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welded diff this weekend

kyle242gt

Still has a Volvo
Joined
Sep 16, 2003
Location
Santa Rosa, CA
now I know why nobody posts pictures - it's not very pretty. I don't know how big I expected the carrier to be, or how easy I expected the access to be, but it was neither.

Jacked it up, disconnected the rear shocks, dropped the exhaust, supported the axle on the driver's side (to avoid strain on the brake hoses), supported the exhaust (to avoid strain on the turbo), removed the cover (not easy) and washed it out with carb cleaner.

Welding the passenger side gear was EASY. Welding the spider gears (to the side gears, the shaft, and the carrier) was not as simple. And welding the driver's side gear ( nearly eclipsed by the ring gear) was tough. The whole thing was awkward, since there's not a lot of room - a lift would have helped a lot.

But pretty much, I just welded everything to everything else. My 135A 120V MIG welder was not really big enough for the job... but close enough for turbobrickin.

Made a gasket, cleaned up the surfaces, RTV'd the lot of it, refilled with 80-90, and took it for a ride.

Funny how the lack of one-tire-fire makes the car seem slower. Straight line, no drama at all. I didn't bother to launch it hard enough for two wheel spin.

Manuvering it around gas stations is now officially difficult; No PS, stiff clutch, and now a locked axle. A perfect trifecta of challenges.

Driving around turns, normal civilized driving, is completely the same.

Driving around turns, psycho rutabega driving, is completely awesome. Rear end steps out a bit, car rotates, then straightens out on its own. Definitely has initial understeer, so I'll need to work out the alighnment a bit (slight toe out, max camber, right?)

High speed sweepers (40mph+/-) feels very nice. I didn't feel any impending spin or oddball balance transitions. Just drove great.

You know what it really felt like? A slot car. You remember the way they just go where they're pointed and snap back in line when they get upset? Bingo.

Took about two hours, maybe three, over two days.
I'll be putting a few miles on it in the next few days, just to get a feel for it, but all in all, I give it two greasy thumbs up :volvo::volvo:
 
pms? Shirley, you don't mean me?
"Inbox contains 24 messages.
You have 50 messages stored, of a total 500 allowed."

re pics: blow your nose and look at what you get in the tissue. That's what my diff looks like.
 
ohhh... I love it. good on ya!

what you need now is a video!
 
Just watch your handling on slick highways and you'll be fine. Highway 17 (?) to San Jose can get really slick adn a locked up rear doesn't forgive easily on that stuff.
 
For the future, remove the diff and remove the ring gear before welding. When I welded mine, I did it in the car and: a) didn't get good weld quality from the awkward welding position; b) didn't get enough areas welded up from the poor access; c) dropped countless spatter balls thru the diff, only to be found later when the pinion tried to exit thru the inspection cover.
 
I hear ya on the spatter balls Matt (got one lodged in my shoulder in fact :freak: ), but really I didn't get too much of that at all. I scraped, pried, blasted and rinsed the works, so hopefully it's all out of there.

I didn't have *too* much trouble getting the out of position gears, but it was tough to make a pretty bead with the gun tip grounding out all the @!%^$# time...

I'm getting so OLD guys. Laying on the conrete (without my usual swaddling of cardboard) for two-three hours, craning my neck at all sorts of odd shapes, wow am I a wreck today. Not only that, but I'm getting so old and responsible that taking the car to a deserted industrial park for a whoopin' made me nervous.... omigodomigodomigod they're gonna call the cops. No guts to even whip some donuts. O:-)

So anyway, I'm so beat up from working on it this weekend I didn't drive it today.

Up next, I need to muster the guts to strip the interior and trunk. How many gutted race cars are there out there with functioning piston-compressor A/C systems? :-P
 
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A can of 'Anti-splatter spray' will fix the issue of splatter sticking to everything.
Weld the side gears to the carrier, weld the spider gears to each other.
Those of us who just cannot drive a car with a welded diff effectively should spend some time playing 'toss and catch' with the car somewhere safe...... I do not spin my cars with the spool or with the welded diff often, or without help from other competitors (The Hornetkar).
Again..... Learn to drive..... Practice practice practice.......
 
Spatter sticking to stuff is one cause for alarm - spatter balls flying forward and landing in the oil passage to the pinion bearings is what I believe caused mine to chew itself to pieces.
 
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