Thread: Differential - front or rear?

Is there any well to tell, from wear patterns or anything else, whether a particular Rover diff has been used on the front or rear axle?

I have been told that changing the rotation of a diff - swapping it from the back to the front axle or vice versa - can cause it to be noisy. I have a spare "pair" of diffs (they may or may not actually be a pair), but no idea of their history or which axle they may have come from! Is it worth worrying about?

Originally Posted by Lotz-A-Landies

(From first principles) On a series Landy, a rear diff is mostly in the drive configuration so the greatest wear will be on the driven (concave) side of the crownwheel teeth.
On the front diff which is mostly disengaged from the drive the diff is idling with drive from the halfshafts so there is likely to me more wear on the non-driven side of the crownwheel teeth.

That was my first thought, but - and remembering it's early and I haven't had coffee - doesn't the front diff turn backwards, meaning the drive and coast faces are reversed? So if it's being driven "backwards" by the halfshafts, doesn't that mean that the wear will still be on the concave side?

However, this might mean that the front diff of a vehicle that has done little work in 4wd will actually show minimal wear on the convex face, because (apart from reversing) all the pressure will have been from the halfshafts, and none from the gearbox, whilst the rear diff will show wear on the convex side from "engine breaking".

I'll have coffee and then inspect further!