I am wondering if my differential has gone bad, hopefully someone can help.

I have a 98 ranger 4x4 and was driving last night and when i was driving last night it started to make this sort of lurching motion and this popping noise when i would have the clutch engaged and be turning to the right or to the left... It accelerates fine as long as i am going in a straight line and the problem only occurs when i am turning.

I tried to do a little search for info on my own and think that the spider gears may have some teeth missing? Does this sound like it may in fact be the problem?

The truck has ~90,000 miles on it and the rear end is an origonal with a limited slip diff installed.

Thanks for your help!

Truck info
98 Ranger 4x4 ~90,000 miles
33" tires
3.0L 5 speed manual
Rear limited slip differential

 

buy some gear oil and rtv and pop off the cover to take a look.

 

Yea, i pulled it and after draining there were little metal pieces all over the bottom of the diff. The spider gears all appeared to have little bits missing from them, and even better there is a groove in the ABS thing... which I guess would explain why the light had been coming on from time to time over the past couple months.

Working on replacing the spider gears and the bearings, other than that everything else seemed to be just fine.