I decided i'd like some more clearance under my it. A few of the trucks in the club i'm in have had there diffs shaved with fairly good success so it thought i'd give it a go. I did a few searches on different 4x4 web sites to see if anyone had done anything similar to the said truck but to no avail!
Oh well... Maybe i'm the first one in the world to try this on a Escudo or perhaps i've just been looking in the wrong place?!
Any way i picked up one of these for $75 from a local wrecker.
Then i picked up this from a club member - just a standard diff head and the remains of a damaged housing which he didnt mind if i sacraficed
Marked the center of the housing then out with the angle grinder and a thin cutting disk.
This gives a good side view of how close i can get to the crown wheel without guessing on the good housing.
Figured about 5mm clearance between the crown wheel and the new plate i'd be putting on. It went on at this sort of angle
Fast forward a bit (about 5 Hours of grinding the housing and i forgot to take photos
) and here is the new plate that has been welded on (by another club member as he's a better welder than me - Plus he was at home looking after his kid for the school holidays.. BONUS 
). I went for 6mm.. I could have gone 5mm or perhaps 4mm but i thought best to be safe than sorry. Hopefully it won't flex. I cut the original drain plug out of the sacrifical housing and made a new hole in the plate after checking it was going to clear everything. Obviously i have lost i bit of oil capacity but its only around 1/2 - 3/4 of a cup.
A splash of paint and shes good to go..
Havent installed the new housing as yet as i have to swap my locker over and i also have other plans for the same housing. All in all i managed to gain a little over 25mm of clearance.
Was it worth the effort? Time will tell but you can never has too much clearance.
Now i just have to make these new bigger wheels fit before the start of the Laurie Sanson Fun Trials
