Thread: Help! Front diff issues

To get the diff center out you need to pull the front axles.
2 ways to do that, either undo the swivel ball bolts that attach them to the diff housing and pull the whole assembly out (apparently damn heavy and I haven't done it that way myself), or on each side remove drive flange, brake caliper, hub, stub, and pull out the CV and axle.
If its been a while since its seen any love then I'd take the second option and inspect/clean all the bits while you are at it (and go a little bit further and rebuild the swivels while you are there).

Once you're at that stage, remove the front prop shaft completely, and then remove nuts around the diff center flange and pull the center out. Center is heavy-ish (20kg++), and its probably a good idea to leave a couple of nuts on the studs while you break the gasket free rather than having it pop off suddenly and land on you.

A-arm balljoint involves a bit of force, large hammer or press and likely some cursing. There should be plenty of tutorials around on that one.

Steve

Depending how much weight you can bench press, that diff center can be a bit heavy. I used a trolley jack to do a semi controlled descent onto the concrete driveway. Just be aware you don't want to drop it on yourself.

I pulled the swivel housings - they are heavy - but a trolley jack worked really well. Whilst you have the housings off you can replace the swivel seal with ease in case it's leaking. Took me about 1 hour to pull the front diff this way (And I'm slow at this), and also meant I did not feel compelled to replace dodgy CV joints etc etc.

The biggest pain was that I found a damaged UJ. Replacing that UJ took me 4 hours, and 2 UJ joints before I got one in without bending the needles.... I hate UJ's....

This may sound obvious but if your going near the rear ball joint - clean the area first. If it's dirty up there (which it will be) it can be unpleasant. I thought if cleaned my vehicle before I rebushed it. Turned out I didn't know the meaning of clean.

Ian.

So I managed to get the diff out on the weekend, considering I hadn't done anything like this before it was reasonably straight forward, but not without it's fair share of cursing and swearing. Turns out I have destroyed the two outer bearings - first pic shows one side where the bearings should be, second pic shows the pieces I pulled out of the bottom of the diff housing






The bearing where the diff connects up to the UJ on the propshaft is quite loose with a fair amount of play, so I expect that was about to fail. Not sure whether I should just replace the bearings, or swap out the whole diff - what have people done before? Am I likely to have done any damage elsewhere? I drained the oil from the centre diff and apart from one small (2-3mm) piece of metal, there was no filings or any other pieces of metal.

Its done a fair bit of work - just bury it with honors
Likely the cross pin is also well worn, along with the holes in the carrier.
A decent second hand center will see you right for a long time and be a lot less hassle and likely cheaper than a set of bearings.

The drain plug in the housing is not right at the bottom, so any crap will collect and not drain out so give it a good clean out prior to fitting the center.
Although by the looks of the debris you pulled out, there probably wasn't much oil to drain. The gunk around the lumps looks like grease - not oil

Steve

Spot on Steve - there was sweet FA oil in the diff - not sure if this was the cause of the problem, or if something else led to the bearings failing