Today, my day was made!

[rlich8]

Well, I was scared that my diff mounts were destroyed. Much to my amazement and relief, they are not! The bushings were just very bad!

We dropped the differential and saw that everything was clean. Right front U-Bracket/mount was replaced once, but that's fine! The pins that come down from the frame are solid, the right front here also appears to have been replaced.

After I get in there to do a nice cleaning...

The next step is welding the reinforcements in place. Then, we will put it all back together and I should have her out for the weekend!


Right Front

Left Front

Left Rear

Differential Out

Pretty clean!

 

[DNK]

How long did it take to drop the dif?

 

[M_Pied_Lourd]

Clean looking car on the underside.

Cheers,
M. Pied Lourd

 

[rlich8]

Took about an hour to drop the diff. Pretty quick, in my opinion.

I think it's fairly clean too, that's what attracted me to this car. Surface cleaning and it'll be wonderful down there.

 

[justin_mercier]

Very nice, your mounts look in great shape, boxing them in will give you a piece of mind. Are you going to add a magnetic drain plug before you put the differential back together? Also what oil are you going to use for the diff?

 

[rlich8]

Very nice, your mounts look in great shape, boxing them in will give you a piece of mind. Are you going to add a magnetic drain plug before you put the differential back together? Also what oil are you going to use for the diff?

Thanks!

I do have a nice little magnetic plug that I got from Revintgon TR. I am just going to use some standard 90wt gear oil, since there's no brass inside of it (GL5 eats away at brass...) I think it should be fine.

That's exactly right - it's just a little peace of mind. I'm big on trying to be smooth with my cars (gradual acceleration, trying to carry the weight of the car in a non abrupt way through turns, etc) so it would probably have been fine without it but why bother finding out? The reinforcements took about an hour to make (I have access to sheet metal equipment at a sign shop) so it's really no big thing.

 

[mrv8q]

If you haven't already, great time to R&R your driveline U joints.....

 

[hondo402000]

I have heard of some actually boxing in that whole center channel section from mount to mount

Hondo

 

[Brosky]

<div class="ubbcode-block"><div class="ubbcode-header">Quote:]It Is What It Is[/QUOTE]

We should all add another line to this phrase:

And This Is What It Was

 

[rlich8]

I have heard of some actually boxing in that whole center channel section from mount to mount

Hondo

I thought of that, but I kinda thought it would be over engineered. The Roadster Factory sells 3/16 steel plates to reinforce them, but I even thought that was overkill.

If I was racing, maybe. I would have used the polyurethane bushings and the 3/16ths steel.

I ended up fabricating some nice plates myself and because everything was strong already, it should be OK. With a new bushing pack from TRF, I will be good to go upon reinstallation later today.

 

[DNK]

Seems that many are going away from the hard syn.bushings there to minimize vibration and using a harder rubber instead

 

[rlich8]

Yes, that was my thought exactly. Many are a fan of the polyurethane because they don't wear, I am NOT a fan because of that. I think the poly bushings are sometimes too hard, the original geometry of the suspension or diff mounts is just not strong enough to handle the rigidity.

Plus, I am not doing anything but casually driving it, I don't drive fast or go on rough pavement with it.

 

[rlich8]

Is this a bad idea? The holes in the bushings seem to be a little bit too big. My mechanic and I thought we would use some 1/2 inch copper pipe to make a sleeve to close the gap a little bit.

 

[rlich8]

Differentials make me happy!

Cleaned, soaked in degreaser, painted, and Speedi-Sleeved it - all in a day's work!!!

 

[Brosky]

My thought is that copper is soft and may not last too long in there.

 

[DNK]

Is that you in the pic?

 

[rlich8]

Is that you in the pic?

In all my nerdy glory, yes!

 

[DrEntropy]

My thought is that copper is soft and may not last too long in there.

As a space filler twixt bushing and pin it should be fine, IMO. Bushing material is softer than the copper so there's not much other than electrolysis to worry about. And that would take 100 years to be a factor.

 

[DNK]

GAD, your a young lad!
Oh to be young again.
You want my kids? :laugh:

 

[rlich8]

GAD, your a young lad!
Oh to be young again.
You want my kids? :laugh:

Yes sir! I am, I am. Just a tad more than half the age of the car...

Someone's gotta be groomed for maintaining and enjoying these things! I've been around English cars my whole life...my dad ran a repair shop years ago, had a V12 XKE when I was growing up, uncle had a Jag and TR4, other uncle had a TR6, etc etc.

It's a rite of passage in my family...we all have at least one English car. In my case, 3.