I just finished building my 2011 T3 and took it for a test drive. I am not a pro but I have 3 '07s, 1 '08 and now the T3. You can imagine how exited I was to build and run this car after scraping together the pennies to buy it.
I have experience with the Multi Diff in my '07, two ball diffs in the other '07s and the '08 is basically stock. I bought all these cars new so I have a decent amount of time on each one. With he '07s and '08 I can interchange parts so trouble shooting is a breeze.
I put together the T3, stock. I headed out to my local race lot with real excitement running through my veins. I am aware of the proper break-in procedure for ball diffs so my day was planned to be a nice easy get acquainted run. I have a Castle Creation 7700kv motor and the Mamba Max Pro ESC. I am running rubber slicks, stock shock springs, stock spur gear and a 22 tooth pinion. A very conservative setup. A Venom 5000Mah 40C Lipo 7.4volts.
Immeadiatley I noticed something wrong. I was new to running a solid front axle so I gave it some time and took it nice and easy. But something was wrong. So wrong that after halfway through the second battery i packed it up and headed home. I noticed i was not getting any diff action in the front, nothing. I took out the diff and popped of the plastic cover. This is what I saw:
File comment: This is the diff after 10 minutes of run time.
tranny3.jpg [ 216.55 KiB | Viewed 3795 times ]
The holes for the diff balls were mangled. The unit comes preassembled and did not show any signs of tightness or any problem. The balls have nothing to ride on except the plastic covers. It seems the diff rings are to small or... I don't know. A picture of the diff on the web site shows two seperate piece covers for each side. This tranny (an in the instruction book) shows only one piece covers for each side.
What on earth could have happened?