I opened a tread last week on this issue but I don't think I described it well enough. I am replacing the passenger side drive axle on a 2008 H3 base model. I removed the previous axle with no issues and replaced the seal. As I began to install the new axle I noticed that the shaft and splines in the differential have moved to the right causing the new axle to go in on a slight angle. I can push the axle in far enough to enter the splines but the axle is getting caught because of the angle. I raise the front end up and placed it in Neutral so i can rotate the differential but it did not work. I cannot move it to the left at all so it's centered. Hopefully the pictures will clarify it better. Any help would be great.

 

Did I put the seal in backwards? I thought for sure that the metal would go to the outside but I just saw a picture of one that had the black air side out. Could that be whats jamming things up?

 

The seal was in backwards but it didn't help the issue. The only thing I can think of is that something is broke inside the differential. Any thoughts on why that would get stuck on an angle? Thanks

 

You need to pull the cover and see what's going on. If it is that far off you must have bad bearings.

 

Well I found the problem.

 

Yikes. That's ugly

 

WOW! I thought a crazy possibility is that one of the bearing cap bolts was loose (I mean like half a turn or something), but that is wild.

Was it doing anything strange when driving? Ever give you any indication that the cap busted?

 

I had something similar happen in a van. Sounded like a shot gun when it happened but then I was able to drive to a shop over 20 miles away. No noise the whole way there. Didn't know what happened until the cover was pulled.

 

I broke a pinion tooth on my last truck at about 120K miles. When I put it in gear on a super cold winter morning (like 8 F) I heard a loud CRUNCH, followed by a crunch, crunch, crunch slowly getting quieter as I drove down the road heading to work. By the time I got to work 6 miles away, it wasn't making any noise, but I knew something toasted.

On the Eway, it made one heck of a whine. About 2500 miles later I had the diff rebuilt and found the missing tooth, the ring had smoothed off the edges of the remaining pinion tooth, other than metal shavings in the lube, everything else was fine.