Great job sir, and if I may say you are a man of character. We can all see that. Although none of us would wish mechanical misfortune, I do think you're a person that appreciates fixing things and having the satisfaction of knowing you sorted this yourself. Kudos to you, and enjoy the deeper fulfillment of not only owning a beautiful car, but also being the master of it on road and off.
I know the car is fixed but others might read the thread later so I thought I would post some extra info as I also share Dominicks opinion/doubts on the preload subject. I’m installing my new diff in the boxer and have been chewing on this because my new diff is larger and requires new shims. After removing the crown on my old diff I put it back in with the case on its side and measured the gap on the RH cover, this was .070-.072” and having a .051” shim amounts to a .020” preload. I did the same with the new diff and the gap is .080-.081” (.010” larger diff) so in order to maintain the same preload I need a .061” shim. To test this I did what Versamill suggested and cut a paper shim from .0095 thick paper, due to lack of the original tool for a more precise measurement I tried both newmans “turn tight without squinting” and Turbo-Joe string around the carrier methods, Result: the carrier was barely movable by my hand on the output flange and using a string 7Kg where needed to spin it (helping it start of course), I also measured 5Nm to maintain spin with a small torque meter on the flange nut. I increased gap RH until I got 2.5kg to spin, for this I had to increase an additional .017”, at this point turning the diff by hand could be done with my fingers on the flange and required torque on the flange bolt was 1Nm, it just feels too loose and no wonder as it is only a .003-.004” preload on a wide aluminum case, for comparison a Dana 44 spec is .015” on a robust iron case/axle housing. Perhaps the 4:1 gear reduction plays a role to get the 3.6 to 4.0 kg the manual states? My 7kg divided by 4 (gear ratio) is 1.75kg plus 1.8-2kg for the pinion bearing preload. Coincidence? Too little preload can cause the pinion to ride on the edge of the crown and fail, I wonder how much of those 7kg are left after the case heats up to operating temp. I wish I had made the string test on my old diff before I removed the bearings , this would have given us an additional benchmark. Undecided still but I’m leaning towards adding the .010” to maintain previous gap and preload or at leas close to that.
Jamie Hi, did you ever posted the differential spreadsheet? I am thinking about changing my differential on the next major just for the peace of mind, thanks Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk