Picked up another rear end off an 02 SS with 3.23 gears. I' m no diff expert but the gears look ok . What really has me worried is the wear on one side of the paddle. There is some bad scoring. Not sure what it could be. Any torsen experts. ? No broken tooth.

 

Polish and run it. Lateral play from the axles is all you're dealing with.
Pull it at next fluid change-out for inspection.

 

Cool thanks bro. Noob question how do I polish it? fine grit sandpaper?

 

Depends how deep the scratches are. From the picture it looks like 120 grit would be needed to start.
Might have been run low on oil or the oil got cooked,
I have another 3.42 torsen posi set if either of you are interested. Originally from a 2000 TA

 

Yeah I believe it was run low on oil. Scoring is pretty gnarly. When I removed the cover only about half a quart came out. And showed signs off leakage from cover and maybe pinion seal. Any way to test for leakage at the pinion seal? Was thinking turning it upside down and pouring some oil down in there, letting it sit and see if it leaks. Gonna polish it up and run it.

 

Bingo Bango! Although, it it was ran low on oil some of the bearings could be suspect also. Might not be a bad idea to just replace the bearings and the pinion seal. Crush sleeves are cheap, less than two bucks. Usually a pair of carrier and pinion bearings aren't expensive.

 

Damn your right, bearings might be toast damn. Never really dove into a diff before. If I were to replace just the bearings and crush sleeve do I have to mess with the pinion backlash and depth and set all that good stuff?

 

You're not changing gears or the differential so I wouldn't spend the time on backlash. If you are changing out the bearings though be sure you also use the races that came with them. Sometimes different brand bearings have different angles to them.

 

I would just do all the bearings including wheel bearings and seals. Remember those are lubed from the diff also. You will have less than $100 in bearings and seals for the whole rearend. I would also measure backlash if doing new carrier bearings unless you have the carrier shims marked from what side they came from. With new bearings things can change. Pinion depth should be fine since you are using the same gears and carrier. Just make sure you use a new crush sleeve and pinion nut and set the bearing preload.

 

I guess I'm a cheap b@$%#&d I reuse crush sleeves and re-crush them - I mostly swap gears and add Posi's to another housing - mostly 8.5" stuff and I get pinion to point where there's no play and crush them till I have 15-20 in/lb of drag

 

It doesn't seem like something to really brag about,it would suck BIGTIME to work on a rear ,button it up
just to have to gut it and change the parts you could have easily done when it was apart THE FIRST TIME.
just one of those things i guess,do it right or don't bother >>> but i can relate as im (broke)cheap too!! lol

 

So now having second thoughts on wether I should install this rear. I flipped it upside down and poured about half a quart of synthetic oil in it . Left it overnight and in the morning it was clean. No leaking. Second day good. Third day I saw a small amount of oil. Think I should run it? Did the synthetic just get past the seal? Then again a diff is not in that position while its on the car and gravity helping get past the seal. Or how about I just run regular dino oil. That should slow the leak down at least meanwhile I find me a better rear .