What a DIFFerence a day makes

Greetings!

Update from this weekends activities.

First off, go to machine mart and purchase a blow torch and a T-star Torx set. In anticipation of some rusted up funny shaped nuts and bolts!

Started off with the rear axle assembly salvaged from the donor

Rusty 'orrible mess

Used a combination of breaker bars, impact windy gun, WD40 and LOTS of heat to undo the carriage, anti roll bar, suspension seats etc. And finally savlaged the diff and half shafts:

Ah, that's better

Then set about getting the halfshafts off (more heat, and several sprays of WD)

It's lucky you can't hear the swearing, dear readers

Cleaned up the diff with a wire brush attachment in the drill, de-greaser, and air-powered water blaster

Nice and clean!

Same trick on the halfshafts

Before and After

Then cracked open the tin of hammerite

Now that's a real DIFFerence

Shiny and new!

I did consider spraying them, but the time and effort involved with rubbing them down, masking them up, and then having a thin layer of paint that could get damaged; vs a quick application and heavy duty finish... well you can see where that decision went.

So the next day, with the diff all dried and ready to go; it was time to start on the build for real.

First off, lower the diff into the chassis - was quite a heavy lump, and although the good lady was there working on her car, it was a bit heavy even for two of us, to risk fumbling it and dropping it on the chassis, so the crane did all the work:

Lowering into position

Big smiles all round when it fitted first time

OK so what she lacks in heavy lifting skills, she makes up in camerawork

It went in reasonably well, bit of jiggling to rotate it from vertical to horizontal. I then come up against the problem that the standard bolt for the front mount was a bit too long, and being a metric 1.5mm pitch (metric fine I guess) couldn't locate anything to substitue. I ended up cutting it down to length and using some washers to pack it out. Not entirely happy with it, but its in. Should be relatively easy to change later though.

Drilling into the chassis was another big milestone in the project - but It's got to be done sooner or later, so may as well be now!

I was quite pleased with progress, so elected to finish the day off by fitting the handbrake, seeing as it was sat there waiting to be fitted. May well have to come out at some stage, but it's only two M8 bolts, so why not.

Finished the two days with the diff and handbrake lever fitted

"Is it finished yet"?

Not bad for a weekend's work.

Being a bank holiday, might get the chance to nip up on the Monday as well, let's see what can be done there as well.

Thanks for reading!