Now I gotta believe they (New Process) spent that extra money tapping those holes in the side of the t-case for a real reason. Gotta think it's to help prevent breakage like this.
Now, for those of us with a real engineering background, you can see how the 205 cracked along the plane made by the stress risers induced from the drilled and tapped mounting holes. Stress induced by either a sudden shock load OR gradual over time. In either case, that right hand bar really does seem to fulfill a purpose.
OK, this should be enough said on this topic. The bars are included to reduce the dynamic loading on the transmission/t-case assembly and together increase the resistance to stress induced failures of the assembly. The "torque" being induced is NOT rotational around driveshaft rotation as has been posited (incorrectly), but instead being imparted from a rearward thrust that even marginally exceeds the range of motion of the driveshaft assembly, whether the full design limit or some dynamically induced (wear, corrosion, impact) limit. This induces a rotational moment in the t-case with the axis of rotation roughly vertical. Hence GM's term.
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