91 Safari Front Diff TORN OUT While Driving?

[ronbo66]

OK GUYS here is one for you , I found this beatiful van at a dealer that just had one of those push pull or drag sales and I managed to buy this trade in that came in on a tow truck.(very cheap!) Upon inspection the front differential had been forcibly torn out from some unknown reason. The upper left mount and bracket was ripped from the frame rail and was completly missing leaving a nice square hole in the frame channel! The left upper mount bracket broke in two between the rubber mount and the passenger axel tube mount. The rear mount remained intact and was the only thing holding the diff in. I have assumed that Either the diff locked up (failed) during normal driving conditions and the force of the vehical driving forward sheared the diff out. Option two was that the prevoius owner had some trouble in the snow and while the tires were spinning got some traction and caused the failure. Im going to fix the frame and put in a used diff is there anything elce I am missing? I hope this will be all that is wrong. also as a side note the force of the diff spinning ripped the driveshaft yoke right out of the sliding sleeve as the diff spun after it sheered off the front drivrshaft then rested gently on the exhaust pipe and appeares ok and not bent. I guess what I want is any other ideas as to what caused this to happen? thanks in advance! RON

[broughy84]

sounds like you got some work ahead of you!

[mjgjr72]

i doubt either is the case, i think the tires would just skid before ripping out mounts, sounds more like he hit the diff on something at a pretty good speed.

maybe you can find the previos owners name and contact them to find out, i would be interested to hear what happened.

[ronbo66]

Well its back on the road, I found out also that the motor mounts were broken and the engine was resting on the diff! Did this cause it we may never know! CIO!