AWD Tranny locked up after launch, Diagnose problem

[92tsifwd]

I launched at about 5000 and at about the end of 1st I heard grinding and felt vibrations. I coasted to a stop and then visualy checked everything and all checked good so I disengaged the clutch and all I heard was grinding and the car was not moving. Center diff? Input shaft gear? Transfer locked? It does this no matter what gear you are in. It goes into all gears though, only grinds when you release the clutch or when you try to push the car it tries to lock up and you cant move the car even though it is in nutral. How can I figure it out? I am thinking of swaping the motor into the fwd 92 so I have a car to drive while I am building the motor for the other car unless this is cheap to fix which I highly dought.

 

[phatTSi]

Sounds like the t-case to me. This happened to me before and no matter what i did it wouldn't move at all but it would go into all gears but it wouldn't move.

 

[steve]

Ouch, didn't even get the blush off the ECU. Maybe I should have told you there was a break in period

Steve

 

[Kevin Jewer]

Tcases usually lock up in thier own good time... On a launch, I would suspect the center diff first.

 

[sweet97]

I did a hard launch a month ago and the prssure plate fingers lost theirspring. $700.and a new2600 and it's like it never happened!

 

[phatTSi]

If it was the center diff you would still be able to drive the car but you would just hear a clicking sound coming from the tranny. In this case its just locked up which leads me to believe tcase.

 

[SpoolnTsi]

If it was the center diff you would still be able to drive the car but you would just hear a clicking sound coming from the tranny. In this case its just locked up which leads me to believe tcase.

Word^^^^^9 out 10 times you should still be able to drive it. There is that slim chance that it could keep the car from moving but that usually isnt the case. It is most likely your T-case. But.........dont be surprised if your center diff is shot also

 

[Kevin Jewer]

If you get lucky the pieces of the diff will stay in the case. Unfortunately I have seen many more cases where the pieces get out and bind up the other gears, ruining them as well. When I forst broke the stock center diff, I was lucky. I drove for a couple days before I decided to see what was wrong. Most of my friends that have broken diffs have needed full tranny rebuilds on the other hand. Tcases usually lock up when the car is moving at speed. Though if it was on the edge a launch could do it. Could be a snapped input shaft, I have done that before. Could be the center diff's case cut clean in half, done that too. But that usually only happens on 4 spider diffs (only two cases I know of). Could be the clutch, but clutch failures typically result in a clutch that wont disengage.

Impossible to diagnose this over the internet, regardless of what each of our personal experiences are. Have to just look at the car and see whats wrong.

 

[92tsifwd]

I put 4 jack stands under it and disengaged the clutch and all wheels spun but it was grinding like a mother from the tranny. I removed the t-case intirely and it still does it. I drained the tranny fluid and it came out silver with chunks of metal. I think the input shaft shreaded the teeth and gears because the main input shaft spins freely out of the car and the transfer shaft grinds/ locks. I pulled the motor and swaped everything to my 92 for now. Anybody want to buy a awd? Anybody know if the motor mounts are different from awd to fwd cause were having troubles gettin all of them to line up? I am asuming there different. Just for the record the ecu did clear up all electical problems Steve.

 

[steve]

Sorry about your AWD man.

Steve

 

[blue92laser]

Alright I didnt read all the posts but to reply to the original one, hereis what i know.

I do know if u blow the center diff, a few things happen.

1. The car will move, but around cornors your back eng will tend to "hop" as the back wheels lock up cause they dont have a differential to spin on anymore.

2. If it really blew up, there will be definate chunks of metal around the tranny drain plug or when u empty the fluid out, you can go through the pan its in and find the chuncks...

3. The worst part, what happened to me. Youll blow holes right through ur center tranny case and that will be the spyder gears undergoing an sufficent ammount of torque put on them and just exploding due to age.

If it was your Clutch Pressure plate...

1. the one and only known problem youll get from this is a loose flywheel, sounds like it would be rod knock but the sound is intermitent and if u put ur foot all the way down on the clutch it tends to go away and become alot quieter due to the the force ur putting agains thte flywheel, almost like pinning it up against the crank.

2. There will probably be hoels in the bell housing case from where the virbation dampeners on the clutch exploded. It happened to me, 6 different holes, but JB Weld holds that up repttyu good as mine is holding up very well.

If it were your T-case...wich I'm going to go ahead and say it is because...

1. When your t case goes really only one thing i know of happening is that it locks up the back wheels and makes the car unpushable making it look like all the wheels are locked....

well jack the car up and rip the t case off and put the car in gear and gently in 1st gear rev the car with the clutch completely engaged.....if the front wheels spin you obviously know it sthe T case

and also by taking the t case off u can inspect the input shaft.

thats my .02c's...anyone else?

 

[cornbread]

Anybody know if the motor mounts are different from awd to fwd cause were having troubles gettin all of them to line up? I am asuming there different. Just for the record the ecu did clear up all electical problems Steve.

All the mounts are the same. The front motor mount is mounted a bit different but the FWD front motor mount bracket will line up no problem. I just did a swap like this not too long ago and everything bolted up fine.

 

[Kevin Jewer]

thats my .02c's...anyone else?

I think you are making a LOT of assumptions in that post. There are many different failure modes for each part, as I stated earlier. I broke the spider gears in the CD and the car would bind up on turns as you mentioned. Another time I broke the CD the car wouldnt even move at all, just rev freely (cut the case in half). A friend broke his and the car wouldnt move in a straight line because pieces of the spider gears were locking up the main gearsets. So we have binding in corners only, not moving at all being bound up, and free reving and not moving. Thats just from the center diff alone. Many different potential failures for each part.

 

[92tsifwd]

Sombody said that the awd motor mounts were the same as fwd mounts but, the front and rear are definitly different in lenth. I swaped mounts and everything perfectly lined up. I am having troubles geting my 2g mass to fit with a 1g air filter. I made the 1g air filter to fit the 2g mass like on www.plymouthlaser.com but it does not fit. Probably cause that guy has a fmic? What kind of filter and adapter do I have to use? I have the dejon 3" 2g mass to 1g hard pipe. I also got the smic so, I am limited on air filters. Anybody?