Is my diff completely done?

[Mattn1192]

Mine is a 3.5

[Casa de Mesa]

Good idea.
https://youtube.com/shorts/zQsKs4l9kBI?feature=share

On the first video, man it looks like that drive flange is about to fall out. If your axle wasn't there to support it, it would. If that's a V1 (shorter splined shaft per sapote) then the amount of play you're getting makes a lot more sense.

I think your only course of action is to pull that puppy out and look for metal, like sapote said. Hopefully you caught it early enough.

At the very min, you're looking at a new seal. The bigger question is, why did it pop out? My bet is that retaining cir-clip / lock ring is toast. Perhaps it just completely failed, although I have never heard of that happening. Looks like you're running stock suspension and you don't have excessive droop. So my bet (dare I say my gut again?) is that the lock ring gave up the ghost.

[Mattn1192]

I’m on h&r springs. Do I have to drop my diff to install the shaft seal/retainer? For what it’s worth, the seal is for sure gone I know that for a fact lol I saw fluid residue from the right rear axle shaft area that leads to the bottom of my diff.. Will show in next vid.

[Mattn1192]

Quality seems poor, but on my phone it’s crystal clear

https://youtube.com/shorts/L3V0LgCITmM?feature=share

[Casa de Mesa]

I’m on h&r springs. Do I have to drop my diff to install the shaft seal/retainer?

Not necessarily, but you gotta get that half shaft out of the way first. Once that's out of the way, that drive flange will likely just fall out. Try unbolting the 6 inside torx bolts and see if you can let the axle droop out of the way.Then pull the flange out.

Oh and you def need a new seal, LOL!! Hoping that's all you need.

Try to find a YouTube of the E46 M3 diff seal replacement to get an idea of what's involved. There are several out there.

[Mattn1192]

ECS has it for $18.48 (seal/lock ring). I pray that’s all I need. I been shopping around for a low mileage used diff just in case lol

[Casa de Mesa]

Quality seems poor, but on my phone it’s crystal clear
https://youtube.com/shorts/L3V0LgCITmM?feature=share

Not uncommon for the seal(s) to go bad and leak, tossing fluid around like that.

Check your pinion seal too. It might make sense to have a qualified tech check the diff out if you don't have the tools to replace those seals. The pinion seal isn't for the faint of heart. Even the axle seals are a pain to get in and not completely hose them if you don't have the specialized tool.

[Mattn1192]

Here’s to hoping it’s just the seal 🍻 will get everything checked out. Very interested to see if the splines on the shaft are destroyed or not when I remove it.

Regardless, this is all extremely helpful information and glad others will be able to use this in case they ever come across something like this.

[Casa de Mesa]

It's how we learn and grow - when the shit hits the fan. Keep us posted on what you find out.

Good info here should you need it:

https://nam3forum.com/forums/forum/main-forum/e46-2001-2006/15298-opinions-on-racingdiffs-com

[sapote]

ECS has it for $18.48 (seal/lock ring). I pray that’s all I need. I been shopping around for a low mileage used diff just in case lol

I believe you're lucky it's only the splines that popped out, not the side-gear that messed up. The flange spline end will have some marred up end but it's just a very short section, so there are plenty of splines left on the shaft to do the work. Just clean up with a file in order to be able to insert it back in easy.

The important question is why the flange popped out. I don't think there's any wrong with the C-clip causing this, but somehow the wheel had extended to far causing the half shaft to pull the flange out, such as removing the shock damper without supporting the wheel and it falling down too far, or broken control arm which is not your case.

[sapote]

This pic looks like it is a V2 with the oblong hole on the LSD carrier.

[sapote]

I didn't realize there was a difference (V1 vs V2). How much longer is V2?

V1 has the spiders on the right side of the carrier, hence the right side flange is shorter than the left one.
V2 has the spiders on the left side of the carrier, so the left flange is shorter.
The shorter flange tends to wear out the oil seal quicker as it wobbling more.

[Mattn1192]

Even though I changed my diff fluid about 2 months ago, I’m going to dump the diff fluid in case there’s metal particles in there.

[Mattn1192]

Any chance that could have blown?

[sapote]

Only about 1mm of the spline shaft end is damaged from grinding. Try to clean the metal bits off the carrier tapper roller bearing. Nothing have blown.