Patent ID: 7022041

Claim:
A differential assembly for a vehicle comprising: a differential casing rotatable about an axis, said differential casing defining first, second, third and fourth pairs of pinion bores; a pair of side gears disposed within said differential casing; first, second, third and fourth pairs of pinion gears slidably and rotatably disposed in said first, second, third and fourth pair of pinion bores, respectively; a window opening formed in said differential casing between said first pair of pinon gears and said fourth pair of pinion gears; a spacer received through said window opening, the spacer being disposed between said side gears, said spacer defining an aperture; a cross pin extending generally perpendicular to said axis from said window opening and into said differential casing, said cross pin being coupled to the differential casing and passing throuah said aperture in said spacer to thereby fix said spacer to said differential casing; wherein said second pair of pinion bores is circumferentially offset from said first pair of pinion bores by a first spacing angle, said third pair of pinion bores is circumferentially offset from said second pair of pinion bores by a second spacing angle, said fourth pair of pinion bores is circumferentially offset from said third pair of pinion bores by a third spacing angle and said fourth pair of pinion bores is circumferentially offset from said first pair of pinion bores by a fourth spacing angle, wherein the first spacing angle is about equal to the seond spacing angle, the third spacing angle is about equal to at least one of the first spacing angle and the second spacing angle, and the fourth spacing angle is greater than the first spacing angle.