Well, I finally got off my lazy ass and having an afternoon off meant I could get to work on my slightly weeping diff end plate gasket. Haven't got many pics of the initial stages (I was too oily and it wasn't til later that Ali pestered me to get a couple...)

Not too hard a job really, with use of a breaker bar to undo the drain and filler plugs - made it light work. One of my diff end plate bolts were missing but having checked the end plate, it was still nice and straight. Having extracted the oil, there was about 1.1L out of the 1.35L quantity remaining. Oh, and thanks to Andy and Mac for specs on the job.

Gasket on cleaned up end plate:


End plate off:




Torqued up, refilled and back on the car:

where did you buy gasket from ? i bought i load of gasket paper to make my own up ,but if they are cheap enough......

Well Done steve for getting off ya ass and doing something, i just wish i had your motivation.

Bought it from the local Volvo dealership, was around £3 or so. Not too bad. Unfortunately the diff end plate isn't available anymore. Unusually the gasket material is different to the original stuff that was on my car.

SteveP wrote: Unusually the gasket material is different to the original stuff that was on my car.

Might be to try keep the lube in-don't recall seein' a 3 series that wasn't weeping around the plate
Doesn't seem to harm 'em mind

I notice your crownwheel (Ithink that's what the big cog is called) has grooves running around the outside of it, I didn't realise that was standard, i thought it had happened to mine when the teeth started shredding off the pinion wheels.

You should have checked them whilst you had the cover off, you would have need to lift a wheel off the ground and just try to rotate it back and forth, mine had a heap of freeplay between the shaft the pinions are on and the gear itself, the bearing or bush or whatever is meant to be in there was gone completely.

Symptons were a bit of driveline lash and it was acting like a LSD in the wet, would lock both wheels up when getting sideways, it meat alot of drifitng and fishies, was heaps of fun, till it spat a few teeth out thru the bottom of the diff...

dalahare wrote:Symptons were a bit of driveline lash and it was acting like a LSD in the wet, would lock both wheels up when getting sideways, it meat alot of drifitng and fishies, was heaps of fun, till it spat a few teeth out thru the bottom of the diff...

Shame... mine doesn't act as an LSD atall Didn't overly check it to be honest, as its been fine apart from a little seepage.

I think this fault causing your previous 300 to be scrapped is motivation enough

Good work that man - I just paid for it to be done in the end - was at a low in terms of 'being bothered'.

cheers

James

foggyjames wrote:I think this fault causing your previous 300 to be scrapped is motivation enough

Exactly... I was going to get someone else to do it too, but I really felt the need to start doing stuff myself - so I thought sod it

Anyone know where you can get these gaskets from? mine is leaking badly, so needs replacement, but the local stealers say they can't get hold of them any more.

I got mine from the dealers about 8 weeks ago - they had absolutely no trouble getting hold of one (they order from the Daventry dealership), maybe try another dealer?

If you're not able to do the job for a while, and it looks like it has been leaking for a while - then I'd urge you to check the oil level atleast.

hmmm, I'll try giving the eastleigh one a ring then. I topped it up about 6 weeks ago, as it was rather low, but it's been clearly leaking since so I probably ought to top it up again.

I've used Kings in Winchester - much more helpful than Kings in Southampton (despite being part of the same group). Where's the one in Eastleigh?

Just a few comments on the elusive diff cover gasket - If they're available from one stealer they should be available from all !!. My local stealer can get them ok.

The part no.is 3463511.

(and Steve there was a change of gasket material to eliminate asbestos in about 1993 which explains the difference you found to the original gasket)

Mac

I've found some parts departments go out of their way to be unhelpful. It's not like they're running a bargain basement service either, so I'd expect a premium service. We should probably report them to VCUK really.

I've always been very pleased with Speeds (nor Stratstone) in Derby, Kastners in Exeter, and John Darke in Lincoln.

cheers

James