diferential gone bad

[dnasty007]

so on my way to hershey i herd a big clack noise from the rear and pulled over saw my axle was kind of loose on my 1984 944n/a.so asumed it was a broken axle got the car towed to my mechanic shop to have him tell me today its not my axle it's my diff he said its broken so my question to you guys is if this is fixable or am i better off replacing the whole trans and does anyone have one who is close by thanks for looking

[dnasty007]

bump

[AaronM]

Holy crap that's hard to read without punctuation or capitalization.

More on-topic though, it is generally easier and less expensive to find a good used transaxle than to rebuild/repair the insides of a busted one. The differential in particular is very sensitive to the preload settings and it can be quite expensive to have it replaced properly. Replacing the differential is generally reserved for people who are racing their cars and want to swap in a known fresh LSD unit, but for most people simply finding a good used transaxle is the most practical solution.

[HondaDustR]

If the CV joints/drive axles are still properly attatched, it's most likely the final drive gears that broke. It's a pretty common problem with these transmissions, especially if they are driven hard, abused, etc. The gears were thought to have been shimmed too tight at the factory for some units, causing the pinion bearing to fail early. Once the lash goes out of spec, they're as good as dead...which is why it's so difficult to properly replace a broken final drive. The pinion usually loses a tooth and it's all over from there. Finding a good used one is your best bet and not too difficult or increadibly expensive. If you have a decent floor jack, or even better a motorcycle or ATV jack, you can do the swap yourself fairly easily.