Sad news. Our trusty 1992 corolla with 125000 absolutly trouble free miles ended its streak today. I was driving the car north to Salt lake city delivering it to my sister who WAS going to buy it from us and drive onto Minnesota. 191 miles and only a 1/3 of a tank gone!!
The car has had all maintence taken care of...oil...tranny tranyfluid..including recent new complete axels. It has really been a trouble free car for us and was used primarily as a spare comuter car driven around town and back and forth to the airport. No more than 200-300 miles a month probably over the last 4-5 years.
Today 200 miles into a "highway drive" to Salt Lake from Las Vegas, cruising along at 75-80 mph there was a sudden momentary power loss . I figured perhaps some bad gas..misfires etc etc. ...5 minutes later a faint whirring noise began. I slowed down and luckly there was an exit not a 1 mile ahead to Cedar city.
By the time i was on the off ramp basically coasting down the noise had increased in volume and pitch and the car started to "buck" slightly when gas was applied.
In park the engine revved freely with no unusual noises...so i eliminated that as a problem.
The tranny was a bit low on fluid, perhaps a pint if that..i topped it off as a precaution.
IN gear there was a faint grinding noise in all gears when the car was moved.
I was starting to think differential.
Off course there is no way to check fluid level in there so i limped to a shop 100 yrds down the road and had them put it on a lift. Wheel bearings were ok.
We drained the diff and the fluid was brown and burnt. The drain plug had metal shavings on it I was dead in the water and knew the diff was shot. As a long shot we flushed it..topped off with new fluid...but no change. The car barely moves while in gear.
Now that you have a bit of history.
How hard is it to replace the diff? Im pretty handy with cars in most respects, i do all the work on my 87 Porsche
Where is the best source you all know of for a used diff or tranny/diff combo?
Would it be easier to replace the diff or just buy a whole used tranny with it included?
It really sucks as this car has been absolutley bullet proof for us and i hate to see basically scrapped. The price of replacing all this is becoming cost prohibative VS the value of the car.
I may just sell the car as is for 500 bucks and needing a differntial.
Input..ideas.
Thanks.