Differential not Pulling at all.
 

Hey all. I really really need some assistance here.

So I bought a 1995 318TI 5 Speed from a friend of mine that just wanted to get rid of the car. He said he was driving one afternoon and all of a the car just stopped pulling. He had it towed to the BMW dealership and after a inspection by them they told him that something broke inside his Diff and it would cost $2500-$3000 for them to fix it. tranny is fine, Driveshaft is fine etc etc....

I pulled the diff and opened the cover and there wasnt anything broken as far as I could see, Oil was pretty old but I had planned on changing that anyways. This is a 3.43 Open Diff just incase anyone is wondering.

Now Im not a diff guy but I know that an Open diff you should have one axle turning when you rotate the Yoke. Now what I noticed that if you rotate the yoke like the driveshaft would, the side axles will turn but as soon as I grab either the left or the right side axle while the yoke is being turned they will just stop rotating and you get a clicking sound from inside the diff. It seems that any type of pressure that is applied to either side axle while the yoke is being turned and it just starts to click inside. It this a sign of a Bad diff or could it be something that I can do to salvage this one. I hate to spend the money if its something that can be repaired easily or fairly cheap.

Please let me know and thank you for reading this post. Any positive replies will be greatly appreciated. Wife loves this car, just cant drive it at the momnet.

Robert

Did you find out what was wrong with the differential?

Inside the differential is a diff case that houses the differential side gears and spider gears. The side gears attaché to each of the axles. The spider gears connect the two side gears. The spider gears keep the drive side and passenger side axles attached together.
If the spider gears are stripped, only the ring gear will spin but it will not transfer the power to the two axles.
Just find another open diff. They are cheap.