I'm in my final stage of re-assembling my differential and need some advice on how to wire all the ring gear bolts together. I know they all need to be wired together, but what is the best way to do it? Also, I've read about two different ways to lock in the three differential housing nuts - by using cotter pins or wiring them together. Which is best?
Bill, if the differential housing is held together with bolts rather than studs, all you need is split pins.
Allan from down under.
Bill, this is how mine was done, double bolt on the ring and a single through the carrier. Not sure what is better as far as the single wire or cotter pins go, but I'm sticking with the safety wire.
Is there a special tool to use in order to get those really tight twists?
Bill, they sell safety wire pliers, but you can use a duck bill if you just go slow and take your time. Try practicing a few times and see how it goes.
Here is a tutorial on how to safety wire I did a few years back.
http://www.jalopyjournal.com/forum/showthread.php?t=215935
the theory is the tension should pull from the clockwise side, to prevent counter clockwise, or loosening movement
The more i look at the way my bolts were wired, the more i think they were done incorrectly. It should be one over and one under as Ed clearly showed. On a happy side note, they never budged in 25 years.
Bolts with nuts get cotter keys:
The pair at 12:00 has the loop slipped over the wrong way on the most distant bolt.
Note the difference between early and late differentials - one has studs, the other bolts.