I replaced the rear in my spit this past summer and the way I did it was to put grease on the top of the top bushing and kinda glue it in place to the frame so it wouldn't keep dropping down or falling off. I then put the rear on the hydraulic jack and raised it up into place. The problem I ran into was aligning the rear bolt into the hole. The rear was too far forward and wouldn't flex with the new hardened poly bushings so with the front pins and poly bushings in place, I had to use a ratchet strap around the rearend and part of the frame to draw it back to the rear so I could align the holes with the bolt. It was a pain but I got it in. I hope this helps. Good luck. Bob Krivenko
-----Original Message----- From: [email protected] [mailto:[email protected]] On Behalf Of Jim Muller Sent: Friday, December 18, 2009 9:45 PM To: Spitfires Subject: Re: [Spits] Differential Installation On 18 Dec 2009 at 20:24, Greg Rowe wrote: > The second way is to raise the diff straight up into place > > (I built a wooden cradle for my trolley jack) It's been a long time since I replaced a diff but... When I did mine I lifted it up slowly with a small hydraulic jack. As I recall (and with luck I'm not imagining the memory), the problem with putting the long bolt through the rear first is that the front of the diff then swings through an arc. So as the diff swings up into place, when the holes into which the forward studs are supposed to go first contact the bushings they aren't as far forward as they will eventually end up. You may be able to remedy this by putting the bushings on the studs then swing the diff up to contact the bushings. That way you just have to seat the bushings into their sockets, and the studs into the much larger holes in the diff mounting flanges. Of course, the problem then is keeping the bushings in place, seeing as how gravity tends to pull them back down so they fall off. Or you can raise the entire diff into place with a jack or cradle so that the long-bolt ears and the front studs slip into place together, then thread a nut onto a stud to hold it in place, then insert the long bolt, then finish the front nuts. -- Jim Muller [email protected] '80 Spitfire, '70 GT6+ [email protected] http://autox.team.net/mailman/listinfo/spitfires http://www.team.net/archive _______________________________________________ Support Team.Net http://www.team.net/donate.html You are subscribed as [email protected] [email protected] http://autox.team.net/mailman/listinfo/spitfires http://www.team.net/archive
