First off, many Thanks to Richard J., Craig S., Mark H. Glenn, and Arthur S.
for their assistance and suggestions concerning my problems. Now... onto the
solutions. (Original problems are listed below).
Number two was solved by... doing nothing! When I finally got time to go
work on the car again, I found the leaf spring WAS seated properly on top of
the differential! What the???? It turns out that I... A) Did not use a good
light source when working at night and B) The gap I saw/felt was really
between the top of the differential and the bottom of the plate that slides
in between the bottom two leaf springs, NOT between the differential and
the leaf spring itself.
So that left problem number one... what did I do... nothing again! (Man, I'm
getting lucky here!) After the leaf spring was bolted to the diff, I put the
hubs, new shocks, radius arms, etc. back together. After this period of time
(which included much grunting, swearing, wheel jacking, bushing pressing,
and such) I found that the distance between the flange on the propeller
shaft and the diff pinion shaft was now about 1/32 or less! It bolted
together nicely. I guess the differential settled (Not sure if settled is
the right word here) during the work on the rear drivetrain/suspension. (Or
my night vision is REALLY bad and I originally misread the darn tape
measure.) I hope it's the first one and not the second, as I already feel
stupid about the differential/leaf spring issue!
Anyway, Thanks again to all who replied!
Kurt (Hoping all my Spitfire problems are going to be this easy) Strassner
'75 Red Spitfire - Rebuilding master break cyl
'77 Yellow Spitfire - Still waiting for Red Spit to hurry up and get off the
jacks
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Problem number 1 - The propeller shaft flange and differential pinion flange
are now about 1/8th to 3/16th of an inch apart from each other! I think it
is because the bushings on the differential are new (hence tighter) and
don't have the play the old ones did, but that is just a guess. Can I just
bolt the flanges together? Will this cause undue stress anywhere in the
drive train? Should spacers be installed on the flange or propeller shaft to
compensate for the gap?
Problem number 2 - I bought a new rear leaf spring from TRF (the old one
sagged like... <insert favorite expression here>), but it does not seem to
fit onto of the differential cleanly. For example, the stud on the bottom of
the leaf spring does not slide into the hole on top of the differential
easily (it took some pounding), nor does it slide into the channel on top of
the differential. (The channel being the area where the leaf spring sits
across the differential, between the small lips.) Even after tightening the
bolts that hold the leaf spring to the differential, there is still a gap.
Has anyone run into the problems above? Better yet, anyone have any
suggestions!
Thanks,
Kurt Strassner
75 Red Spitfire (undergoing rear suspension work)
77 Yellow Spitfire (2 weeks new - bought it on eBay - it's waiting for Red
Spit to get off the jacks so it can get a checkup)
PS. Will I get more help if I register these two Spits in the Spitfire
database first? ;)
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