Hopefully this is a trilogy and we're not in some saga like Friday the 13th because its sure starting to feel like it!
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| in pieces |
So it goes like this - we were out getting fuel and money for our early departure the next day. We went the back way to our hotel and had to drive up some hills to get there. As we were going up the last one we hit a bump and heard bang, clank and then a clunk. We looked at each other in fear, Justin stopped and pulled the emergency brake and hopped out to get a look under the truck but didn't see anything initially. He thought that we had twisted a half shaft. This was a very precarious spot, so he got back in and limped us to the top of the hill. It was dark but thankfully we were under a street light (the only one on the road).
We had a security guard join us and with his limited English and our limited Spanish we looked for the cause of all the noise. We started with removing the half shafts (axle shafts) and then the prop shaft (drive shaft) but neither of these were broken. The pinion didn't turn with the half shafts out. After about two hours we were able to grease the wheel bearings and engage the transfer case in four low and drive home. At this point, we were both exhausted and freaked out about what this could mean for us.
The next day, Justin took apart the differential and these pictures show what happened. The cotter pin on the spider assembly let go (it appears a long time ago). The spider gear stayed in place until this night, when it came out of position, jamming and shattering the differential.
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| cotter pin polished to a smooth finish |
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| this is the pin that the spider gear was polishing (because of no cotter pin stopping rotation) |
We are actually lucky that this happened where it did because it seems it was only a matter of time, it was going to break sooner or later. So now we are relying on some good people back in Edmonton to find us an upgraded rear end with a limited slip Detroit True Trac, and ship it down to us.
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| the way this broke the open diff was now posi allowing us to go up the hill |
So we are now in the outskirts of Manzanillo, not sure how long we'll be here but knowing the guys in Edmonton they'll have us on our way as soon as possible. We will be able to fix this and continue on our adventure, it just really sucks!!!
