Has anyone ever had their differential crack? Mine did on a ride yesterday...without hitting anything. What could cause it? We were riding at slow speeds.

 

Explain crack? I ride w/ two Honda fourtrax's 96 and 97 300's. Both look like they've got a hole that shouldn't be there near the drain plug. Almost like someone hit it with a small pick hammer. It doesn't hurt them at all as the hole is in the housing itself and not into the diff grease/gear area.

 

My diff. developed a 360 degree crack on the left side, which poured metal flaked oil out. I removed the diff today and noticed that 3 out of the 6 bolts securing the diff housing to the ring gear were missing. The last three had worked loose. I contacted Honda America today to see if they would do anything. I did a little research today and found out that some early Ranchers did not have loc-tite installed on the threads by Honda because of poor QC. They probably won't do anything but maybe if enough people report it they'll have a recall.

 

Well the model is five years old, so a recall and free repair will probably never happen. Sorry to hear about your misfortune. Hopefully it won't be an arm and a leg to fix. You may want to find an atv salvage yard and buy a used rearend. Just strip it down and loctite the ring and you'll be good as new. Good luck w/ it.

 

I'm still waiting to hear from Honda. If they won't help, I found a new Honda dif at servicehonda.com for 315.00, so it won't hurt too much.

 

We always like shiny new parts don't we, atleast until it's covered by 6" of swamp muck.

 

Shiny is nice, but at this point I will be more than happy to settle for "functional." Of course, I can't complain, the old girl did get me down off the mountain. I hate to think of the alternative.