> From: James Franks
> Sent: Saturday, May 14, 2005 6:12 PM
>
> A badly worn axle will actually 'hunch up' as it
> is loaded.
Jim , what do you mean buy 'hunch up'? I'm not clear on this, can you please
explain?
> What MAY be your problem (if the axles and exhaust
> check out) is that the bronze spider spacers are
> trashed or completely worn away, and there is too
> much play in the diff. Hold onto one side axle and
> rotate the driveshaft back and forth to see how much
> 'slop' exists before the opposite axle moves. You'll
> feel and see it if there is axcessive play.
What is an acceptable amount of play? Mine has about 5 degrees and feels
like it could be excessive but I'm not sure what is acceptable.
> If this condition is allowed to remain you will
> eventually ruin your pinion gear.
What would be the symptom of a ruined (or about to be ruined) pinion? And
what are the remedies?
I'm interested in this because a few years ago I was a victim of the 'sticky
clutch' problem. My fix was to get a properly matched gearbox front cover
and release bearing sleeve. But until I figured that out I did drive the car
a bit with the sticky clutch and recall the way it would 'snap' once the
sticky-ness was overcome by the other forces. The sudden release of force
was passed in to the drive train and I suspect may have caused some of the
slop in my diff.
Does that sound feasible?
Another possibility is that I had the front seal on the diff replaced but
nothing inside was replaced. I'm not sure if the big nut at the front was
torqued to the same position as originally as I didn't do this work and at
the time was not aware that's what should have been done. Is it possible
that the slop was caused by incorrect re-torquing?
Peter Zaborski -- CF58310 UO
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