I have a 2009 Q-Link frontrunner 700 that my family and I use for trail riding and utility around the yard. One day this winter while riding, I started to hear a grinding noise that I could not pin point and sparks were seen coming out of under the bed area. I thought the four wheel drive wasn't engaging but that wasn't it. I drove it home and by the time I got home, there was no rear wheel drive. While in four wheel drive, I only had front wheel drive getting me home. I'm now just looking for some guidance as to what my first step should be for diagnosis. I had used the differential lock earlier in the day to get un-stuck from a tricky trail, I'm curious if that could have something to do with it. I've read elsewhere that I should drain the rear diff fluid and see if there's flakes in it, is that accurate? I'm good with cars and plan to do everything I can myself to try and fix this. Please let me know any input you may have or any questions. Thanks!
Other Rear differential problem?
- Thread starter kmac
- Start date
I don't have any experience with that brand of wheeler but it looks like anything else. Draining the oil would be a good step. If you have no rear drive at all you can confirm it pretty easily. Put it in 4wd (key on, engine off) then jack up only the rear tires off the ground, see if you can turn the rear tires. If the tire turn and the rear driveshaft doesn't the dif is cratered. If you have someone to help you just put it in 2wd and have someone try to move it, if the rear drive shaft turns but it goes nowhere it's no good. Don't rule out broken CV's while you're checking this out. If you had some rear drive then lost all rear drive you could have broke a CV and the other wasn't strong enough to carry the load alone and broke.
I added pictures but I guess a mod has to approve them. CV's are fine, did them recently. I took the bed, muffler, downpipe, and heat shields off so I have an unobstructed view from the top down of the diff. I have a rhino service manual, so I'm gonna work off of that, some other day this week or this weekend. From the take down, it looks like the previous owner may have screwed with this part too, so we'll see what happens. I just don't want to have to dish out $500 for a new diff.
I took it completely down, and took out the rear diff. It appears that a tooth from the pinion drive gear broke and got into the ball bearing and screwed everything up. The driven gear is fine, just the drive gear has a small piece broken. Do I have to replace both? From websites, I've seen that they come as a package. For all the bearing and stuff it's fifty bucks but the drive and driven gear is $300. So this is where I'm stuck, any opinions?
Here's a pic:
Here's a pic:
In higher speed applications (cars etc...) you want to replace the ring and pinion in pairs to prevent whining. In the ATV UTV dept. I will replace whats needed, I doubt you'll ever hear the whine if it ever surfaces. By looking a the pictures above it looks like the case is thrashed too. If thats what you have going on it might be cheaper to buy a whole unit than to piece it together. There may be press work involved and the threaded bolt holes don't always come threaded so you have to do that too in those cases.
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