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My Diff problem

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Dudly

Dudly

Jedi Hopeful
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Hello all hope everyone is well.
Spent a great weekend at Mid-Ohio Vintage Races, good food, great cars, a little beer, and some fun fellow field campers, (one more howl at the moon boys!). The heat was the only real issue.
My differential seems to have increased it’s seeping. Round trip of 300+ miles I noted a decent coating of oil on the front side of my muffler. I topped off the diff the day before I left my house. It appears to be seeping from the main gasket as well as the oil seal on the driver side shaft. I noticed no howling or whine during the return trip, but as you may guess, I want to fix the issue.
My question: Can a neophyte such as me be able to pull the diff and replace the gasket and seals by myself. My thought is that if it requires any messing with the real guts, I’d leave it up to a pro.
I welcome any feedback.
 
AFAIK, replacing gaskets and seals will not involve any disruption of the "guts"; however, your car is late enough that it has that special "crush washer/spacer" thingie on the input shaft (others who know the late diffs better than I can fill you in on the procedure to follow for replacing that front seal and dealing with that situation).

However, before you dive too deeply into all of this, you might want to ensure that the vent atop the differential is clean and free to do its job. Sometimes, all it takes to force a good bit of oil past the various seals is a plugged vent, and cleaning said vent will virtually stop all the "leaks"! It's really nothing more than a "jiggle pin" in a hole on the top of the diff., but road grime can clog things up, keeping the pin from "jiggling," etc., etc. Worth a try to make sure that's clean!
 
Thanks Andrew, I can always count on you for quick response and good info. I have found that pin, it s really caked with grime. It’s in such a hard to reach place how does one get better access, all I was able to do was flick the top of it with one finger.
 
:iagree:

If you do replace the front seal, mark the nut's position (relative to the shaft) first, so you can put it back in the same relative position.

You'll probably need to make some simple tools, like this lever to hold the flanges while turning the nuts:

DSCF0002_crop.jpg


but otherwise it's not too hard. My flanges popped right off in the press, so I would guess that a "harmonic balancer" type puller with some suitable bolts would do as well. I think O'Reillys will loan you a puller, but if not, they aren't too expensive. Or you can just take them to the local auto machine shop, they shouldn't charge too much to pop them off. (Last time I had a similar job done, it cost me a 6 pack of beer
grin.gif
)
 
Excellent, thank you guys.
This will give me something to look forward to and tinker with after the let down coming off the high of the race weekend.
 
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