my rear end locked up tonight, broken T-Case?

[sxevegan]

Tonight i was driving along and all of the sudden i felt a little bucking. Then it smoothed back out again for a bit. After that im pretty sure i heard a crunch and felt my car skid a little. Luckily i was going slow because i was turning left at a green arrow.

I was like wtf? and started to move again. I barely got out of the intersection and it jerked again...and thats all she wrote. MY car was dead frozen in that spot.

At first i thought maybe it was a differential issue. I put new front tires on it yesterday. They are the same profile (45) but i thought the 1/16th inch difference in tread may have hurt me somehow....but i only drove like 75 miles at the most on the new tires and since they are supposed to be the same size, i really don't think thats the issue.

Other people suggested id sounds like a transfer case thing. I'm hoping that it is and i can get a free one because of they recall. Im really crossing my fingers. Im pretty broke right now (my dsm seems to do that to me ) so a free T-Case with installation would be pretty nice.

Anything else it might be?

 

[jtmcinder]

What - exactly - are the front and rear tire sizes? You may have cooked your center VC, although I'm not sure why this would prevent the car from moving.

- Jtoby

 

[sxevegan]

225/45/16

 

[sxevegan]

Im pretty sure its the transfer case. I pulled it out today and took it apart. There was a good deal of metal shavings on the drain plug and only about 3 to 4 ounces of fluid inside. The metal retaining clip on the bearing was all bent up. It looked like one of the rollers in the bearing was missing also. Im not sure if you should be able to spin anything in the t-case freely, but i couldn't....it was all frozen.