Was wheeling in deep snow, a few hours in got stuck again in a deep rut, instead of waiting to get pulled out i tried to get it to crawl out while rocking it and lightly applying e-brake. Following shortly I hear the dreaded clunking of loose teeth and gears. I got sled pulled out of their as the rear temporarily locked up so only my front tires were spinning. I believe somehow the e-brake got stuck from the snow because when i was getting loaded onto a flatbed the rear wheels broke free without any noise or further damage. In the image you will see where the broken gears penetrated the bottom of the differential housing. My JK has 60k miles and has seen some pretty tough off-roading in its life so far, also a result of what happens when you have a lead foot. This was my daily so now I'm looking to get a truck to get around and in the future tow the jeep to trails. My dilemma now is if I can clean these holes up and weld it to be a band aid fix, as well as replacing everything inside that is totally shot (I know i forgot the picture of the gears but you can imagine it looks terrible inside). Mainly I'm debating if I should buy assembled built dana 44's for front and rear or save double the money for built dana 60's. All stock except for new 285 (about 34") tires which i believe also played a role in this because I had stock Willys 3.73 gears. Any suggestions are welcomed, if there is a decent path to junkyard swaps that would be reasonable for me too, as I enjoy working on my jeep and learning. Also should there be any concerns about swapping with built semi-float or hybrid axles?
