Starting the Front

Right! With the rear axle in place it was time to get the front mounted with the suspension, as well. Going into this segment of the build I knew I was going to have to get this done up to a point and then leave it for some time. I am intending to install disc front brakes which are quite expensive and, at the moment, I don't have the budget. So the goal was to just get the axle case in, with a differential attached, and basically get the axle on axle stands so other tasks can be completed. 

Fortunately, the front axle was in a lot better shape than the rear. No leaking pinion oil seal, so cleanup was (comparatively) a breeze! 

One problem I had to solve, however, was the issue of having a different crown and pinion ratio in the front and the rear. Since my rear differential is a 3.54 drive ratio, I would need to source and attach a 3.54 Rover diff to the front axle. Fortunately, when I bought my salisbury, I also acquired a 3.54 Rover diff for just this purpose. 

Unfortunately, the diff turned out to be unserviceable. The crown wheel had a little pitting on it, which wasn't so bad, but it was going to need a full rebuild. I didn't think this was too big a deal. I had most everything I'd need to do the job, save for the special tool (block) used to set the pinion height. I was hoping the pinion bearing was good and all I'd have to do was the carrier bearings. Fingers crossed, right? 

Removing the diff carrier was no big deal. As you can see from the photos, it wanted a disassembly, a good clean and some fresh bearings in the diff carrier. 

Unfortunately, it was not to be. :( The first problem I ran into is that I could not, for love or money, get the pinion shaft out of the diff housing. I leaned on it with my little 6t bench-top shop press and it wouldn't budge. I even bent the press. 

I then started figuring out how I was going to get the carrier bearings off -- they looked pretty frozen in place -- and, after doing some mental arithmetic it looked increasingly like this differential would be a lost cause. I would have had to take it to a specialist shop to get the diff rebuilt and that would clearly cost quite a lot in shop time. 

Part of every restoration project seems to be treading a fine line between money spent and speed / quality of the outcome. In my case this is often not easy calculus: I don't always have a lot of time, and don't always have a lot of budget for the project. This results in some challenging decisions to make. 

Fortunately, with a Land Rover restoration there are lots of options. In particular, we benefit from having access to a community of specialist companies who do great work helping to bring these classic vehicles back to life. In the case of transmissions and differentials, Ashcroft Transmissions are the gold standard. It was quite easy to look at the cost of a refurbished diff from Ashcrofts and compare that to the costs I'd have to pay to restore the diff I have. Knowing that the work is done 100% correctly and ending up with a like-new result made the decision for me. 

Ashcrofts does great work. Packaging was good, and they clearly know how to build a diff. And most importantly at the end of the day, I know I'm set on the front (if nowhere else!) 😅

The next task, of course, is to connect that shiny new differential to the axle case. No problem! As I'd already stripped it in preparation, I cleaned up the mating faces, smeared blue Hylomar over both sides of the gasket, and got to wrestling the diff on to the axle case. 

... only I ran into a problem. Apparently, the case I have has two locating dowels that are not mirrored onto the rover diff I bought. 

Feck!

Out came the angle grinder, the solution to many Land Rover problems:

Two quick buzzes with the zip disc and a cleanup with the flap wheel and voila. Problem solved. 

Hylomar is a gasket dressing compound that seems to work pretty well. It was cold when I did this job, and the stuff set pretty quickly. Fortunately, it can be cleaned up with acetone, so not too difficult to undo. A few minutes of laboriously cleaning up the mating faces and the threads of the studs and we were set to try again.

This is why I have always bought extra gaskets: Invariably I end up fucking one up and needing another go at it. 

Out came the spare, on went some fresh Hylomar, and hey presto, job complete:

Now for a little paint:

Finally, after letting the whole mess dry for a couple of days, I was able to mount the front axle and suspension together, which (unlike everything else I've done so far) actually worked kind of smoothly:

There aren't any instructions that came with the shocks so I kinda just put them together in the way that made the most sense, reusing the components I'd saved from the original install. It's worth noting that I only have one washer on the lower mounting point, between the outer edge of the shock bushings and the split pin. Unsure if this is correct, but it looks to be so according to the green bible...