only ever noticed the noises when turning slow or sharply. Since my 'Stang isn't the only car I own, I didn't mind putting it in.