This afternoon I have just removed the engine, gearbox and prop from my escort mkII donar car. When I removed the 4 studs from the prop-shaft to rear axle flange flange the axle leaked about 15cl of oil and then stopped.

Not had chance to check the oil level in the diff, but is this normal?

Any advice would be appreciated....
Thanks
Andy

No, sorry, they are normally dry - perhaps a damaged oil seal?, although I cannot see how it would get into the flange void.

If the oil was inside the flange then it is seeping along the splines between the shaft and pinion. If the pinion nut is not tight that could be the cause . May be possible to apply something like Loctite on the splines to seal them on reassembly? Don't think it will be a major problem if diff level is checked regularly .

What is the oil level in the diff like? If its there or thereabouts-nothing to worry about.

Mk 2 Escorts are now 30 odd years old so a bit of oil weepage from various orifices is to be expected!

dont forget,if you remove the pinion flange you may need a new crush tube and be able to set up the preload

quote:

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Originally posted by theconrodkid
dont forget,if you remove the pinion flange you may need a new crush tube and be able to set up the preload

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thanks folks! The diff was rebuilt less than 2000 miles ago with a quaiffe ATB differential by my brother/my old man. New oil seals and crush washer were used. Maybe it has all bedded-in?

I'll check in next few days on tightness of the pinion bolt. Is there a specific tourgue for this?

Thanks again!
Andy

to set the preload you need to check the bearings first and make sure they aren't too pitted etc, and replace the oil seal which sounds like its been leaking.

Find out the pinion turning torque required (its in the mk2 escy haynes manual). If you get a bit of heavyish steel flat bar, drill one end so it bolts onto two of the pinion flange bolt holes, and acts like a lever on the flange.

Then you need a bit of very simple maths. You weigh a chunk of your bar to find out the weight per metre or foot or whatever, then work out what length of bar you need to automatically give you the turning torque when you let it go from the horizontal.

Bear in mind that the point of action of the bar's weight will be its centre of gravity.

All this sounds really technical bu the reality is if your bar is around 15mm diameter, you'll probably end up with about a foot length of it.

Tighten the pinion flange up until you think its starting to get close to nipping onto the bearing (you can use your bar as a handy lever to stop the pinion flange turning too!! )

Then hold the bar horizontal and let it go.

The turning torque is right when it JUST falls slowly downwards.

A very easy way of making a very sensitive torque wrench!!

PS in answer to your last question, NO there is no specific tightening torque because it is an adjustment, NOT a "tightening" operation!!

The crush washer is designed to do just that and crush at a preset pressure, to make setting the bearing preload easier.

As 02GF24 said, you don't NEED the crush washer, you CAN use a solid spacer, but that then means that there will only be something like 1/16 of a turn on the pinion nut between too much bearing preload and too little.

The idea of tightening the pinion nut is to put just enough load on the bearings that they never "float" and run loose, but not so much that when combined with the pressure from the diff pinion thrust, it squeezes the oil film out from under the rollers.

The crush washer enables this preload to be set over a half turn or so of the nut, making it much more likely to be set correctly.

OK, sounds complicated but when read about 15 times it makes sense!!!

Seriously, thanks for the extremely informative response. I know it takes time and effort to do that. I will have a "play" this week....