Diff query.

[Steve P]

Whilst driving my Vitesse this afternoon a loud rubbing sort of noise started coming from the back end on decelleration,it started suddenly and you cant hear it when accelerating,i`ve looked under it up on ramps and can`t see anything obvious in contact with any moving part.I had suspected the diff was on its way so i bought a 3.63.
What do people think?
Cheers
Steve

[Steve AKA vitessesteve]

Whilst driving my Vitesse this afternoon a loud rubbing sort of noise started coming from the back end on decelleration

Were you pressing the brake pedal at the time.  Are the rear brakes OK?  Rebuilding brakes much cheaper and easier than diff.

[Steve P]

I wasn`t braking at the time,its more like something rubbing on the wheel but as i said i cant see anything near the wheels,the brakes are rebuilt as it only passed its mot last Friday.
Cheers
Steve

[Clive]

Does braking affect the noise? How about running the car in gear whilst jacked up? Could be whell bearing starting or all sorts.

But a 3.63 diff pretty good choice for a 2 litre, a bit longer (so will mean speedo under reads a bit) but more relaxed on longer journeys.

[valencia1]

had a simalar noise in the herald a while back, but carried on using it and the noise gave up in the end and went away, put it down to the car's inactivity at the time.

[Steve P]

Don`t really want to keep driving it as it the sort of noise that makes you think of major breakdown,its been off the road 20 years but has got new bearings,wheel cylinders etc.I`m going to get the wheels off the ground in the morning and see if i can recreate the noise.
Cheers
steve

[JohnD]

Run through the 'Rear end noises' flow chart on the Canley site.

John

[wfarnworth]

[quote by=redoxideVit link=Blah.pl?b=hervit,m=1181918191,s=0 date=1181918191]Whilst driving my Vitesse this afternoon [/quote]

Bet it feels good to be able to say that Steve :-)

Wayne

[Steve P]

It did feel good except for the fact that last time out on Wednesday the indicators died,turned out to be the brand new switch had failed,and now this,oh the joy of a 40 year old car.
Steve

[Nick Jones]

40 year old bits are fine - it's the new ones you have to watch out for!

Doesn't sound like diff to me but the 3.63 is good in the Vitesse.

Nick

[nick69]

It sounds like UJs to me.

[Steve P]

I think Nick69 may be right,had it up on axle stands this morning and ran it in gear,although the diff is rumbling i dont think its that.There is excessive play in the o/s halfshaft,if you lift the wheel top to bottom there is about 1/2 inch of movement.I think i`ll strip it all out and change the diff aswell,all i need to do is get the extra two studs drilled and tapped for the spring plate.
Cheers
Steve

[Clive]

I wouldn't worry about extra studs, should be fine. If you really want them just swap the rear casing.

[Steve P]

Stripped it all this morning,the drive flange on the off side of the diff flops around freely as if the bearing has collapsed,i will fit the 3.63 as soon as i put new seals in it,UJ`s look ok but i might change them anyway.
Cheers
Steve

[heraldcoupe]

cliftyhanger wrote:

I wouldn't worry about extra studs, should be fine.

I've seen a number of cracked spring mounting plates, I wouldn't be happy to run long term without the centre pair of studs,
Cheers,
Bill.

[Clive]

Fair do's Bill, never had that problem, but most of my cars run 4 stud swing spring anyway.
Swapping the case is the way to go then I guess. Especially as it is having the shafts out.

NB, careful of the front flange! It is set up with a collapasable spacer, unlike all the other diffs. Do not attempt to just tighten it up. I think the haynes manual suggest counting how many turns it takes to get the nut off, and doing it up exactly the same numbe of turns on reassembly, otherwise it will be VERY bad!

[Steve P]

Oh arse,what does the spacer look like,the guy i bought the diff from undid the nut for me to save me struggling with it,behind the nut was a 1/4 inch penny washer looking thing.Is that it,what do i do now if i dont know how many turns?
doesn`t look like i will make Silverstone in it this Saturday. ??)
Steve

[Clive]

I believe its a bit of tube that collapses. A cost cutting measure by BL, so they didn't have to bu**er about with shims to set the diff up properly, just tighten the nut until the CW&P (?) lined up/meshed correctly and job done. Otherwise it was playing around with spacers/shims.
I had a bloke rebuild a diff and he replaced the collapsable spacer with a solid one and shims from a scrap diff (oops!). A well known trader also suggested using the collapsable spacer and a shim so it could be bought back to adjustment.

Best to seek advice from an expert diff man, which I am not. Just had a few rebuilt over the years.

[mk2vitesses]

I would agree about the diff spacer, best get the c/wheel and pinion built up with proper shims.
I had both mine done by Kingston Sports Cars

[Smallfry]

I would not recommend re-using a collapsable spacer at all..............you WILL regret it. Best by far is to use proper spacers and shims, but you need to know what you are doing, and sadly, most reconditioners set them far too tight.

[Clive]

A thought here..... if it is just the output shaft bearing that is playing up, why not drain/flush the diff of any cr*p, and use a good output shaft from the 3.63 as a temp fix..may get you going. And then when you want (if) to fit the 3.63, you can take it along to a difman, get a new output bearing and the spacer set up properly. Or canabalise one to make up the other.

[Pete Lewis]

the collapsable spacer was used by many diff manufactures normally just a tube with a anulus rolled into it to collapse under load, it only simplified the setting of the preload of the pinion bearings and has nothing to do with the mounting distance set by other shims to position the running point of the pinion meshing.
the preload on the bearings is to keep the pinion in place under drive and overun
its best to retighten it from whence it came and take a gamble, thats how iit was done by most of the trade in the 70s but as said you dont have the original position ... Pete

[Deleted User]

I had some of those shimmed spacers made in the last 2-3 years as I ran out of old ones to reuse.
They're quite a job to make right, as they have to be exactly the right length, and once machined have to be case hardened then precision ground.

FYI a lot of cars use collapsible spacers successfully and they used the Spitifire ones in the later TR6 too, with equal bad results.

The trick of getting the diffs to last on those cars revolves more around using TIMKEN bearings (which are hard to get, expensive, and NLA for the TR6).

The biggest problem with those little Triumph diffs is, they simply aren't big enough for the job, so the whole thing runs into breakages, flex and premature wear compared with say a Sierra...

[Deleted User]

GTEVO wrote:

I had some of those shimmed spacers made in the last 2-3 years as I ran out of old ones to reuse.
They're quite a job to make right, as they have to be exactly the right length, and once machined have to be case hardened then precision ground.

...

You should have asked, I have a bucketful of those. I can't see why Fitchett hasn't got a load to. In fact any trader that has stripped a thousand diffs or more in the last 20 years should have loads?

[Deleted User]

Well it all depends what you have been doing with them all doesn't it?

As I have been routinely bleeding them away since well before those traders even started and was IN FACT the first person to upgrade both the 1500 Spitfire and late TR6 axles to solid spacers at a time when you could ACTUALLY get Triumph axles new, then it's not really suprising I eventually ran out..

If you consider that the vast majority of those late 1500 axles were fitted with collapsible spacers, and every single one I threw away and fitted the original type shimmed spacer to, then it's really suprising there were enough left over from the 80s for such things as 4.55 LSDs (which were NEW c/w and P built) and the 200 or so Brand NEW axles which all had to be upgraded.

FYI, NOT all Marina/Dolomite type solid axles had solid spacers, so that wasn't always a reliable source either.

For the TR type axle, the pinion has to be machined every single time you want to fit a solid spacer, and this is rather annoying, but I still have a few of those left.