Gforce 9" Leaking and Griding Issues
 

Hello all figured I'd post up get some opinions from those on here, I'd love to hear from some vendors. So I put my gforce kit in a few days ago and I noticed right off the bat it "clunks" going into gear when I shift. It feels like the whole differential is moving.

After taking the car around for a bit felt good but a little hard going into the gears not as smooth as I remember from stock. I come out to the garage and it smells like gear oil. I find a puddle of gear oil under the car :faint:. Wonderful. So I clean up the diff and I put some cardboard under it to see if it would leak anymore as I figured maybe it was overfilled and came out the vent. So upon inspection the next day I only saw a few drops(potentially residual fluid coming down the diff) so I decided to take it around the block quick. I got about 10ft out of my drive and it GRINDED almost didn't even want to go into 2nd. I tried going 2-3 and that was almost worse somehow. Now its straight back into the garage. I'm going to attempt to put some more fluid in it tonight and see what is up but I'm at a loss.

Could possibly be potentially trans related but I doubt it as it was smooth as butter before the install. Any thoughts and potentially ways to troubleshoot would be appreciated.

Have you spoken to Gforce yet? Their service seems to be great. That's the first call I would make. I hope you get things sorted out.

Did you seal the center section in the housing using RTV? Drain plug tight? How much gear oil did you put in? It should be 2 quarts. Are all of the axle bolts still tight? U-bolts that attach the driveshaft to rear tight? All bolts on the front of the driveshaft tight? What all did you disconnect when installing the rear? I can't think of any reason why the 9" kit would make it hard for you to get into different gears. Sounds like a separate issue.

Sounds like you continued to drive it after hearing something wrong, didn't check the fluid level after knowing you had a leak, and then drove it some more when it was possibly dry.

Assuming you installed it properly the pumpkin was probably bad to begin with and you abused it more by continuing to test drive it. You will need to narrow it down to just the pumpkin or something more and then return it for the warranty.

Indeed I have and they have been awesome and gave me some suggestions, just reaching out for some more info.

No I did not continue to drive it. I installed it and filled it fresh with 2 quarts of oil that I confirmed with gforce on the phone prior to install. I didn't notice the fluid leak until I got back from where I was having it installed. I noticed the leak and promptly parked it.

The only reason I did drive it after that was to see if perhaps it was overfilled and it leaked out of the vent tube which wouldn't have been an issue if that was the case. As soon as I shift into 2nd I knew it was wrong and parked it again. I'm not out cruising around in it trust me.

I purchased the kit used and it was sealed. Drain plug was tight and sealer was put on the bolt to keep it from leaking. Everything was tight for sure it was checked twice. I'm not sure either but I purchased some more fluid today and I'm going to check on the level and add if needed. If adding the fluid helps then there is a bigger issue with it leaking and I will then have to get it looked at. Sadly I do not have the space nor the tools to remove this on my own so I would need to get it in a driveable condition to get it looked at.

The rear would grind all the time if it was grinding. The grinding when you shift would be your transmission I hate to say but like you said at the power your at she has been a good one. The Clunk could be alot of different things since the driveshaft is brand new it for sure needs to be checked out but not all of them are not drivetrain releated could also be an issue with your suspension (I had a popping in my rear one time that end up being the Lower Control arm )or your exhaust hitting but there is only one way to find out what it is. The leak its hopefully the vent from a little to much fluid during install if not it would be easy to find either way. There is only one way to found out whats the issue is.

Was this the only thing you had installed at the time?

If all you changed was the pumpkin and you suddenly started having issues then I would be looking at the pumpkin, not the trans. If you did a clutch or something at the same time then its anybodys guess.

Explain how a rear end grinds when you shift and/or makes it hard to shift and does not grind when driving? If the rear end controls how a transmission goes in Gear we would call it a clutch.

I'm inclined to agree with JLE58 here, I'm going to check the fluids tonight to make sure we are good. The general thought so far is that its possibly my clutch not disengaging all the way causing the grind which is entirely possible. I got some tips on how to test and will do so tonight.

And yes was just the whole 9" kit nothing else.

Yeah I would check anything they took off for the install also for the clunk could be a number of things. Did Frank send you some stuff to check on the driveshaft? Hopefully the leak was from the vent.

Well Matt talked to Frank and Matt told me lol. The clunk actually I don't think is a big deal. From what I understand how the rear is setup its just the driveshaft catching up to where the diff was. It was explained to me better but I was assured it was not an issue but its going to be test driven again soon. The leak and clutch/trans needs evaluating now.

Check the mounting bolts at the housing. 1 might be loose.
What kind of posi unit that in it?
A detriot locker will do more clunking noise than a traditional posi unit.