We originally thought we had just lost a tooth or two on the ring gear, but it turns out that almost half the pinion gear's teeth were gone. That resulted in eating the ring gear and also destroying the open differential with the shrapnel grinding up inside. Unfortunately this axle exhibited none of these following traits, but if you've got a GM 10-bolt that you're starting to hear a clunk from, or it sometimes feels like your U-joints are worn when they're really brand new, then you better make sure you have AAA or some other towing service handy.
Since the ECTED's locked mode is activated by an electromagnet, there are no shift forks or pins that have to line up before it engages. You can turn it on or off at any speed. Auburn expects that the clutches in the limited-slip portion of the differential will last much longer than in a normal limited-slip differential in our truck. That's because most clutch wear and damage is done in short moments during loss of traction. Since the ECTED is also a selectable locker, the chances are good that it will be engaged into full spool mode during expected moments of traction loss, therefore preserving the clutches.
Since the gears started the destruction of the guts of this 10-bolt, we ordered a Yukon gearset and install kit from Randy's Ring & Pinion. You can use the VIN to get all the factory specs (including the gear ratio) from a dealership. Ours was a 3.73 gearset that we had shipped straight to Renegade Metal Works instead of carrying it onto the plane from L.A. since we already had the ECTED in our bag. Also, for future reference and as a note to ourselves: Airport security will not be happy if you do not tell them ahead of time that you have a giant round hunk of metal with wires coming out of it inside your suitcase.
Before you set in the new...
Before you set in the new ECTED, make sure to drill and tap the axlehousing to allow a place for the electromagnet's wires to get out of the axle. Auburn also gives provision for you to route the wires through the diff cover, but then we'd have to mess with wires every time we wanted to pull the cover.
The pinion needs to have shims...
The pinion needs to have shims added to set pinion depth before the installation is completed. To get a starting point (and many times an endpoint if you do it right), bang the bearing off the original pinion gear and see how thick of a stack of shims are on it. Ours was 0.033 and was exactly what we ended up staying with for the ECTED differential as well. No two housings are the same, so every axle will need to be set up with a different pinion depth.
We made sure to clean the...
We made sure to clean the housing well after drilling the hole for the wires. Once it was clean, Tim Adams of Renegade Metal Works tapped the bearing's race into place using a brass punch so as not to mar the edges.