how long from first rear end noises to rear end explosion?

my car has been making strange noises from the rear end ever since just after i purchased it. usually the noises come at lower RPM's while decellerating, or when i'm turning left really slow i can hear a clicking with the radio and a/c off. the noises seem to be louder when the car has been running for a little bit (ie: warmed up) and completly silent when its cold, such as in the morning.

this has been going on for like 3 months now.

the car has 45k miles on it, and is a 1999 camaro SS, and doesn't appear to have been abused.

i'd be careful!!! my car did the exact same thing....left turn noises would probably be caused by a damaged posi-unit but the decelerating part is what got my attention.

when my rear went it sounded the same way, a clicking that was only audible on deceleration. the car still drove fine but when we pulled apart the rear, there was a crack running from the valleys between EVERY tooth in the pinion gear all the way down to the shaft....to make a long story short, ONE more decent launch would have ripped every tooth right off the pinion gear.

IMO, if you are hearing a noise like that, you're on borrowed time, i would get that looked at ASAP.

we pulled the back cover off and didn't find anything odd, a little bit of "normal" metal on the magnet but not excessive buildup, and the teeth all looked fine, all looked exactly the same.


we were hoping that if it was grinding itself apart then the metal would be all over the place and caked on the magnet, but it wasn't :confused:

What type of rear end fluid? Depending on the brand of posi installed, synthetic fluid will sometimes cause strange noises in the rear end. Back when I had the stock rear and an AUbirn Pro differential I tried synthectic fluid and when it started making noise I checked the Auburn site and learned that synthetic is too slippery and would void my warranty.

Originally posted by tnthub
What type of rear end fluid? Depending on the brand of posi installed, synthetic fluid will sometimes cause strange noises in the rear end. Back when I had the stock rear and an AUbirn Pro differential I tried synthectic fluid and when it started making noise I checked the Auburn site and learned that synthetic is too slippery and would void my warranty.

its whatever the base model SS rear end is

i think we put 80w-90 synthetic back in when we changed it, thats whats laying in the garage.

Originally posted by anasazi
we pulled the back cover off and didn't find anything odd, a little bit of "normal" metal on the magnet but not excessive buildup, and the teeth all looked fine, all looked exactly the same.


we were hoping that if it was grinding itself apart then the metal would be all over the place and caked on the magnet, but it wasn't :confused:

you won't necessarily be able to see it....when we pulled mine apart, we couldnt figure out what the hell was wrong with it, the diff looked fine and the ring and pinion seemed to be fine too....however, when we removed the pinion there were 12 or 13 cracks across the back of it...you wouldn't be able to find them with the pinion still in the case.