DAMN! My Detroit grenaded!

They said that it could never happen. Some old timers would smack you dead in the mouth for saying such a thing, but it happened. I was picking up a parking stub at the airport one afternoon when all of the sudden my locker gave a gut wrenching BANG!!! No matter what anyone says you can never really get used to that. This time was different though, my axles were locked solid. You will know why when you see the pictures further down the page. As I escorted my friend to his plane I just couldn't get that feeling out of my stomach. You know, the one you get when you know that something very expensive just broke. I nursed that bad boy home at a top speed of 45 mph (pissing off all of the elderly afternoon cruisers), BANG, SNAP, CRACK, BANG, BANG, BANG, all the way home. I got home and immediately pulled the cover and drained the diff...ok, that sure looks like a pice of metal. Yep sure is, wait, there's another and another. That feeling I was telling you about earlier suddenly got worse. Boy, this is gonna cost me. I wouldn't have felt so bad if it had happened on one of those rocks the size of your house nut nooooo, it had to happen in the damn parking lot. Man am I gonna hear it from the ARB guys. By this time I have decided that I may as well go back in the house and sulk in front of the idiot box until I can figure out what to do. I posted my delima to the Dehesa crew and by some strange twist of fate a spare locker shows up at my door the very next day, Thanks again Brad. Now I have something to work with. I proceed to take this thing apart not knowing a damn thing about it, all the while wondering why there are so many bolts holding the case together...until I got the last one loose. They put some mighty powerful springs in those Detroits let me tell you. That bolt came out of there so damn fast when the case sprung open that I almost lost an eye. Ok, now I have a puzzle laying in front of me...next to me...behind me. I rounded up all of the pieces and finally got them in order and decided, ok I can do this. My locker popped out of the case with little effort (luck I tell ya) and that is when the fun started. I could now pull my locker apart and find out what had broken into all of those little pieces that I found in the pumkin. This time I decide to try and control the inevitable explosion after removing the last bolt. I must have been a sight too, I had it on the ground balancing my entire body over one knee on top of the locker. I could just hear the neibors..."Ethel come here and look at this clown across the street". Anyway, my balancing act worked. I pulled the carrier apart and out spilled about a dozen more little pieces of metal. There it was, all of the inner teeth on one of the clutch members had sheared off and jammed themselves into every possible opening. Luckily it was only one of the clutches that went. I pulled everything out and made sure there were no more pieces in there and ten cleaned everything up. I crabbed one of the clutches from Brad's locker and visually matched it with my remaining clutch. Everything looked good so I put it back together and once again performed my balancing act to close the carrier up. I buttoned up the rear end, filled up the oil and took for a test run. Man, was I happy when everything worked like it was supposed to. Take a look at the pictures below and you will see what the inside of a detroit looks like. I will never be the same after that experience, I cringe even more every time that locker decides to remind that it's in there.

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