Possible Cause of Spider Gear Destruction

Dave999 said
gears 2.94:1 are hard to turn, tall gears, so slamming a bunch of torque at the rear end every time to get going fully loaded.....not high tailing it outta there, just constantly pushing it.... is gonna involve shock loading. especially if the cone washers were worn giving bigger than normal side gear clearance.

whoever drove it, drove like it was the "company's" truck not their own.... not paying the repair bill, gotta get there in order to get back for my lunch break...etc

This jives with the story I was told about this being a vehicle owned by a school district and used for maintenance crews.

And 30x9.5x15 tires to boot on the 2.94 gear! Original tire size was 205 or 215/75/15 ~ 27" tire. 3 inches makes a big difference.

Demonracer said
A few of the teeth look to have been broken for some time, all of the debris in the housing probably caused the teeth that are shiny to leave the chat.

True...wonder if my addition of oil made it worse...meaning the added gear oil provided a medium to get more of the bits suspended or in circulation and hastened the imminent failure. It happened just hours after I topped off the gear oil.