Originally Posted by
Ppuxley Came across this thread when I googled English Axle and used the really useful info to rebuild my English Axle (in a kit car ) last weekend.
Diff felt in need of attention , with that wind up / clonk when going from 1st to reverse.
When removed there were no horrors , metal filings etc. However , although the pinion had no perceptible end float, it was very free running ,ie close to zero preload and there was plenty of backlash between crown wheel and pinion, although I didnt measure it.
So I dismantled the diff and finding no obvious pitting on the bearings decided to re-assemble it using a new crush washer to reset the preload on the pinion bearings. I didnt replace the seal as it wasnt leaking . I used the correct weight of water in a plastic bottle suspended from one of the output flange holes to give me 13lb.in of torque and incrementally kept tightening the pinion nut till it just turned under that suspended load.
I then reset the crownwheel by nipping up but not fully torquing down the bearing caps and adjusting the side wheels to move the crownwheel across till I acheived backlash of 0.15mm at the tip of a crownwheel tooth . I didnt have a dial gauge , so i set hard stop using a threaded rod and a piece of plate against which I could rotate the crownwheel tooth and used a feeler gauge between the two to determine the backlash.
I then used some blue to check I had a decent sized central meshing on the gear teeth.
Finally I measured the distance on a given point across the bearing caps and increased that by 0.22mm by screwing in the adjuster wheels evenly. Torqued up the bearing caps fully and rechecked nothing had changed on the backlash and the meshing.
Reassembled everything in the car and drove about 10 miles at a steady speed . It felt much better , no noises and no slack as you came on and off the gas .
Now to the point of the message !
How hot should the diff get? Its not something I've ever tested before , but this was hot enough that I could only just hold a pressed palm on the front of the casing . I had also installed in the rebuild a drain plug into which I had fitted a magnetic bolt and on draining the oil , I did find some swarf.
So-have I got a problem and can someone say from the above whether I have dropped a B****** somewhere?
I would say that I was surprised at how tight I had to do the pinion nut up to achieve the correct preload torque .
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