i have an 98 z28 rear end unfortunately the housing is bent so i was going to stick the posi unit in my housing, but when i opened her up the spider gears had some teeth broken off could i just replace the spider gears and use the posi unit or would there be internal damage to the rest of it? also if i could use it would my stock axles work or are they a diff spline count?

 

you'd need to look at it to know the extent of the damage, but you ought ot be able to replace broke spiders with no problem if nothing else is trashed.

 

where would any other damage be located?

 

The carrier, somewhere. Maybe the side gears too, maybe the carrier itself.

AFAIK the spider gears are the same for both 26- and 28-spline axles; the splines are inside the side gears, and obviously those are different, but I think the spiders (the ones on the cross shaft) are the same. On the other hand, if a spider gear has broken teeth, it probably munged the side gears too. But maybe not.

It would help to know just exactly how this rear came to have its housing bent, and where it's bent. But no matter how it happened it sounds to me like something I sure wouldn't put any parts out of into my car. I hate sitting by the side of the road with a broken car, especially one that's broken because I attempted to re-use some totalled junk parts.

 

the guy spun into a telephone pole and pretty much hit it right behind the rear wheel it bent the housing up a little enough that insurance put a used one on thing is the guy never said anything about the rear acting funny so i dont know if its accident related or not. could i check the gears with a dial indicator to see if there bent? its free anyways so im not loosing any cash on it if their bad.

 

heres another pic sorry its so big

 

Hmmm.....

So it looks like the axle sort of pile-drove the cross shaft, in addition to whatever happened to the housing.

I don't think I'd use it, even for free; too much risk for me. Only you can make a decision about how much risk you can tolerate. But, you could take the carrier out, and if everything else looks OK, buy a gear set for it, if you can change that in whichever posi it has which I believe is going to be a Zexel Torsen. I haven't ever seen gear sets sold for those though; not that they aren't available, just haven't ever seen them.

 

thanx for the info guys. ive been waiting for tax season to buy my new motor . i can buy a 89 z28 w/ tpi and disk equipped posi rear for 1200 im not going the tpi way but i figured i could sell the motor and tpi and use the rear and piece the rest off. then i saw this rear and figured id have a posi unit fro free (hopefully) and could spend more cash on my motor. i guess ill yank the carrier and inspect it for damage.