I'm getting a horrible grinding noise at full-lock to the left or right after my 03 WRX is @ operating temp. It was believed to be a bad drive shaft but I swapped it with a known good unit and I'm still having the issue. There are zero issues when driving the car around town or driving in tight circles when the car is cold. The car is stock except for a bosal shorty dp. I went through the 5mt myself & replaced a fork, some bearings, & put in a used center diff less than 1k ago. Both trans shafts are in beautiful condition and all the bearings that I left alone looked perfect. Everything was put together properly (not my 1st trans rebuild.) I used Subaru extra-s to fill. The car also has a new clutch/flywheel/tires. I've checked for obvious things like loose bolts, torn axle boots, things rubbing, etc. As you'll see in the video it seems to appear the most when lifting off-throttle... Please check out the video below.
Loose axle Loose wheel Downpipe rubbing? U-joint on the driveshaft? If none of the above I'm betting bad center/front diff.
Axle seals were not replaced. I did inspect the front diff & bearings and they looked fine. Has anyone experienced a bad diff or had similar noises?
there have been countless failures of front and center diffs, usually from lack of service and shitty driving habits.
My front diff was knocked out of tolerance from a wreck and ate itself to tiny little shrapnel after everything else was repaired. Sounded like someone put a baseball card in my spokes......
So I guess I need to get it hot again & throw it up on stands. If I spin 1 front wheel & I get the noise it's the front diff. If I don't get the noise it's possibly the center?
wrong, i put my car in the air, spun one front wheel and the other spun still and there was no noise. then tried the same thing from the other side, still no noise. it only did it under load..... Will said it literally looked like someone threw a hand grenade in there.
Wow. I suppose anything could happen but I had the thing opened up less than 1k ago and everything looked perfect. That's why I was leaning toward a bad center. That seems like the only part in the 5mt that can't be visually inspected...
well maybe it just wasn't to that point yet. i put ~10,000 miles on mine before i had it looked at. but i could believe center diff, if its not front
Sorry if this is a dumb question, but can an open front diff fail? I could see teeth breaking off or the bearings on the axle stubs going out, but I can't think of anything else.
Alright, I think I've sourced center diff #3 on crapioc. Debating what to do about the front. I'm guessing I'd need to reset preload if I replaced the front diff bearings?
It turned out to be a sheared trans mount bolt. I found it on my 3rd trip under the car. Pretty embarrassing that I missed it... Thanks for all the help, I'm hopeful that this rectifies the issue.