Need help, Transfer case or Rear end

[dls93tsi]

My friend has a 92 awd talon A/T. we were driving home yesterday from senior week and his car started making grinding noises and the front passenger wheel started locking up on the highway and rippin the car all over the place.

We pulled off at a gas station and when he tried to leave the stop sign, the car barley moved, it made a loud metal grinding noise and it took all the cars power to move it.
we first thought it was his front brakes riding, so we bled the lines and got a bunch of air out of them.

That didnt work. some guy walked over and asked if we needed some help, he wsa a mechanic and might be able to diagnose the problem. he put the car in drive and reverse, said since it was doing it in both gears it wasnt the tranny, and that it was the rear end. he suggested pulling the driveshaft and seeing if we could drive it home FWD.

when we pulled the driveshaft though, i was expecting to loose fluid from the transfer case,(we were gonna pull that too), but the input shaft in the Xfer case was dry as a bone. I started to wonder if the problem was in the xfer case and not the rear. he said he never changed or checked the fluid in his xfer case, so i think the transfer case may have taken a shit. am i correct or does this sound more like a rear end problem?

 

[ben90tsi]

sounds like the transfer case to me , if i remember correctly the recall on those is because the fluid leaks out and can cause your wheels to lock up...its all over the boards on here just do some searching.

 

[dls93tsi]

bump

I need to know what you guys think before we trailer it to the dealer tommorow. It would suck to get there and find out its the rear end and have satan try to charge us for it.

 

[1stGENracer]

It doesn't sound like a rear end problem, you said the front wheel was locking up not the rear.