Build Day 9 - Back End

After the engine big day, the diff is the second big day.  I guess starting it up will be the next big day.  So today I put in the propshaft in, the diff in, the handbrake, the de dion, the rear dampers and drive shafts.

1. Put the prop in first.  Luckily so many people had told me, I learnt the easy way.
2. It is possible to lift the diff from below on your own so long as you have a wife or friend or indeed both, to put some allen keys into the upper bolt holes while you centre the unit and fit the lower bolts and shims.
3. The dark grey covers on the BMW diff are dust covers.  I had a tinny squeaky one but thanks to BC a small screwdriver bend the cover from the unit and solves the squeak.
4. To get the BMW drive hubs out you need to get a screwdriver between the housing and the dust cover.  I suggest prising the top a little, then go underneath, then back on top etc.  Trying to do it all from above doesn't work.
5. The brakepipes on the dedion are next to pointless.  They are supposedly bent to shape yet leave a lot to the imagination.  May as well just send them in the box as straight items.  I had to open up the holes in hte dedion to get the rivets in.  I also sprayed loads of dinitril 3125 inside the dedion tube.
6. The rear dampers went in before the roll bar as per the manual.

It seems a shame to have bent the dust covers in removing these.  Are they of any use to BMW owners ?

The non LSD BMW diff in place.  Luckily I had the same number of shims either side to get a 1mm tolerance on the centering of the diff.  These new metric machined chassis, takes all the guess work out of it.  The long bolt for the top also had a 45 degree chamfer on there already.  I am spoilt.

I was surprised that these required so little effort to go into the diff and also surprised they do not have dust covers like the BMW.  They seem exposed at the diff end to me.

Dampers in.  De Dion in, Drive shaft in.  Not a lot else to say really.

Handbrake in.  I have set this low as I don't want it in my way when changing gear.  I may regret that once the tunnel cover is in and I can't lower it.  I got covered in dinitrol doing this as I have caked the tunnel in the stuff.

A view from below the car.  It looks very neat underneath and it all seems to line up.  I was surprised there were only 4 bolts for the prop shaft to diff plate.  I used loctite on them.  As others have said, put the car in gear, then do one of the bolts.  The out of gear to rotate the prop, then in gear to do the next bolt etc.

The end of the day.  Three more boxes cleared from the garage but I do have a lot of half used packages on the work bench.  Tomorrow I aim to finish the back drive system and brakes.