[Fot] diff

[Rocky Entriken]

Had the diff in my Spitfire welded up in 1990. Since then my incidence of 
axle breakage, which was chronic, has been reduced markedly. With the old 
No-Spin limited slip I'd snap off an axle once or twice a year (once broke 
both of them in the same race!). Since then, just two in 16 years.

Downside -- with the limited slip, break one axle and I could still keep 
going (and have, on more than one occasion). Welded up, it just chews up 
everything and the car must stop. But the first time I did it, it took 12 
hours to repair in the paddock -- uncharted territory and all -- mostly 
because I could not get the broken stub out. Finally had to remove the whole 
pumpkin, take it to a welder who welded a bolt to the stub that we could 
then use to lever it out. With the old limited slip, if the broken stub was 
jammed in, I'd just pull the other axle and stick a drift in there and poke 
it out. Welded up -- no hole!

The fix -- next time I had the rear end out, I took the pumpkin to a machine 
shop and had a hole drilled through the weld. Next time I snapped off an 
axle -- only the second time -- I had access to pop out the jammed-in stub. 
The repair went MUCH quicker!

--Rocky Entriken

----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Greg Solow" <gregmogdoc at surfnetusa.com>
To: "Bill Babcock" <billb at bnj.com>; "riverside" <riverside at cedar-rapids.net>
Cc: <fot at autox.team.net>
Sent: Thursday, January 25, 2007 8:56 PM
Subject: Re: [Fot] diff


> When  I had  the diff on my Morgan welded up, the welder cut out two
> rectangular plates of steel that will lie down and fill in the space 
> between
> the spider and side pinion gears in the interior of the diff. Then the 
> gears
> are welded to the steel plate on each of the 4 sides where they touch. 
> This
> spreads the load of the weld over a larger area and helps reduce chance of 
> a
> failure in the material next to the weld.  I have been running a welded 
> 4.11
> diff for years with no problems, at least so far.