My old diff was a turbo 4 pinion 28 spline open wheeler which was becoming the weakest link. I purchased a brand new LSD center and had it shimmed to be a little tighter than standard. I also purchase some redline racing oil for the diff 85W-140 or something with some friction modifier. The friction modifier helps break in new lsds and helps the steel hardening process apparently (read the bottle). If you just use the redline oil with no friction modifier it locks up really easy and if you use all of it the diff will be like a normal lsd. Any way the removale of the diff goes as follows. Jack up the car and insert the stand somewhere that supports the diff and not the body as when you are shaking the whole car when pulling the axles out the stands could move. Take your wheels off and brake calipers. Undo these little nuts by spinning the axle so the larger of the three holes is over them and insert a ratchet extention. Put your brake disc back on the wrong way and put the wheel nuts back on about half way, any less and you might strip the thread. Make sure they are on evenly. Now push the disc up against the car and smash it back towards you, you are being your own slide hammer so it's gunna be noisy and raise your heart rate a bit but just think of the skids your gunna be pulling (at the drags) when your finished. My right wheel needed about 6 hits and left need about 12, my last car took me about half the day. Hope yours is and easy one. Take the axles all the way out. While under the RHS wheel arch, remove the nit off the pan hard rod and drop it down as this will get in the road later. Take out all the bolts from the diff cover bar two at the bottom which you just loosen. Crack the seal and let the oil drain out into to something. Take off the diff cover and clean off the gasket material from around the outside. Do this to the diff housing as well. Take out the bolts holding in the center bearings and keep separate so they go back in where they came out. I had to use a claw hammer to lever the diff center out as they are very tight. There is also two shims that come out too so make sure they stay separate. My new diff center had new bearings so all I had to do was take the crown wheel off the old one and put it on the new one. Remember these dozen odd bolts are left hand thread which means they come out when you are turning clockwise. Use a rattle gun for these, if you don't have one go down to your local workshop and they'll let you use theirs. 16mm is the socket for these. Put the center back in the with the center bearings, then tap the shims in either side with a soft blow hammer. Put the bearing cap thingys back on the right way but only start doing up the bolts as the center will center itself when the axle go in. Insert axles and do up the little bolts, may need to tap the axles in a bit as this is the reverse of slide hammering them out. Do up the bearing cap bolts. I just used some high temp silastic as I didn't have a gasket handy. This did the job though. Put brake discs back on as well as brake callipers. Pan hard rod and two chaser rims with skid tyres go back on too. While you are doing this the silastic is sealing. Gregories manual says 1.7 L of oil so I put in that much of the redline oil and 5% of the total volume was friction modifier. I would have used less but this is a new LSD. I went for a drive and did a few full lock LH and RH turns with no noise. My car is an auto so it's not like I can just drop the clutch so I stalled it up a tad (standard stall) and it stepped right out when taking off. Only driven it for 10 mins since then (yesterday) but seems to be all sweet. I can't comment too much in this forum however.

nice mate those skiders look very familiar ! Nice work with the tech article as usual great photos and well commented. can't wait to see it in action sorry about the diff gears brenton stuffed me around with that diff i changed the wheel bearings to discs and everything on the other diff out of gf car i have to change the back now big waste of 100 bucks worth of bearings and time Some original photos have not been recovered yet.

So you left the diff in the car? Could you do it the same way (leaving the diff in) if you were going to install a mini-spool?

I DID NOT STUFF YOU AROUND UNLIKE MOST PEOPLE IM IN A JOB THAT REQUIRES ME TO WORK AT THE DROP OF A HAT! Night shift day shift. Its hard to plan S hit.. changing a Diff is the least of my worries. BUT THANKS ANYWAY.

lil_timmy: Yeh of coarse, it would be stupid to pull it out just to put a mini spool in. You just separate the center and the mini spool goes in instead of the star gears. Changing diff gears is almost as easy just bolt on a different crown wheel ( round thing around center) and change over the drive pinion (the bit the tail shaft bolts onto). I believe someone has already done a tech article on mini spooling a diff. Thanks for the comments FONEY, you are the only person who has that sort of job. Protect and Serve, good on you Skip.

Ok, Thanks RB30X. Much appreciated. Yep there is a Tech Article on install a Spool. Thanks again.

nice work bro, love how the stockies when right on :P

nice write up man... hahah yeh.. interesting i wonder y u took ur nice wheels off and then sh!tters on Some original photos have not been recovered yet.

yeah its very simple did it about 3 weeks ago...had a few minor set backs but its easy to do..just one thing the bearing carriers, torque them up to no more than about 60 any more than and youll snap some screws!!

Quote: Originally Posted by david85dc nice write up man... hahah yeh.. interesting i wonder y u took ur nice wheels off and then sh!tters on Haha, that was incase it locked up and wore the tread of his good tyres.....that would be the only reason i can think of... One other thing i would add, is that if you have access to a press, and are confident changing rear wheel bearings, then do so.... little bit extra cost, but you already have it apart, it might save pulling axles out again in the near future when the bearings fail... chances are is that they are as old as your car.. Some original photos have not been recovered yet.

Very good article.

Quote: Originally Posted by MadVK308 Very good article. how much was the lsd and where did u buy it from good write up too.

The LSD was 600 delivered to my house including center bearings and an oil filler boot. It was from a diff shop in Melbourne with an idian bloke running it. A&J diffs or something.

thanks

so you didnt have to set the back lash or any thing when puting the new centre in?

well because i never adjusted the drive pinion the center went straight back in to it's old position.

u should have split the diff centre appart and stuffed a whole lot of weld in there... cheapest way i know of a lock diff lol works good to...

can u get one for a 25 spline 2 pinion diff ( NA ) ??

Wow, great article. I'm now rethinking about my diff rebuild as I have an open wheeler and was looking at min $800 for a rebuild done by a shop. If it's that easy to pull out and back in I might do it myself. But, if my diff has alot of backlash does this mean the crown wheel is worn out and has to be replaced as well?

if it has a bit of back lash i think u can shim it, or adjust the drive pinion so its tighter.. might be best for a diff shop to do though maybe