Running the ERBE today, I suddenly lost center diff action. I found this surprising as I just rebuilt the thing with a 100k diff lube. Once I took everything apart, I found out that the Stainless Steel output shafts I made seized in the output holes of the diff case and diff cap. It seems that Stainless Steel is not hard enough. Also, they were made out of a stainless steel rod that was 5.98 mm in diameter. It was probably just a tad too big. The modified TRA5415 and TRA5416 output shafts I used in my other diffs are a little smaller and have a bit more clearance so there's probably less rubbing and less heat build up because of the rubbing so they work much better. I tried the SS to keep cost down but using the Traxxas output shafts is better. There are marks on the SS shafts where they got grinded by the hardened steel of the diff case and cap.
I also noticed that my motor was a little bit out of alignment with the chassis so I took out the two aluminum motor plates I was running and they are bent. It appears that 6 mm of aluminum is not enough. Of course they are made of a very cheap aluminum, not that stiff at all. A motor plate machined out of T6 7075 aluminum would probably not bend like that. I did the best I could to take pics of the plates next to a straight edge in front of a light source to show the bends. In the meantime, I went back to the 6 mm carbon fiber motor plate I was using at the beginning of this build.
