NTS MX5 Build

[Big Vern]

Originally Posted by trick-kit

http://www.mx5oc.co.uk/forum/forums/t/34429.aspx

This thread lists a few examples and shows the diff in the MX5 subframe.

TK

This is accident damage or the result of, and cracked diff that may have been missed by the repair shop if they wern't looking for it. I accept there might be the odd rogue part that has cracked but not completely failed at the time of the acceident and that could get onto another car as a salvage part - as I said we should all be vigilant in checking the condition of our used parts.

Not aware of any in service failures of cars that have not been in some sort of accident so I don't believe this is an inherant failure of the MX5 dif when used in an MX5.
As I've said elsewhere in this post its only designed to resist rotational forces about the propshaft axis. When used in isolation and without proper constraint the diff can and will rotate about the driveshaft axis or indeed any fore aft movement as you have pointed out will cause the diff to fail as it did on Nathan.
As I have previously stated Nathan would do well to implement a better way of contraining the the diff movement as the method he has used hasn't worked. I can fully understand why he did what he did and he's not the first to have tried something like that nor is he the first to have had such a diff failutre.
As I have said all along the key to this is understanding the forces involved and engineering a solution to constrain them. Some good suggestions as to how that could be done have already been presented.
Did the diff Nathan originally use come from an accident damaged car? I thought not if it was the one Saturn started out with.