SnoMan said:
It is not that rare in a Saturn actually.Kinda a design weakness or
flaw if you want. If you spin the wheels a lot it can happen. (you
have to get pretty agressive about it and heat things up) The "fix"
that some use is to weld the pin to the carrier on one side so it
cannot come out. If you have a stick and drive hard (trying to or
actually doing burn outs) it is basically a question of time before it
happens
Since it is now winter this is a timely subject.
The differential side gears are used to adjust for the slight variations in
distance traveled by the inside and outside wheels in a turn. In a turn,
the speed of the side gear of the inside axle is slowed slightly and the
speed of the gear on the outside is increased slightly. Since the speed of
the differential gears is (normally) very low they are not usually equipped
with bearings or bushings and tend to have poor oil supply. Since the
outside gear speed increases by the same amount as the inner gear slows,
when one drive wheel is on solid ground and one is on ice, the wheel with
the good traction will be stopped but the wheel on ice will be turning at
twice the indicated speed and the differential gears will be spinning much
much faster than their design allows. Failure is usually from accumulated &
progressive damage but could be caused by one severe occurrence.
This is a very expensive failure that can be avoided by NEVER allowing one
wheel to spin while the other is stopped. Rocking a vehicle gently where
both wheels are spinning slowly seldom causes damage but YMMV. This problem
may occur in manual or automatic transmission vehicles, and is most likely
when trying to start up on a slight upslope.
Rapidly spinning wheels can also place very large impact loads on drivelines
if the wheels suddenly spin off the ice onto a surface with good traction.
