After taking my drive shafts out, I stored them (not really thinking about the bearing surface).

well, looking at them now the mild steel has started to rust. You can feel it on your fingertip (just) which means the surface is pitting.

What do you suggest I do. I am tempted to get some very fine paper or polishing compound and polish them out - would the bearing surface in the diff get trashed? (quaife internals in a sierra casing). The surface looked fine when I took them out of the diff. I am tempted to polish and return - after all, the bearings are more for location than supporting the force - they're not like big-end bearings that have to take a wallop.

oblig pic:

Your bearings don't ride directly onto that shaft do they? The only bit that does is the oil seal so probably worth cleaning up with 2000 grit wet and dry evenly and seeing how pitted they are. I'm tempted to say just throw them on and it'll probably be fine.

I would try wire wool first then light oil.

As you said they are not bearing surfaces, but the larger shoulder is on the oil seal so make sure the surface is smooth or it will slowly damage the seal.

Adrian

+1 for wire wool and 3in1 oil.

I cleaned mine up from a similar state using wire wool, then Autosol polish. They came up OK and didn't cause any oil leaks in the 3k miles I ran them for. I held them in a Workmate between two blocks of wood and used a rag wrapped round to polish them moving round slowly to get an even polish.

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Originally posted by owelly
+1 for wire wool and 3in1 oil.

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