The final major section to disassemble are all the parts which connect to the differential (or pumpkin in American). Having previously separated the IRS from the prop shaft, what remains to be removed are: the swing arms, two half shafts, opening up and checking the internal condition of the differential.
Half shafts
The half shafts are connected to the differential with four 11/16 nuts, through a thick spacer. To remove these nuts, I placed a spanner on the head of each bolt in turn, which I then wedged against the wooden pallet to stop the shaft from rotating. I then used my small upcycled breaker bar on the corresponding nut to loosen it. These did require a considerable amount of force for such a relatively small nut. With these nuts removed, as the bolts stay in place, the half shaft can be freed from the differential. In case the spacers (between half shaft and differential) are not symmetric, I decided to leave these in place on their respective sides by loosely putting back on the nuts. This should also help reduce the chance of me loosening them and the nuts.
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| Differential with one of the half shafts removed |
The removed half shafts need to be further broken down into three components; differential mounting plate, half shafts, and splined hub ends. These three parts are connected together using two universal joints or UJ’s for short. Whilst the shafts go to AK for shortening, I need to retain either end for cleaning and painting.
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| Complete half shaft assembly prior to breakdown |
Since I don’t have a hydraulic press or a large enough vice, the UJ are separated by brute force. The approach which Ian suggested was to place each UJ between a pair of sockets, one smaller than the central section and one larger. Then, with plenty of percussion persuasion, the joint cups began to slide within the gap. Unfortunately, there is not enough space between the shaft ends to separate the joint from its cup. Instead, the plan was to move one end of the UJ cap to its far extent and then use a drift or a sacrificial chisel to move the other end of the cap out by hitting it with a lump hammer. Similarly, you could also hit the UJ itself, depending on your future plans for them. With the two cups partially out, this created enough space between them for the joint itself to be removed.
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| Sockets used to drift out UJ cups |
Repeating this process multiple times, all the UJ are finally removed. As I am not going to reuse these ball joints, I am not too worried about damaging the joint with the hammer or losing any of the needle bearings from within.
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| Separated UJ and differential mounting plate |
Swing Arm Strip Down
Now the half shafts are removed and broken down, the remaining components connected to the differential can be removed. These are the square looking ring item around the front of the differential (apparently it’s called the Pendulum for some reason), the swing arms and the rear tie bar. These are all held together by some large bolts on the differential and another pair of fulcrum shafts.
This is becoming somewhat of a habit, but I again kept referring to another exploded diagram of the rear assembly to guide me through the process.
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| Exploded diagram of the rear subframe Justjagsuk |
The first part which Ian and myself removed was the Pendulum. The nuts holding this in place had already been removed by Simply Performance so it was just a case of leveraging this free. Unfortunately, the stiff bushes in the pendulum and the large contact patch on the diff bolts meant this required some long pry bars and considerable force to shift. We then discovered that the pendulum would not pass the plate on the input shaft, with the lower fulcrum shafts in place.
The plan dynamically changed to pulling the rear tie bar and swing arm assembly in the other direction to separate it from the differential. As we removed this part we were greeted with a clunk as the pendulum also came free and fell onto the differential casing. We should have seen that coming, but no damage done. Now the pendulum easily slides over the input shaft bracket and away from the differential.
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| Differential after the removal of the swing arm and pendulum |
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| Swing arms connected to the tie bar with their fulcrum shafts |
With the components removed from the differential, we had hoped to open it up and check its internals. Whilst the 6 smaller 1/2 inch mm bolts were easy to remove, there were two bottom bolts/shafts at the bottom which proved more troublesome. These two large bolts required a 30 mm spanner with a depth of approx. 100 mm. Even after a quick trip to Wicks to buy a large adjustable spanner and some percussions we could not shift these bolts. With these in place, we could not open the differential. A review of several other AK builder blogs (mainly Steve's AK blog), revealed the historical difficulty and some of the innovative solutions which others had used. Clearly, more tools and further research was required here so I will mark this as a problem for the future.
Not wanting to stop, we continued to separate the swing arms from the tie bar and the fulcrum shafts. The fulcrum shafts, however, seemed to be rusted in place to either the tie bar or the swing arms. Due to the large horizontal void between the swing arm and shaft, it seems obvious to expect water to collect here, eventually rusting these parts together. Clearly, Jaguar either didn't see this or cared.
Having tackled a similar problem before at the front, the solution seemed obvious, cut them out! A quick phone call to AK, it was apparent that they no longer require the swing arms and so I was free to cut them up as I wished. Out came the angle grinder again and I began to cut slices into the swing arm to separate the fulcrum shaft from the swing arm. The second time around and with better access to the metal surfaces, this was an easy-ish job.
Having tackled a similar problem before at the front, the solution seemed obvious, cut them out! A quick phone call to AK, it was apparent that they no longer require the swing arms and so I was free to cut them up as I wished. Out came the angle grinder again and I began to cut slices into the swing arm to separate the fulcrum shaft from the swing arm. The second time around and with better access to the metal surfaces, this was an easy-ish job.
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| Cutting the fulcrums free from the swing arm |
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| Partially removed lower fulcrum shaft |
With all that said and done, I had two fulcrum shafts, two junk swing arms and a tie bar. A good weekend's work!
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