ok on to my sand lake adventure yesterday... boy was this not my day, first my my roof rack came off, got that fixed, but still irritating.
then on my way home i was hearing this "ticking" sound kinda like the inner finder splash guard was lose... i listened to this for about 5 min and thought oh F no, this is gonna bother me all the way home(a 2 hour drive). so i pulled over and went to go find the source of the mystery sound, sounded like it was coming from the front left. anyhow i get out and have a look, cant see anything, then i pop the hood and have a look their, still nothing, so i thought huh i wonder if it was my air line dangling down in the back, so i go back their and look, and the first thing i notice is "man, it smells like gear oil back here. so i look for leaky axle seals, nope thats all good, then i look at my drain plug on the diff cause i remember seeing some wetness there the other day, and wow everything was soaked. but it was the whole rear end, not just the lower part by the drail plug. so i looked a bit close and notice a nice hole ripped in my housing, something came lose(im suspecting they spider gears or a tooth off the rig) and came punching out through the housing right next to the fill plug. i caught it early enough that their was still fluid in the bottom third of the diff, and there was no noise coming from the rear end -no howl/grown, and everything back their was and is still working smooth.
i limped it back into town and met back up with the group i had been with all day, they off loaded on of their rigs, and i drove mine up onto their trailer and then we all had dinner and then drove home.