Progress on the Diff

This weekend was a pretty lax one.

First order of business was to collect the bearings from the local BMG agent on Friday. R800 later I had a front input shaft bearing 566096, rear mainshaft bearing 362021, Tail seal CR13527 (14.3 X 25.37 X 6.35), but no selector shaft oil seal. OK, so I stuck those away and on this morning I had a fresh look at the diff.

I have made mention of the oil seep from the front pinion and how I would have to replace the seal that sits behind the flange.

Now I really did not want to take the diff all the way out and I didn't want Hypoid oil all over the floor so I undid the front and rear mounts (the central mounts were not in yet) and removed the drive shafts. I hoisted up the diff with the flange up so the oil would stay in the box and I pulled the flange with a puller. This was the easy part. Behind it lay the seal which was dug in tighter than a tick, and nothing less than total destruction of the seal was going to get it out. Having done so I replaced the seal. I noted a worn groove on the flange so I seated the seal just a little deeper in its recess so it would have a fresh surface to seal on.

So I tighten that lot up and set to putting the diff back in its proper place. What a horror story this was, the damn thing is so clumsy you do need 3 hands - 2 to lift and hold in position, and one to slide in the bolts.

As it turned out, I was able to get in the 2 front mounts, but the bolt for the left centre mount refused to catch the thread. A mirror and strong light revealed the thread was damaged. Off to the hardware store to buy an M12 tap.

I cleaned up the offending thread and hey presto the two centre mounts were in but now the rear mount would not line up with the matching holes in the rear aluminium mounting plate. The mount wanted to be 3mm low and 5mm to the right of the holes. I could live with the low part, but the off-centre part I was not so sure.

OK, I was at a bit of a crossroads here, obviously the bobbin brackets welded to the frame were off so the left hand spacer was too "fat" forcing the diff over to the right. What I did was to drill new holes to accommodate the diff as she lay but I am going to have to relook at this because you can pick up that the diff is not exactly perpendicular to the mounting plate, but only if you knew and only if you look very, very closely. What this would do in operation I do not know but I am fairly sure that some sort of vibration would result as the main propshaft would not be inline with the diff, and the road wheels would not be perpendicular to the drive shafts.

So next weekend I am going to do this all over again.

I have just received notification my box of bits from Raceline has arrived so I will see those on Monday.