Front Diff Axel Connection Stripped?

[glenski_31]

Will try to make this short and give enough detail at the same time.

2005 LE with Auto Tcase, 220,000kms.
- Quick 4LO hill climb off trail onto highway on ice. I am not new to 4x4 but new to Pathy 4x4.
- Dash indicators appeared to stay 'locked' so moved between 4x4 and Auto, switched from reverse to drive and all lights go out in dash and truck appears to drive good.
- Run on highway for about 5kms at 100kph, down paved side road and then turn left at stop sign and about 500m down the road BANG, whomp whomp whomp from front.
- Pulled into parking lot (I had been in 2wd since finishing the climb)
- Smell of gear oil and trail of it behind me.

The connection where the front axle meets the diff is leaking gear oil and flopping around. Limped it home (about 3kms away at this point) in 2wd at 30kph since the only other option was to 'flat tow' which would have essentially done the same thing.

No time to disassemble or inspect yet. What happened and what about the fix? Was it somehow still in 4WD even though it didn't feel like it or did I damage on the climb and only after driving a while in 2WD did it finally fail. Jacked the front wheel up and in 2WD when spun by hand it will intermittenly skip now and you will notice front driveshaft stops spinning when it skips. If rotated in reverse it never misses. Seems to me like a case of partially stripped splines at axle/diff connection.

Used diff available locally for $500 out of low mileage Pathy. Is there an option to do a direct replacement with something a little more rugged out of another used Nissan? Quite frankly I am not sure I want the same front diff if it can't handle what I thought was a pretty straight forward 4LO climb on ice?

I know it is hard to say exactly what happened just wondering if others have had this happen and if there is a straight up swap available with something a little more rugged?

[XVTer]

When doing the climb did you have any excessive wheel spin followed by a grab in traction? What happens with these front differentials is that the CV shaft splines will shear off at the diff - sometimes they'll fall inside the diff, sometimes you get lucky and the shaft shears without compromising the circlip, which holds what's left of the axle shaft in place.

I had to put a new front diff in my Xterra for this reason - it happened again later on and I was able to extract the remaining portion of the axle shaft without issue. It's a bit of a crapshoot.

As far as replacements - you can retain the R180 diff that you have and upgrade to RCV shafts, but they're pricey and don't really increase the strength of the diff itself. You can upgrade to an M205 front diff out of the Titan/Armada/QX56/V8 Pathfinder, but need to make sure your gears match front/rear and you'll need V8 pathfinder CV shafts as they're different than the ones for the R180.

There is a lot of good info if you Google 'Titan Swap' - a lot of frontier and Xterra owners do this and there's been a few Pathy guys do it here on this site as well.

[glenski_31]

When doing the climb did you have any excessive wheel spin followed by a grab in traction? What happens with these front differentials is that the CV shaft splines will shear off at the diff - sometimes they'll fall inside the diff, sometimes you get lucky and the shaft shears without compromising the circlip, which holds what's left of the axle shaft in place.

I had to put a new front diff in my Xterra for this reason - it happened again later on and I was able to extract the remaining portion of the axle shaft without issue. It's a bit of a crapshoot.

As far as replacements - you can retain the R180 diff that you have and upgrade to RCV shafts, but they're pricey and don't really increase the strength of the diff itself. You can upgrade to an M205 front diff out of the Titan/Armada/QX56/V8 Pathfinder, but need to make sure your gears match front/rear and you'll need V8 pathfinder CV shafts as they're different than the ones for the R180.

There is a lot of good info if you Google 'Titan Swap' - a lot of frontier and Xterra owners do this and there's been a few Pathy guys do it here on this site as well.

So a daylight inspection reveals this. I would say I was in the exact situation you describe, up hill climb in 4LO and no contact with anything and then driving down the road a while later - this happens.

This is more than a little bit insane. Leads me to believe the Pathy is a soccer mom vehicle just like any other...AAAAARGH.

[smj999smj]

Well, at least it didn't take long to figure out what happened... But, "OUCH!" That Titan front axle upgrade is starting to sound better at this point!