I know we have several good posts now on this from the Zedshed and @Faheem inparticular but it's a big job to tackle for most of us and I thought a few more pictures and ramblings might be useful.
I'm not going to cover the whole thing. But I'm going to try and home in on some of the detail I've not spotted myself before and maybe document a slightly different piecemeal approach. It's going to be photo light on the dismantling side (just because I only just decided to do this post) but will take a lot more as it all goes back.
The car in question is a facelift 2.2 Sport. But with the exception of the exhaust being a possibility to remove on earlier cars it should be a largely similar sequence.
So this picks up from the point where the following has already been removed. I'm not going to note these initial steps in any detail as it's relatively straight-forward compared to the rest of the procedure. These steps are not without their challenges but treat them as an iniative test for bigger stuff to come
:
).
I'd asked Father Christmas for one of these last year with gearbox and diff removal in mind. They are about £30 and to cut to the chase it worked like a dream. I didn't use the cradles.
So I jacked this up under the diff to just start taking the weight. And undid the hanger bolt. I then lowered it enough on the jack to remove the four bolts securing the diff to the beam. These sit very high and you won't get a tool in without doing this. I used a ring spanner and heavy lump hammer as the bolts are on tight.
At this point the diff is almost free to drop but needs help off the end of the propshaft. It will need to go lower until it clears the hanger bracket on the floor pan. By this time I was hearing some distressing noises as I'd forgot to remove the heatshield but the only damage was to the heatshield itself and this can be fixed. The propshaft is capable of flexing down some distance to help with this step. Once clear of the mounting bracket the diff can be wiggled backwardwas until it breaks from the propshaft. This step was a little more tricky than I expected and did need quite a bit of persuasion.
And can then be lowered to the floor. Being an LSD it's heavy.
The axle beam can be surprisingly stubborn to remove even with the diff off. Those pins are long and the bushes bind. I used a bar to lever it down a few mm at a time either side. Here it is off. And I was glad I took the piecemeal removal option. I have a swap out beam blasted/powder-coated ready to go back on.
And here's what it looks like with it all out.
I've got a few more small bits and bobs to take off. Then the rust will be treated and I'll be respraying the floor pan. It's actually a very nice car and not too much to do here (I hope). The tank straps will be swapped out but will be staying in place just for now.
Lots more pictures to follow from this point.
I'm not going to cover the whole thing. But I'm going to try and home in on some of the detail I've not spotted myself before and maybe document a slightly different piecemeal approach. It's going to be photo light on the dismantling side (just because I only just decided to do this post) but will take a lot more as it all goes back.
The car in question is a facelift 2.2 Sport. But with the exception of the exhaust being a possibility to remove on earlier cars it should be a largely similar sequence.
So this picks up from the point where the following has already been removed. I'm not going to note these initial steps in any detail as it's relatively straight-forward compared to the rest of the procedure. These steps are not without their challenges but treat them as an iniative test for bigger stuff to come
:- Spare wheel & carrier
- Anti-roll bar
- Calipers & carriers, brake discs.
- I don't want to remove the exhaust due to the infamous wasted bolts/flange issue
- It's quite awkward dropping the whole thing in one go, even axle beam & diff together
- Disconnect drive-shafts from diff. Air-wrench very useful here
- Remove the drive-shaft bolts. These can be encased in a wasted away lock-ring which welds itelf to the nut. You may not even notice it's there amongst the crud. It will need splitting away from the nut. Without doubt an air-wrench is your best friend for removing the nut itself
- On this car one driveshaft came out with a straight-forward tap. The other one has so far defied all attempts and is about to go to a machine shop for removal. I'll show the strip-down of the trailing arms (hubs, bearings and bushes) at a later point. I'm using swap-out trailing arms, nothing wrong with the arms on there but it speeds things up as everything is going to the blasters/powder coaters
- On this car I was renewing the flexbile hoses (recommended) so I just cut through these
- Remove the 4 trailing arm bolts - a long-job in situ. Just use what ever tools you're comfortable with and allow a couple of hours
- Remove the handbrake cables. On this car they were both seized in the housings at either end so I just cut through these too. Not happy about this as they were working well with no splits in the casing and it's going to cost me £50 for 2 new ones. But I'm also jiggered if I'm going to spend longer than I have to crawling around on my hands and knees under a car. Removing the cut ends is much easier with everything dismantled
- Remove the nuts from the propshaft where it attaches to the diff
- Remove the infamous 4 beam bracket bolts. I used a mixture of an irwin bolt grip and the standard 6mm hex head. But banging in a 5.5mm hex head first to clear the hole out - this is probably the best tip I can give here
- Cracked the main axle beam pin nuts with a breaker bar and undone so the nut was at the bottom of the pin, ie so the beam could drop without falling off
- Dropped the exhaust off the 3 rearmost hangers - 2 floorpan & 1 axle beam. With a wire restraint to stop it dropping down too far - important as the axle beam could put a lot of pressure on the exhaust when it's removed.
).I'd asked Father Christmas for one of these last year with gearbox and diff removal in mind. They are about £30 and to cut to the chase it worked like a dream. I didn't use the cradles.
So I jacked this up under the diff to just start taking the weight. And undid the hanger bolt. I then lowered it enough on the jack to remove the four bolts securing the diff to the beam. These sit very high and you won't get a tool in without doing this. I used a ring spanner and heavy lump hammer as the bolts are on tight.
At this point the diff is almost free to drop but needs help off the end of the propshaft. It will need to go lower until it clears the hanger bracket on the floor pan. By this time I was hearing some distressing noises as I'd forgot to remove the heatshield but the only damage was to the heatshield itself and this can be fixed. The propshaft is capable of flexing down some distance to help with this step. Once clear of the mounting bracket the diff can be wiggled backwardwas until it breaks from the propshaft. This step was a little more tricky than I expected and did need quite a bit of persuasion.
And can then be lowered to the floor. Being an LSD it's heavy.
The axle beam can be surprisingly stubborn to remove even with the diff off. Those pins are long and the bushes bind. I used a bar to lever it down a few mm at a time either side. Here it is off. And I was glad I took the piecemeal removal option. I have a swap out beam blasted/powder-coated ready to go back on.
And here's what it looks like with it all out.
I've got a few more small bits and bobs to take off. Then the rust will be treated and I'll be respraying the floor pan. It's actually a very nice car and not too much to do here (I hope). The tank straps will be swapped out but will be staying in place just for now.
Lots more pictures to follow from this point.
