Got this center section in to look at, was hard to turn by hand. Problems were noticed after the car spit a driveshaft out. Check it out. Red circles are silicone I found. One large piece jammed in the rear pinion bearing. Yellow circles are the best examples of the streaking on the rollers of the bearing.



Anything i should look for also because the car chucked a driveshaft out? I am going to do a run out on the suregrip to see if thats straight still, i think it may have barely bent the cap bolts too. The side races show a spot where it wore outsid the main pattern, like it had a high or low spot type of deal. All bearings are Timkin. I think this car runs in the mid-12's, so its not crazy fast.

Where did the silicone come from?

Probably they used it to seal the 3rd member to the housing?

I`m no expert but I find it hard to beleive that soft silicone can resist a cars weight and do that damage. If it was set up too tight it would be hard to turn but silicone doing that damage seems odd to me.

Check the spread of the yoke where the joint goes in , while not good to have silicone in the bearings the silicone didn't cause the drive shaft problem. Bad joint, loose straps, pinion angle, wheel hop? or all of the above but not the silicone.

I don't mind the use of silicone..... I do prefer it up front, rather than in the rear

No, i am not saying it caused the driveshaft problem--or what caused the issues of the rear, i am just saying this is what i found. I believe the car broke a u-joint from what i remember. It is from installing the center section to the housing. The small piece i found in the housing between the two pinion gears.

Once i removed the the suregrip/ring gear assy, the pinion was still very tough to turn. I don't see alot of metal in the rsection, but the bearings show wear like that. I wonder if the metal is was in the fluid/housing. Hard to say as i was only brought the center section aftyer the fact. I just also wanted to warn others about the over use of silicone sealer as i have often seen it overused to seal third members, but this is the first i have seen some get loose inside.

The strange squiggly marks on the rear pinion rollers are just on that bearing. The others seem fine, but the races---all of them to me seem like they they show some fine metal ran through the whole rear. The sure grip unit showed some almost paste like grey metal goop (like a fine metal suspended in oil) sitting on some parts of the suregrip. I wish i could have seen what the oil looked like when it came out of the rear. I did the setup a few years ago on this and the turning torque for the bearings was within factory spec--in fact i tend to be on the looser side of the spec, so i personally don't think it was tight. The gear pattern still looks good.