Differential breather and oil seals

AutoAndy

New Member
Hi everyone
I'm restoring a 1967 2000 auto and have removed the rear diff to clean and renovate the brakes. It has oil leaks from front extension and N/S shaft. The extension oil seal appears fairly simple to change but the same doesn't appear true of the half shaft seal!

From reading other posts, poor breathing could also b e a reason for the leaks. My problem is I have no breather on the casing, only an inspection plate.

Should I try to remove the shaft oil seal which involves changing the bearing spacer and are they available to buy? What is the best way of removing the shaft? Could I fit a breather instead in the hope that cures the leak?

I am thinking of drilling a hole in the inspection plate and putting in a split pin. Would this be too low and cause even more problems?

Any suggestions or tips would be much appreciated.
Thanks
Andy
 
Early cars didn't have a breather. There was a mod to fit one, and details of how to do so are in the WM. It involves drilling the diff casing.

The diff output shaft is held by 4 bolts, remove those and the shaft and housing will just pull out. The collar needs to be pressed off, then the shaft pressed out of the bearing, to get at the seal. There are special plates to clamp round the collar, and I've seen people crack the housings when trying to do them without. The collars are designed to be one use only.
 
Thank you Harvey. This confirms my suspicion about the difficulty in replacing the half shaft seal! Do you think it is worthwhile to add a breather? I have consulted my WM which is dated August 1967 but this makes no mention of the breather modification. I am a little concerned about about where and how to drill the casing so would my idea about adding a hole to the inspection plate have any benefits

Thanks in advance
Andy
 
AutoAndy said:
Do you think it is worthwhile to add a breather? I have consulted my WM which is dated August 1967 but this makes no mention of the breather modification. I am a little concerned about about where and how to drill the casing so would my idea about adding a hole to the inspection plate have any benefits

It was a problem when there wasn't an efficient breather, and that's why there was a modification to fit one, but I've looked in my 2000/2200 WM and I can't find anything about it in there either. I've obviously read about it somewhere, and even done it years back, but I can't remember what was involved TBH. A hole was drilled and tapped into the top of the casing for the breather itself, but I'm sure there were other holes drilled in the casing internally.
 
harveyp6 said:
AutoAndy said:
Do you think it is worthwhile to add a breather? I have consulted my WM which is dated August 1967 but this makes no mention of the breather modification. I am a little concerned about about where and how to drill the casing so would my idea about adding a hole to the inspection plate have any benefits

It was a problem when there wasn't an efficient breather, and that's why there was a modification to fit one, but I've looked in my 2000/2200 WM and I can't find anything about it in there either. I've obviously read about it somewhere, and even done it years back, but I can't remember what was involved TBH. A hole was drilled and tapped into the top of the casing for the breather itself, but I'm sure there were other holes drilled in the casing internally.

I'll find the instructions. There are actually two mods for this by Rover.

Yours
Vern
 
Vern Klukas said:
harveyp6 said:
AutoAndy said:
Do you think it is worthwhile to add a breather? I have consulted my WM which is dated August 1967 but this makes no mention of the breather modification. I am a little concerned about about where and how to drill the casing so would my idea about adding a hole to the inspection plate have any benefits

It was a problem when there wasn't an efficient breather, and that's why there was a modification to fit one, but I've looked in my 2000/2200 WM and I can't find anything about it in there either. I've obviously read about it somewhere, and even done it years back, but I can't remember what was involved TBH. A hole was drilled and tapped into the top of the casing for the breather itself, but I'm sure there were other holes drilled in the casing internally.

I'll find the instructions. There are actually two mods for this by Rover.

Yours
Vern

OK, here we go. It went this way: the diff was designed with a internal breather system. Which was inadequate. The first fix was all of the final fix less fitting the external breather to the top of the case. That was in December 1966. The definitive fix (these pages) was in August 67. This is from the service newsletters, but it was published in the 67-68 era WSM.

Yours
Vern
 

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Thank you very much Vern. I see that Wadhams do a breather conversion kit so I think this will be the route I shall go down.
 
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