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Old 01-12-2021, 05:57 PM   #1
cmitchell17

 
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How does everyone get the rubber driveshaft to differential flange off?

The service manual says it should just separate, I removed both pairs of bolts on the differential flange side and the driveshaft side. It says if its difficult spray penetrating lube to get it to separate and somehow use a dead blow to hammer on (what surface?) to get it to come off.

We all know penetrating oil doesn't do anything.

Do you just have to use manforce?

It says you shouldn't use a prybar haha

It appears to me there are metal sleeves on the differential side and the driveshaft flange side that the bolts run through, so it looks like these sleeves are extremely tightly pressed into the rubber coupling?

I guess i'll try penetrating oil, but I am still going to try to pry it, I don't see how you would ever hurt that rubber as hard and thick as it is.
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Old 01-12-2021, 09:36 PM   #2
cmitchell17

 
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So the easiest part about swapping out the differential in these cars is actually jacking one up in there and putting the bolts in, which I thought was going to be the hardest.

The hardest thing is dealing with the stupid axle shafts and driveshaft. The most helpful tip is while raising up the new differential put the axel shafts in before you get it close to getting the bolts in, there is only so much room and you will end up trying to compress the shafts to get them onto the differential flange.

Also put the driveshaft on before you put the bolts in that hold the differential.

I had to learn this the hard way and have been dealing with trying to get this driveshaft to go on for hours:
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Am I doing something wrong? I would remove the other side of the driveshaft from the transmission but you can't get access to the bolts without having to take all this other stuff off along with the crossmember.

I also took the center support out hoping I could bend the driveshaft at the u joint and compress it forward enough to get it on the differential but its close but not going. This is insanely frustrating.

Also the biggest tip for swapping the differential, take the exhaust off, its not that hard and it will make it easier.

Last edited by cmitchell17; 01-12-2021 at 10:09 PM.
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Old 01-13-2021, 08:00 AM   #3
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semi related: why are you swapping the dif?
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Old 01-13-2021, 09:28 AM   #4
cmitchell17

 
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Quote:
Originally Posted by s346k View Post
semi related: why are you swapping the dif?
I'm putting in a 3.73 SS manual differential.

I think at this point my only hope will be to unbolt the whole differential again and strap it to my trans jack lower it as much as I can, install the driveshaft, then Jack it back up again and bolt it in.

Another thing I was thinking was maybe if I go ahead and bolt the axle shafts to the differential, it would hold it enough to where I could take the bolts out and let the differential drop down enough (hopefully) while the axle shafts keep the whole diff from falling out.

The problem is I put loctite red (permatex red) on the big bolt that holds the diff, I sure hope I will be able to get it out. The only way I got it out the first time was I put a wrench on it and jacked up with a floor jack on the wrench, I am sure it came very close to rounding off the head on that bolt.
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Old 01-13-2021, 09:30 AM   #5
cmitchell17

 
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I guess there's also no use in me trying to put the driveshaft and axles back on "balanced". Especially since I'm swapping to this new diff and i have no idea how it's balanced and there are no markings that i can really tell, unless there is something from the factory someone knows about?
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Old 01-13-2021, 10:05 AM   #6
L78toLT1

 
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It's been awhile since I swapped out my drive shaft and axles so I don't remember a lot of detail other than it was a very quick and simple job. Obviously I had to unbolt my DS from the transmission flange since I replaced it. That being the case, I'd give that a try on yours. I know that removing the cross member and other stuff wasn't bad or I'd remember it.
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Old 01-13-2021, 02:46 PM   #7
cmitchell17

 
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Quote:
Originally Posted by L78toLT1 View Post
It's been awhile since I swapped out my drive shaft and axles so I don't remember a lot of detail other than it was a very quick and simple job. Obviously I had to unbolt my DS from the transmission flange since I replaced it. That being the case, I'd give that a try on yours. I know that removing the cross member and other stuff wasn't bad or I'd remember it.
Thanks, but my only concern is if I drop the front part of the driveshaft, get the rear part on, then how do I get the driveshaft back on the transmission? It seems I have to unbolt the diff, let it hang down some to get some distance between it and the driveshaft, put the driveshaft on while the diff is lowered, then compress the diff and driveshaft and pray it goes into the subframe mounting holes, but it has too since thats how I took it off.

It seems like something has to give the way the extra length sticks out past the flange on the driveshaft in the very center of it.
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Old 01-13-2021, 05:56 PM   #8
cmitchell17

 
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Ok so I got everything on. I had to take the differential back up but I had it already bolted to the axle shafts so I just let it fall down without supporting it. It will fall down low enough out of the subframe brackets to where you can push it towards the back and connect the driveshaft.

After dealing with all that and my hands being on fire from carpal tunnel or whatever, i didn't even care at that point to torque anything to spec. I also ordered the new longer axle bolts but I discovered mine already had the longer ones. I just put the existing ones back in and put it on the highest level on my milwaukee hex impact driver and tightened them down. I did check some with a torque wrench and they were probably at least around 50ftlbs. They also seemed they still had some locking potential but I know you're supposed to use new ones, at this point I don't care.

I haven't really got on it hard, i did hear one little pop from the rear once. It seems like it does shift a little late/high after having hp adjust the tune with the wizard.

My biggest problem is there is now a vibration, which i kind of expected. I have no way of knowing the balanced position of the new diff, i didn't see anything marked.

I am kind of scared to keep driving around with it but balanced, it's not a bad vibration but you can definitely feel it in your seat. I would think any driveshaft shop would be able to rebalance everything for me? I'm not sure if they would still holes in the differential flange like the factory does? Or weld weighs to the driveshaft? I guess I would rather them drill holes in the flange. I know I'm not going to crawl up under there again and test every which way of bolting up the axles and driveshaft to the diff to test and see which one is balanced haha.
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Old 01-19-2021, 04:09 PM   #9
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Ok so after a week or so with the 3.77 gears in the back, I have to say the money and time and effort spent on this was not worth it.

There is some issue with the CCM or TCM or something that makes the part throttle shifts in the lower gears happen way to late and not at the correct MPH you command in HP Tuners. It feels like maybe the performance shifting algorithm or grade breaking feature that modifies the shift points under certain situations is taking over for whatever reason, maybe becuase it dosen't recognize the new gear ratio, and is holding the part throttle shifts to long.

Also I used bluecat tool to get my WOT shifts corrected and the tool got them perfect, it now shifts right at 6950rpms, unless of course the tires spin then it will bang the rev limiter in first gear, but unfortunately there is nothing we can do about that unless we raise the rev limit, or try to modify the acceleration cut off parameters in HP Tuners, but like everything else a lot of the stuff in HP Tuners doesn't work.

With all this supposed "pandemic tragedy" I have no chance at getting track times, but I can say unofficially going from 2.77 gears to 3.73 hasn't improved times at all. It does seem additionally that it makes traction more difficult. I have had launches with no spin, but I couldn't get into it fully, I had to roll into it slower. I have however, had my fastest 0-60 and 1/8th time of 3.51 (3.29 w/rollout) and 7.48@93.74. My previous best was 7.54@97.22.

It completely baffles me how the car isn't faster now given the lower gears, I hear people say "oh but you have to shift more", I am just not really a believer that shifting makes that big of a difference, although I haven't done the math to back it up.

I am thinking of trying to find a 3.27 differential from a RS manual, but at this point its so demoralizing wasting all this money for no noticeable improvements.
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