Checking the Ring Gear bolts...No real reason other than thread in Alpines List over last several months, and fact that car was available.
Starting condition:
Car with front and rear ends up on jack stands. Drive shaft removed for other reasons (engine and tranny out of car).
Object:
To check the ring gear bolts for correct torque in light of various comments about them tending to loosen up with time.
What was done, with comments:
Drained the differential of gear oil. Disconnected hand brake cables/yokes from the actuating levers on each backing plate. Undid and removed the brake hydraulic pipes both sides. Wrapped the ends of the pipes in cloth to catch brake fluid and keep away from dirt. Plugged cylinder threads with machine bolts (3/8NF)to keep clean. Removed wheels...car I'm working on has wire wheels, so minor complications occurred later due to the more complex hubs which enclose the shaft nuts. Started on the left side. Removed the shaft nut (! 1/8" socket), normal right hand thread (same both sides) but it's tight... left the flat washer on the shaft and got it later. Removed the brake drum from the hub by undoing the four 5/8" socket 7/16NF bolts. The drum needed to be held firm for this, and was accomplished using a flat steel bar suitably wedged against the floor and into the drum face. Using a hub puller (radial hammer type), I removed the hub from the shaft, and remembered to collect the large flat washer which goes under the shaft nut. The five 1/2" socket 5/16NF bolts which bolt the oil seal arrangement and the brake back plate to the end of the axle were now accessible. If you are not going to do a full clean-up (both sides) of the backplate, you don't need to remove any of the brake components mounted thereon....you can clean up the axle side of the plate with the gear still mounted. Found I needed a 1/2" wrench to hold the nuts behind the back plate as I undid the bolts. I had to dig through a half inch of grime to find some of the nuts....once off, had to to dig out the lock washers that were underneath them. Removed the oil catcher (the metal cover), seal and its retainer, and the back plate. Noted the pieces of torn paper gasket (one each side of backplate) which will have to be replaced on reassembly.
If you are really fortunate, you may now be able to grab the end of the shaft and, with a sharp pull, start the shaft sliding out (one of mine came out that way). If not that lucky, you may have to replace the hub on the end of the shaft, snug not tight, then replace the washer and large nut on the end of the shaft to just come up against the hub. Next replace the brake drum, using two opposite bolts, again snugged, not tight. Grab the drum, and with a sharp jerk, see if you can start the shaft out (my second shaft responded to this increased effort). This was a piece of cake compared to the removal of a third shaft from my parts car, which I had done first as a rehearsal for the real thing. This shaft was TIGHT !! The above two methods had absolutely NO effect on the shaft, so I realized I would have to use a slide hammer type shaft puller. Instead of using the wire wheel hub, which I used in the second method above, to which the slide hammer cannot possibly attach with any of its customary feet, I found in my boxes of hopefully useful Sunbeam parts a steel wheel hub, which doesn't have the spline projection, and which has studs. The hub is mounted in a similar manner to the other one in the previous method, and the puller foot conveniently bolts on to two opposite studs using normal steel wheel nuts. Once you have ensured that there is no slack in the system, start pounding the slide hammer. With this particular shaft, I found that five or six really sharp thumps (the puller I was using had a slide hammer of about five pounds weight) moved the bearing out about 1/32"...my hands and arms were beat by the time I got the shaft out...however it eventually came out, apparently none the worse for wear.
Now, I had to repeat all the above (forget the third shaft) for the other side, so that I ended up with both shafts out (which I did to clean and inspect them), or at least out far enough to clear the gears in the diff.
I then undid the ten nuts (1/2" socket) from the 5/16NF studs on the front of the diff in order to remove the pod from the housing. Half of the nuts brought the studs with them, so were separated on the bench and the studs were reinstalled. The pod came out clean as a whistle (so to speak) and onto the bench. My initial assessment of the eight 9/16"socket 3/8"NF bolts (setscrews in proper parlance) which secure the ring gear was..."Why did I ever go to this trouble, the bolts all have metal lock tabs on them so they will never work loose"....WRONG !!! The tabs on four of the eight could be wiggled by hand, and after tapping back all the locking tabs, none of the eight required more than about one foot pound of torque to undo. I removed the first bolt, cleaned the threads, then reinstalled it using loctite 262, torqued to 40 ft lbs, and resecured the locking tab. Then went to the next one. After all eight were done, I made a new paper gasket from the remnants of the old one, coated it with gasket shellac, and reinstalled the pod in the axle housing.
Reinstallation of the shafts and brake paraphernalia is a reversal of the above, and is pretty fast, particularly after all the threads have been cleaned up. I torqued all the bolts to nominal torque for the size of bolts involved, and managed to get the axle shaft nuts to 50 lb ft, but will have to have another go at them once the weight is on the wheels and/or the brakes are reconnected.
The job probably took eight hours all told (home garage), which is less time than one earlier report. This may have been be assisted by the fact that, other than dissassembling the diff, I had done all the other jobs in the past at one time or another, and had most of the tools (other than the slide hammer) on hand. Had I been able to find tool number XYZ67890 (one dozen beer) the job might have gone even smoother.
John Slade Manotick, ON