I was in the puting in my new old '85 GSL rear. I pulled the axles and center section so I could inspect things and replace the sealent around the center section. When I got it all pulled apart I found one of the cast inner bearing caps broken. Luckily the cap from my '83 rear bolted right in.

What could cause this to break? All the bearings looked good and the rear seemed to function fine with it broken. Also one of the bolts that hold the cap in was bent. I'm hoping that this rear is ok because I don't want to worry about it like I did on my last one.

The cap is shown on page 9-12 in the fsm.

 

No one has any idea what could of caused this? I'm driving the car now and it seems to be working ok with no noise but this still worries me.

 

Abuse with wear and tear more than likely caused it to break. As to why the rear end still behaved properly with a broken piece, my guess is that everything else was strong enough to compensate. Altho, it is a good thing that you took it apart and saw the problem. No telling how long you could've gone for that before more internal damage happened.

 

Thanks for the responce. I'm really glad I took it apart and found that it could have been bad.
I'll take a pick of the part.

 

Here is a pic of the broken part.