I messed up, tranny I think

[slideways]

Bad things come to those who screw around. Anyways, two weeks ago I was at home and we got a nice half inch of wet snow. I thought it would be fun to go to the huge parking lot at the the local softball complex. So I was whipping around with power slides and doughnuts in my 93 legacy awd 5mt. I was spinning on axis to the right in first gear at about 5 grand, when all of a sudden, the car shuddered REALLY bad. I stopped for a few minutes and tried to move again, still turned to the right slightly. Loud knocks were felt, coming from the tranny area. So there I sat for about twenty minutes. I drove off without the car uttering a peep.

 

A day or two later I was driving with the radio off and when I made sharp right turns and accelerated through the turns, I noticed a subtle turk, turk, turk (best way I can describe it:-\ ). It was more pronounced when the car was cold.

 

So what happened? I am thinking either viscous coupling or front diff as the initial bucking seemed to come from the front, but I'm not totally shure.

 

I'm shure with wet snow and a not completely frozen surface of the pavement, decent traction was to be had where the tires had already flung the snow away. This leads me to believe the viscous coupling was worked pretty badly.

 

On the other hand the Redline 75w90ns oil in my tranny has seen roughly 36k miles, 24k of them being extremely rough ones, where it was primarily accelerating up to 40 to 50 and back down again in less than one mile to three miles, in and out of country driveways and such. My point is, could deteriorated oil have lead to front diff damage if the torque at the diff was routed through one wheel for an extended period of time? That wheel would have been spinning at 30 -40 mph.

 

At this point, I would rather replace the viscous coupling since I could just take the transfer case off, and I don't really want to take my tranny back out.

 

Any input would be appreciated. Alslo forgive any gramatical errors as I am slightly (maybe more than) drunk, since finals are over.

[Subarunation 713]

Perhaps you checked already but what about something more simple like a CV joint. 5000RPM in 1st while turning tight might have given the CV joint a pretty good workout.

[Soup]

Definately sounds like a c/v shaft on it's way out. The c/v wear becomes noticeable on turns, especially when excellerating in turns.

[cookie]

on the coffee.

[alias20035]

CV joints are easily broken by driving in the manner that you did.

 

If you are spinning your wheels on snow and ice, and then catch clean pavement it is often possible to rip a tire off of wheel or break the CV joint ball retainer cage.

 

5MT Legacy's can run with one completely failed front CV shaft (I have done this), but it should be a quick run to the garage to get it fixed.

[slideways]

I guess I always think the worst in thses scenarios, since that is usually how my luck runs. The front c-v shafts were new last summer, but I'll check them out anyways. It did seems that the noise came from furthur back but we'll see. I appreciate the input.