legacycentral bbs

I've been talking to an off-road buddy of mine about the best way to clean up my rear diff.

He suggested unbolting one bolt at a time, cleaning everything, and replacing the bolt with a new one.

I brought up the idea of replacing the gasket and all the bolts all at once.

He thought that was a good idea (considering the mileage on the diff), and then recomended checking and replacing bearings.

What do you guys think? How difficult is this gonna be? I've never cracked open a diff before, so I don't know how hard it is. Though, I've never pulled an engine before, and it was pretty easy, all-in-all.

What do you guys think?

Just leave it how it is and bolt it in?

What do you guys think?

http://www.thawa.net/bac52/Garage/LSD1.jpg
http://www.thawa.net/bac52/Garage/LSD2.jpg
http://www.thawa.net/bac52/Garage/LSD3.jpg

Have you already read through this?
http://bbs.legacycentral.org/viewtopic.php?t=17663

Wow, that's significantly more involved than I can spare to do I think. I don't have the tools, nor the time to do that right now.

I'll probably just install it as it sits now, and change the fluid. I'm sure things are fine.

These Hitachi diffs are very long lived it seems. Better to just change the fluid than be proactive about any potential failures.

Yeah, I wouldn't bother. Just take the rear case cover off, check it out, spray some parts cleaner in there.

Only thing I'd suggest is you may want to replace the seals between the plates & the diff. One side of mine was oozing a little bit. I snugged up the bolts. I haven't checked it in a while, but it hasn't left any drops.

A good lesson learned from old cars: if it ain't broke don't fix it. Sometimes things are better off left alone.

Steve

Settled. I'll leave it as is, install it, change the fluid, and see what develops.