DIFFERENTIAL

A replacement ram for my hydraulic ramps arrived and now all works perfectly, so no reason not to get stuck in and remove the differential. With the car up jacked up on the ramps I placed the axle stands under the body and lowered the ramps and removed them.

My intention was to start by just dropping the diff  and then removing the rest of the suspension, but that was not the way it was going to be, First job was to remove the rear part of the exhaust and then disconnect the drive and prop shafts, all went well, but the diff was not going to budge. In fact it was the very last bit to come out from under. The drive shafts were the next to come out, followed by the road springs and the trailing arms. The two rear subframe arms were next, leaving the diff supported on my trolley jack, but hanging on the rear bracket. it took a lot of wriggling of the diff to get it to drop down and then a semi controlled lower of the differential to the ground. There was also quite a few stubborn nuts and bolts on the way to this point and for a couple of them the blow torch came in handy.

It was much heavier than I expected and very greasy and dirty, but I got it onto my workmate and with a large bowl underneath I drained the oil and scrubbed it clean. There is a lot of backlash and a grating sound as you turn the flanges so it is now in the back of the car awaiting delivery to the engineers to be rebuilt.