Surprisingly didn't do so under any kind of load in fact I was doing about 2mph when the back wheels locked (thank f*ck I wasn't travelling at speed).Now I can select all gears and drive forwards or backward a couple of metres before it stops violently.
In neutral with a wheel jacked up I can turn the wheel easily by hand until it locks up. There is a consistant 1 and 3/4 wheel rotations of freeplay.Locking under these conditions I can only think it is a failure at one point of the crown gear with the pinion driving ok on the rest of the crown gear.
Anyone else think of anything?I'd built the gearbox myself with a Quaife LSD a couple of years ago and only done a couple of hundred miles so I expect it's probably my workmanship or that I missed identifying a failing component.
It gave a couple of warnings making a bit of a bang and then immediately going back to perfect operation before I had a chance to figure out where it was coming from.Luckily I have a spare E153 box in my shed although I don't really have the time to go fitting it at the moment much less rebuilding it.