Big Balance Issue

I’m so glad I decided to have the flywheel/pressure plate assembly balanced before installing it into Glinda’s drivetrain. The House of Balance had to weld on a pretty significant chunk of steel to bring the assembly into equilibrium. I’m slightly leery about such a big chunk, but I don’t have a way to check it, so I’m going to trust it was $70 well spent.

Last night I rolled the differential I’m going to use out into the driveway for a cleaning. This lump had been sitting on the floor of a fellow CORSA member’s garage for who knows how long, but it spins smoothly, so I’m full of optimism. An indication that it’s probably a fairly low mileage unit is the relatively small amount of grime on its outer surfaces. After some scraping and wire brushing, I applied Engine Brite and attacked the surfaces with a nylon brush. Some rinsing with more brushing and the diff was clean enough for me. I’ve got a new gasket, so I’ll pull the cover off and look for broken teeth or untoward wear. My worry with this unit and the transmission is one is going to leak. While I’m replacing gaskets, I’m not touching the seals of which there are three that could weep or worse. Again, fingers crossed on this because I won’t be able to fully test the assembly under temperature and at running speeds and loads until after everything is installed in the car. I need to wait for the arrival of the replacement transmission cover coming from the Corvair Ranch before I can bolt the two together with their covers, fill them with gear oil, and check for leaks. Even if they pass this test, once shafts are spinning and hot, leaks could appear. As I write this, I think I may have a couple of these lying around, and, if so, I may replace them just to be safe.





I noticed some yellow paint on the differential as seen on the fill plug and the rear face in the above photos. While I’d bet these indicated the diff had posi-traction, Google couldn’t confirm or deny this. Just for grins I confirmed that this unit has the expected (and desired) 3.55:1 ratio. I believe this was the typical ratio installed in the LMs.