I was boppin around in the hills with my buddy and we were climbing some dirt mounds and such when I heard some funny grinding. I pulled over and it was gone. I started again and I could hear something was not right. I went down to my brothers house and I knew it was the t-case. I just put in the calmini 4.16 gears 2 months ago and I was worried that I had killed the gears already. I only have maybe a thousand miles on the gearset and there was chunks coming out of the drain plug. the funny thing is that when I split the case, there was no gears chipped and there was some chewed up metal sitting in the bottom of the case. upon taking inventory I realized that I was missing on of the counter shaft thrust washers. upon further inspection of the jibblets I realized that there was a significant amount of brass looking dust in the gear oil. I inspected the gears quickly and on the neato finish of the billet calmini counter gear, there was signs of brass. I am not sure, but I think when I reassembled the case, one of the thrust washers slipped from it's place and sat in the bottom of the case. over time it eventually got washed into some gears and all hell broke loose! everything in the t-case passes my initial visual inspection. no chipped gears and no mangled bearings. just the remnants of a battle between some gears and a thrust washer that was not in it's proper place. the scary thing is that between installing my gears and the thrust washer getting mulched, I have run poison spider mesa, golden spike, and gold bar rim in that order in one day. through all that and I never washed up that silly washer into a gear!! given the Sammie's were transported down there inside a semi trailer but nevertheless I am surprised the little bugger decided to let go while in town! any ideas! anyone ever have this happen to them before??