Offroad-Express

while replacing speedo drive in gear box recently i decided to replace leaking pinion seal while the drive shaft was out. no biggie i thought , just whip the flange off and flick the seal out fit new one and put it all back together again. oops over tightened pinion nut . forgot about that. turned pinion shaft by hand felt ok went for quick drive 2.5kms or so climbed under and felt the diff . bugger hot around pinion bearings . striped diff inspected pinion shaft bearings for wear and dammage . got hold of bearing pre load specs reassemble pinion into diff putting small spacer under colapsable spacer . tightened nut up to specified torque checked preload and continued to tighten and check until i reached correct preload. reassemble reast of diff fill with oil and test drive . still gets hot around pinion bearings .. any help or advice would be welcomed..

I would expect a certain level of heat there, but how hot are we talking? Too hot to touch?

I'm no diff expert, but if its getting really hot then it might pay to have a professional driveline shop check it out. IF its just warm then I wouldn't get too worried personally.

Is it the pinion, or the bearing thats heating up? Could be alignment?

Steve

seams that a lack of knowledge and paranoia are to blame for the problems i,ve been having . I managed to get hold of an infa red temprature gun and took readings after a short drive of 10kms .60deg at pinon bearings and 40deg at the back cover. I compared this to my fathers surf and came up with 56deg at the pinion and the same at the back .... so looks like it,s all ok . slightly higher reading on mine should be because of recently tweaked pinion bearings and the heavey diff oil that the manual specifyed , lsd 140. all i could find was lsx 85/140 in town . and hopefuly temp should drop a bit as things settle in . just hope the old mans surf diff isint on the way out ..
chairs..