Parts of a Differential (2)

The spider gear lies at the heart of the differential, and special mention should be made about its rotation. The spider gear is free to make 2 kinds of rotations: one along with the ring gear (rotation) and the second on its own axis (spin).

Spider gear is free to make 2 kinds of rotations

The spider gear is meshed with 2 side gears. You can see that both the spider and side gears are bevel gears. Power flow from the drive shaft to the drive wheels follows the following pattern. From the drive shaft power is transferred to the pinion gear first, and since the pinion and ring gear are meshed, power flows to the ring gear. As the spider gear is connected with the ring gear, power flows to it. Finally from the spider gear, power gets transferred to both the side gears.