Today we start on the diff. The old Fairlane diff isn't up to the task, so we're upgrading.
It's time to do the diff now, this is a
Borg-Warner BTR Engineering diff out of a late-model Falcon, around about
1998 or something like that, it's a limited-slip
centre
28 spline axles.. they're pretty strong diffs, and it was like 150 bucks from a wrecking yard
This particular one's a 3.45:1 ratio, which is a bit different to the standard 3.23:1
Better for the 4-speed auto - we don't want to be too lazy, so
It's pretty well suited to the job
problem is it's out of a sedan, so it's got like a
multi-link suspension setup on it
So we got to chop all that off so we can weld some spring saddles on it
you can get wagon and ute versions of them that just have spring saddles on them, but they're really rare and
For them to have a limited slip is virtually impossible, so it's easier to just get this diff and chop it up
So we're gonna get a plasma cutter into it and just drop all these brackets off and then smooth them off with a grinder
We'll pull the other diff out
After I check the height of the pinion from the floor of the car
So it gives you sort of a guide to where you want your pinion height to be on
the new diff, then we'll pull it out, throw this one on top of the leafs,
clamp it down with some of the new saddles, get the pinion height right, and the
location right so it's even on both sides, then weld it and
that's pretty much all there is to it. It's not a not too difficult a job at all, so we'll get into it
Using a plasma cutter, Al removes all the unnecessary full link suspension brackets that suit the later model Falcon
It's then on to the grinder to remove the remaining material
That's a good job you're doing there, apprentice.
He's bent the peg, oh
With the help of Al's mate Wayne, the old diff is out in no time at all
Al and Wayne then lift the new diff up onto the leaf springs
And Al checks the location of the diff using a straightedge on the axle flange and measuring into the inner guard using the same reference
point on both sides.
We got the diff in there.
Positioned.
There are clearance on either side and the pinion height set
weld the brackets on
We're just waiting on some U-bolts because the other ones were old and rusty and the threads are all galled up
So we should have them tomorrow
We've got the discs machined because they'd been spent sitting on the weather for a bit so it was a bit rusty
So we just machined 'em
Woody's going to throw them back on and
we've then got to make a couple little brackets to hold the brake lines and
And also the hand brake cable
guides because we did have to cut a couple of those off too to allow the
the saddle to fit so we will just weld them on in a slightly different spot and
then we're going to measure up for a tailshaft, get our tailshaft done and
Should be really good to go then
The U-bolts we are using are a universal type and are a bit longer than required
So the excess thread gets some love from the grinder to shorten
So I've just removed his bottom caliper bolt just so they can lift the caliper up
So we can get a position for the brake line on the diff here
So we don't want to go mounting the brake line somewhere over here
And then not being able to flip the caliper up to do a brake pad change in the future
Bearing in mind there is also the bump stop up the top there
and the U-bolt's there too, so
Probably somewhere in the vicinity of around about there where the caliper will be able to flip back down
It's with these guides
With we had to cut them off
Just because they're basically right up against the spring seat, so we just gotta weld them back on again
They're just like a pre-tensioner with this spring just to keep the cable all tense in the guides
You can do without them, I I have left them off before but
In this case we can fit them so we will
So they just need to be welded back on there just around there. It's not super important, but
Best to put it back on
I'm just working on a hand brake cable now
We've got the the diff all hooked up and the brakes and everything there
so we're connecting to the original hand brake cable setup that the
newer Falcon diff's got, so we need to adapt that to the the original car's hand brake setup
It did have dual cables with a sort of a balancer in the middle. This hand brake system doesn't have that
It's just got a single cable with a with a different setup there that just equalizes it at the diff
So all we've got to do is hook it to the original handbrake
Now this hand brake is a pull type, so just basically pulls out of the dash like that so
There's no leverage ratio in the actual lever itself
So they have to have a lever under the car, which is what I'm making at the moment
Basically to give you some mechanical force over the handbrake
cable itself. So I've basically just copied the the leverage point that the original
cable had. It was welded to here,
sort of hung out there, and the cable came through the middle of that crossmember there. Obviously that's not really
suitable anymore because we don't have a centre point. We've just got a single cable running up the side, so I'm just making a lever
here. I've just welded a clevis pin to the bolt that holds the crossmember onto the subframe
for this to lever off, so it's a pretty sloppy sort of system. That's just how they are.
There's not much to them. It's pretty simple and we got to keep it that way.
So this is the original cable that comes from the lever under the dash.
so we we went to Bunnings and
Rodrigos[?] and I, we've got a snack on the way in, because that's how you do it
and we picked up these swage fittings for
Balustrade cable and some cable
Big roll of it we only needed like a meter of it, but that's alright,
we'll use it later. So we've got a few different fittings. They've got sort of screw
adjusters on them that's actually for
running cabling on your veranda or whatever,
But we're going to use that to give us a bit of adjustment,
And we've also got a an end piece here. That's that we've used to connect to this
...original...
connector that was off the Falcon, the late model Falcon, so that's just going to run through,
connect to here. I'm going to use these
clutch...
clevis...
bracket things...
They go on like that. Your pin goes through there,
I'll just weld that to this. We'll have adjustment there to get more cable through,
same on the other side,
that will get split in half. We'll have the same thing here
will have adjustment for cable slack, but we'll also be able to just
put multiple holes in here to change the way the handbrake feels, if it travels too far because
this setup's obviously a bit different, so it may need less travel or more travel
So we'll be able to get a lot of adjustment out of it doing it that way
and also with cables, they stretch later on
We'll be able to adjust it then as well. So,
simple stuff. Just copy the way the factory did it back in the day, should work fine
I think I'm gonna need you to get in the car, pull the handbrake out
-Yeah? So we can figure out the travel
That's probably maximum what you want, I think.
Again. How far out?
Like probably five inches or so, that's all there is.
That's all right. Get out! Schnell!
Danger, bro
That's working, yeah.
Next time on the Skid Factory: we mount up the transmission oil cooler and get the standard column shifter to work