Project Update : Pop goes the ?

Have you ever heard a drive line noise that you instantly knew was catastrophic? I did at VOT last year and the Rhino appeared to be lacking FWD. 

Once the truck was free from the obstacle everything worked fine. I just scratched my head and went on for the next 2 days of the trip. 

Pic nicked from Bryon Dorr  

I heard this gut wrenching noise again at Rovers on the Rocks. I was positive there was no FWD. We jacked up the truck to test it and … Nothing. Everything worked as it should. Again I found myself scratching my head.

Back at the shop we pull the CVs, Diff and 1/2 shafts. Yep you guessed it

Unfortunately the next thing was the T-case and out it came.  There was a ton of metal shavings in the fluid.

 One of the bearings was completely shot but this would not account for the lack of FWD.

 Hoping  against all odds that the welded center viscous was still good, I popped it open and found

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this.

The end result was some of the teeth on the spider gears snapped off.

 As the broken teeth bounced around the viscous unit it would spontaneously lose FWD. We maybe asking to much from the T-case but I’m going to give it another college try with a welded center.

Thats all for now, enjoy the frosty poser pic.