Diffs are HEAVY

The Diff

Don’t kid yourself, especially if it still has wishbones and drums attached – it is heavy. I reckon two chaps who are happy getting hernias might manage, but I’d recommend three.

D is on holiday, so B and his missus had to get the beast out of her car. Piece of advice – plan the move carefully, and use available support. We ended up roping the diff to the garage roof beams and inching it onto a piece of spare plywood. The car was backed up to the workbench, and the plywood used as a bridge. Now if we’d thought of that upfront, it might have avoided B having to support half a diff while his better half carefully reversed the car.

Well-greased Lobro joint, with gaitor slid back
Well-greased Lobro joint, with gaitor slid back

Then it came to stripping it. With much searching I had my first realisation – that this diff has Lobro joints, evidenced by the chucky flange-type knobs on connecting the side shafts.

Second realisation was that I don’t know what to do next. So it was time for my first post on the locost forum. There really are a great bunch of guys on the forum – thanks for all the help. With confidence that there wasn’t some unfound attachment holding the drum on, I acquired a larger hammer and thwacked them off. They came off pretty easily once I put my back into the swing.

One end with drum removed
One end with drum removed

Next task is to look for a 41mm socket to remove the hub nuts. No such luck so far (bad time of year to look for tools), so I’ll be hitting the shops again tomorrow.

I also purchased a T45 Torx “socket” to remove the Lobro joints.

B

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