Hi Doug,
I'll take a look at the bearing race, but there will be no way for me to tell
if the groove ever had the circlip, I don't think. Obviously, at some time in
its life, it did. There are only two possibilities here. Either the clip
broke, or was not fitted during the rebuild, but that's pretty hard to
imagine. The fact that it failed within the first 25 miles that the car was
back on the road would seem to suggest that the clip wasn't fitted it all. If
it were, it would certainly have lasted longer than this after a rebuild, I
would think.
According to my parts book, the exploded diagram also shows a thrust washer
that's supposed to fit between the circlip and the the bearing. This most
definitely is missing as well and was not on the stub axle when withdrew it.
I like your idea of the "fishing for fragments" expedition a lot better than
removing the differential. I think I'm going to rig something up using the
magnet that goes at the end of my telescoping pen sized thing, that's used to
grab hardware in tight spots in the engine compartment or wherever. The
magnet is surprisingly strong for its size.
How tough is it to drill and tap a drain hole through cast iron? I'm
wondering if now might be a good time to do this and fit a magnetic plug, just
for good measure.
Best wishes,
Jeff
----- Original Message -----
From: Douglas Braun
To: Jeff McNeal ; spitfires@autox.team.net
Sent: Sunday, March 23, 2003 3:21 PM
Subject: Re: Differential problem, cont. (was goldarndest thing)
If the circlip was present, it might have left a circlip-shaped pattern on
the side of
the bearing. Can you see any evidence of that? If there are no such
patterns,
and the groove on the shaft does not appear to have had a circlip in it, I
bet
that it was never installed in teh first place.
It looks like the splines on the end of the shaft did not suffer, which is
good.
You might be able to search for the circlip (fragments, presumably) through
the oil filler hole
with a small, strong magnet on the end of a piece of coat-hanger wire. It
would certainly
be worth an hour or two of your time, if you can avoid having to remove and
open up the diff.
Doug Braun
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