Was driving home from work on Sat and I noticed that the drivetrain was sounding a little funny, soon after that I hear an explosion and peices of metal flying and hitting underneath the chassis. I also heard at this point my driveshaft rolling around in the safety loop. I was hoping that it was just the ujoint that broke but as it turns out it was my tq arm that broke at the back mounting points to the rear end and put my drivetrain at a funny angle and the explosion I heard was a combination of the u joint losing its ends, the yoke ( a spicer viper unit ) breaking as well as what turned out to be unfortuneatly a big *** crack all the way around my less than 2k miles D and D built tranny. What sucks even worse is I really got everything for this tranny including the viper outputshaft with the extra splines so this is really a big time financial loss since the tranny is gone . Whats even worse is this car has only run down the track 4 times, 2 of those times were on street tires and 2 were on slicks. The times I went out on slicks my stock tranny took a crap on me which is why I had to get the D and D tranny.


Here are some pics of the carnage ,,

 

Rest of pics

 

And the most damaging pics of the cracked tranny

 

As you can see on the tranny the crack goes all the way around the casing, I can only assume the inside is toast also because I had to use a hammer and chisel to get the yoke off of the output shaft, oddly enough the splines are not stripped though. At least my APE 408 is still somehow running good although I'm sure something catastrophic will happen to it as well.


You guys think this tranny can be repaired or is it a scrapper?

 

Holy Moly!!! Did you contact BMR about this yet?
That's unbelievable....keep us posted. I have the same TQ arm (O)(O)

 

i really dont see how some normal street driving could have done all the damage

you were atleast doing a pass on the street when it happened
or maybe the night before because that just seems like to much damage

everytime i have seen this happen it has been from loose bolts on the ta

very interesting case to say the least

 

I dont like the space between the bolt holes whats that like an 1/8th at most? maybe some larger washers on the torque arm bracket to distribute the the load

 

I dont like the space between the bolt holes whats that like an 1/8th at most? maybe some larger washers on the torque arm bracket to distribute the the load

 

Wow..BMR huh...hmmm....I keep hearing of things like this, I hope my BMR parts don't fly to pieces...argh..

 

What kind of rear end do you have?

 

I was doing proabably about 110 mph to be honest, but I was not racing anybody. What I think happened was that the tq arm was already broken and that combined with the funny angle of the drivetrain as a result and then the high speed that I was going caused the kaboom.

So you are right I was not going slow but I have been on street tires for months so there is really no pressure to my rear end for quite some time, and when I say street tires I mean street tires not even drag radials. If I hit the gas in 1st or 2nd gears at anytime (not talking about popping the clutch either) I just do a burnout. Thats how crappy the tires are.

 

So what rear end do you have?

 

Lee from BMR told me not to purchase the track pack if I would be driving the car a lot...that's why they call it TRACK PACK...sorry to hear about your accident. Did you have your TA mounted to the tranny? Was your DS balanced?

 

Funny thing is I have a trak pak also and I cant remember if I have holes like that one does on the mount... its been sittin in a box...kinda cheesy to have holes so close together

 

ya i think it was cracked and i bet you heard the kaboom when you got off the gas and the rearend swung down

ya it looks like you had bigger washers on there before

thats what ya need man and alot of red locktight

 

Since your not answering me I'm guessing its a moser and that's why it happened. If I'm wrong correct me but don't start bashing bmr if you do in fact have a moser. They have a warning and it's a known fact that the bolts loosen with the moser design. I do agree it's a bad design to have the holes that close together though. I have the extreme torque arm and for some reason mine only has one set of holes so I'm glad for that. If your bolts did in fact loosen, I could see this happening without much effort. It sucks to see how much damage it caused. Good luck with getting everything fixed.

 

The rearend is obviously a Moser. I don't understand why people keep not paying attention to how tight there bolts are on these rearends when all you hear when someone says Moser 12-bolt is "make sure to check those bolts often they have a bad habit of coming loose" then when they do loosen and it ends up causing catastrophic damage they want to blame the torque arm manufacturer. Sorry you should of checked those bolts..

 

I have a moser 12 bolt too and I had the bolts back out on mine twice. The first time I had to buy a whole new tqarm because the bracket got bent and I couldnt get one ordered in time, so i had to buy a whole new tq arm. The top bolts came completely out and caused the bracket to bend and kept slamming into the bottom of my car. After replacing the Tqarm and adding some blue lock tight, things looked better. Only a week later I happened to check them and found that the bolts backed out again. so this time I put red lock tight and they seem to be holding now. I still check them from time to time though.... weird....

 

He said that because of the way it makes the car handle = ****. I have a trak pak with a Moser 12 and it handles like **** and makes some really annoying niose when doing tight turns. It does hook great but next season a full length arm with their new tranny mount is going in. Their normal full length arm has the exact same mount and basic arm design. I on the other hand do not make as much power and never been to the track on slicks. One thing I noticed is that your on the outer holes of the mount. If your arm is at large angle (if you imagine a perpindicular intersection of two lines and the axle is the horizontal line and the driveshaft is the vertical one) you probably should have used the hole on the inside to bring it closer to the axle like the OEM version. Otherwise the mount is getting twisted constantly from turning and such. The larger the angle the more twisting force will be applied. The front bushing design does allow some twisting but only to an extent, and teh larger the angle the quicker the front bushing is going to bind and max out. I used the inside ones, but to get them to fit on the Moser I had to shave off part of mounting plate since the moser pumpkins have the casting sticking out close to the mounting holes. As far as bolts backing out that could be the case and have influence. I used red lock tight and some collar style lock washers and have had zero issues. Everytime I'm under the car I check to be safe but not once have they backed off since I put in the washers and lok-tite.

Either way I'm sorry to see your investment get ruined so easily and with such innocense. I hope things turn around for ya.

-Jon

 

i put my moser in like 6 months ago with my sphon TA
my dad got me some really nice grade 8 bolts(have 12 lines on them IDK) some grade 8 lock washers and regular large washers

i got 1.5" bolts so they were a lil longer then needed (1.25 would be perfect) and i did not wana cut them down so i stacked washers where i needed to. i put ALOT of red locktight on the bolts and a lock washer as well. i did not use i torque wrench but i gotta say i put more torque on these bolts then any before in my life i grbed on the subframe and the ratchet and pulled them togetehr and im not a weak guy

i have checked them everytime i have been underthere and they are not going anywhere