I drove my car from point A to B. It was about a 10 mile drive. Right at the start I floored it and peeled out, had what I thought was some wheel hop and continued on my way.



I started to get a really bad vibration at anything over 25 mph. Unfortunately I continued as to get home. Thought it was maybe a u-joint.



I had a look today and found a loose pinion nut. Not finger loose, but with a ratchet I could tighten it down.



I haven't pulled the diff cover to have a look, but was wondering the odds that the ring and pinion are trashed or if a new crush sleeve and re-assembly would get it back in working order? Obviously having a look would probably answer my question.

 

Probably ok-i had the Nut back off and gears were howling on decell,no bad vibration,I just tightened the nut back and noise went away. I have seen some loose pinion nut cases where the pinion was grinding against the carrier.

 

You never know until you look. That doesn't generally wipe anything out on the spot, although it often does shed abuncha metal into the fluid, from the pinion rubbing on the carrier as 8t2 said.

Tighten the nut to about 100 ft-lbs and see what happens. If it's OK, tighten it a little more, to maybe 150 or so, and change the fluid.

If you DO decide to replace the crush sleeve, get a solid spacer https://www.summitracing.com/parts/rat-4111 instead, so this doesn't happen again.

 

I tightened the nut to 100ish and test drove. Vibration at previous speeds is gone. Still slight vibration at 40+ but nothing at all like before.

Next step will be to take off the cover, inspect and if looks good, change crush sleeve (to solid), new fluid and test again.

 

I would doubt it but when's the last time you changed the diff fluid? If the answer is never now is a great time to do it and see what everything looks like.

 

Nah, it's probably fine.
I ran worn out bearings on a 10 bolt pinion for 12+ track days.
You can get away with a bit of play.

I think I subtracted 0.010in from my solid pinion spacer and torqued the pinion nut back down.
Pattern was still decent.