Well, that took a while. Pic's finally updated, hopefully imgur doesn't follow photobucket anytime soon...
But here's a couple nice pics thanks to Captain Tonus!
Also started acquiring parts for the next step in the process...
Haven't done much other than some tuning lately. Did have to replace the alternator, lost a winding in it. While in there I decided to go thru and upgrade all the 45 year old high current wiring. All new #4 from the alternator to battery, new battery to starter cables, new battery to junction block cables, etc. After doing all that it REQUIRED a retune, since things changed that much. Lights are far brighter now, starter is happier, bass is happier, even MS is happier. lol
I did run into some issues with the rear end though. While trying to figure out the vibration from the trans I found the diff was noisy as well. Already had an aluminum cover for it, figured why not pull the cover, see what's going on. I was greeted with this...
For those who can't ID the issue right off...that left cap is on the wrong direction and the contact patch sucked. Seeing that I knew something wasn't going to be happy most likely, so I pulled the axles, wanted to check the bearings. Once the axles were out I went to pull the diff. Okay, so it's tight, I'll grab the big pry bar...still won't budge. Strange, but okay, I have the factory case spreader, let's give that a whirl. Nope, still nothing when cranked up 2 turns. Damn, okay, limit is 3.5 turns. Done, okay, small pry bar should
easily pop this thing out. Nope. 3' pry bar out of the BFT drawer, had to walk it out little by little! Crap that was tight, later inspection found it was installed with .036" preload, spec is .006". Okay, being that tight, bearing inspection revealed this...
Ok, time to order up an install kit. Given the contact patch wasn't right either, figured I'll just get a master kit, replace all the bearings, be done with it. Found the pinion was too deep as well. Turns out all they did was swap shims onto the new aftermarket gearset, installed bearings, reassembled, shipped it out. Pinion was .040" too deep, had .010" clearance to the carrier! Got everything setup CORRECTLY, reassembled, got this...
Close enough for my tastes, time to seal up with that new cover...
Filled up with my usual Redline 75w90/75w140 mix, TT doesn't seem quite happy, may switch over to M1. Thinking back I had some chatter on M1 on this diff in the early days. Also interesting to note, look at the design of the steel vs. alum cover. The alum cover added 1/2qt to the capacity. When I drained it initially, I got maybe 3/4qt from it (much more displaced by the TT). With the alum cover it was closer to 1.5-1.7qts in there.
That's it for this update, probably won't be doing much until the motor comes out for a rebuild and the turbo gets hung off the side. For reference, found a killer deal on a GT28RS so yeah, good times will follow!