Originally Posted by IainRS1700T

Hi Folks,


Alot of head scratching concerned the drive shaft lengths. Following on from previous conversions (Rod Tarry's being the first) I had my drive shafts manufactured by Wilson (same co.) to the same dimensions, but as you can see the shorter side came up short and the longer side came up too long..



This is how short the short side was. It was a similar story but vv on the other side.

This was with the diff fully jigged up with everything properly square and in position. Mat used a temporary version of the intended mount of the beam (so ignore the thin off cut of steel):



And if he attempted to rely on the drive shaft length to position the diff, (by loosening off the diff mount bolts) this is what happened:



Clearly it knocked the diff way off line. After double checking and checking again against a spare beam we came to the conclusion that for whatever reason, the drive shaft lengths weren't right for our circumstances and they needed to go back to Wilson. It's most likely that our diff casing is different to the other diffs that had been used in this conversion. Nevertheless, Wilson were very helpful and remanufactured the driveshafts for me for just the cost of the labour, so hats off to those guys for helping me out.

As soon as the new shafts came back they fitted straight in with no hassle, and with everything lined up as it should be. Mat then cracked on with fabricating the proper beam mounts for the diff - on the top mating surface and also down underneath as well. There's a few potential spots to fabricate mounting points.



This pic shows the beam and diff mounted in position and you can see the top and side mounts that Mat fabricated from the beam. On this next one you can just about see the mounts tying in through the floor panel of the shell:



With the beam sorted Mat could then tackle the reinforcing of diff mount via the cage inside the car. I don't have to worry about any NVH niceities so using the cage in this way provides added security to the diff mounting. This is what we came up with:



Cheers
Iain