Diff

With the chassis the right way up, hopefully for good, decided the diff should go in next. The nice and shiny 3.62 open diff is fresh from BGH Geartech:

Before starting the powder coating needed a little bit of protection... Shares also now in pipe lagging! In the following picture the chassis stand, seen bottom right, needed to be moved to the left so that there was enough room to get the diff in:

The process of fitting started by getting the unpaid help involved and then turning the diff on its side. It is then inserted upwards from the bottom until it's as high as possible and then tilting it forwards:

 

The use of a luggage strap really helped to control the process of moving the diff around inside the chassis framework that exists where the diff is situated:



View from the front:

Once the diff was in position on its side, but supported by the strap, the two pairs of hands made the next stage relatively easy. The diff then needed wiggling around and rotating back into the upright position:

Having measured the diff top mount beforehand the expectation was that it probably wouldn't fit in easily. Sure enough it was about 1mm too wide. Managed get the PowerFile far enough into the chassis framework to grind off enough material from one end of the diff's top mounts - took two attempts to get it right for a snug fit into the chassis mounts.

After some persuasion in went the top bolt mount bolt, although narrowly missing the top wishbone mount (it's very tight). The current rear bolt and front two mount bolts are all too short and the front mount spacers aren't right, but apart from that it's perfect:

I'll look to sort out the correct length bolts later.