Yesterday I just blew my front diff housing (what is up with this crap! Its my second time!).

What 3rd members fits my GV? Its a V6 manual. It has 4.56 orginal but it put in a 4.88 from an automatic and that fit just fine. Are there any lower 3rd members that will fit directly?

Not that i know of the V6 runs a bigger housing

Is it the steel housing that's breaking?  What about 5.12 gears.....that should help alleviate some stress from bigger tires.

Oh sorry, its propably not called the housing. Im talking about the aluminum thing that is around the gearing and bolts on to the housing. The gears seem to blow that apart...I dont know how to explain it.


But about the 3rd members. I put a 3rd member in my housings from a 2 liter automatic and it fit directly....front and back. Is that normal for a V6? Maybe the former owner changed/swithced/replaced the housing?

Hi Ice' ,

Yeah that is normal , the rear is the same size as the 1600 / 2.0 V6 / 2.0 GV so heaps of ratios there. The front is the same as the previous as well but a smaller unit than the rear. NB: The XL7 rear diffs are larger than previous GV's / Vitaras etc.

What you need to do is swap the "donor" gears into YOUR "original steel diff housing" to retain the strength of that unit - the alloy ones come apart between the pinion bearings ( very common ). I am just about to do a thread about how I went about strengthening things up front so keep an eye out for it. It is an old idea brought back to life so newbies can get their front ends up to scratch 

Good luck with it all 

Automatic XL7's (gas at least) come with 5.12 gears and would be a direct swap (and I'm pretty sure an all steel chunk) for your GV.