Here’s the deal. I have an open diff that I’m thinking about getting welded solid. How long is the process of swapping diffs, keeping in mind I have a full line of air tools in my garage.
I was thinking about using it just for drift days and what not, then swapping my VLSD back in afterwards, if it’s not tooo tooo time consuming.
Also, who in the club would be willing to weld a diff solid, and what do you charge?
Thanks fellas,
Walter.
hey what’s up , I 've done it on my car so I can answer this one . it’s not that hard , you dont even have to remove the tire but you gonna need a lot of muscle .
They are 4 bolt holding the diff to the subframe , and you have 12 bolt holding the shaft output to the axles and another 4 to unbolt the driveshaft .
The hardest part is to hold the diff up while putting the bolts . That is 2 man job .
AKA not hard .
I beleave you just weld the spider gears. I have a guy who is doing mine for me when i get my spare one.
waist of time/pain in the ass
its not exacally “quick change”
waste scotty 
well it’s no Audi R8/R10 12minute rear-crossmember quickchange…
but a waste of time? thats a bit harsh!
45 minutes if you know what your doing and have a proper floor jack.
Even quicker with a hoist and tranny stand 
Andrew.
Thanks for the info Francis. That’s what I wanted to hear.
45 minutes isn’t what I would call a “waist of time”…lol.
For the people who have done it, who did it for you? $$?
Wally message me on msn when you seem me,
I might have a good idea for you
ok its pain in the ass doing it alone its heavy and you dont wanna do it, in my opinion, i know its not ‘that’ hard cause alot of people here have bigass mechanic macho egos and like to say its easy but all i gotta say its not fun on your own without proper tools and hoist, first time will take you a good two hours probably
just save and buy a real diff.
Fastest way to do it is to pop out the output shafts, not undo them. They just press fit into the diff.
Big flat handled pry bar, pop em out. Sometimes they come out eay, other times … eek
But the fastest way out isn’t aways the easiest way back in. The 12 bolts holding the driveshafts on are easy enough, but you have to replace the boot each time, and those little bastard clips aren’t much fun to much around with.
Then just undo the driveshaft (4 bolts), then undo 3 bolts holding the diff in.
Put a jack with a block of wood under the diff (or just a jack if it goes up high enough)
Undo the 4th bolt holding the diff in place and lower it down.
It might take you a while the first couple times, but once you’ve done it enough, it can be done quickly. I can get an R200 out in under 30 minutes.
Be careful who you have weld your diff.
There is a right way to do it. I’ve seen some scary Arc welded lumps that used to be diffs.
Best way to do it is to use bolts.
It’s hard to explain without a pic …
But when you have the spider gears facing you, there will be four points where they meet.
Drive a small bolt with a big hammer in between the gears to lock them. Then puddle weld the bolt in place to all faces it touches.
Do it everywhere the gears meet.
Rotate the diff (spin where the driveshaft connects), and repeat until all corners are welded.
There is no need to turn your diff into a 500-lb rotating weight.
forgot to mention the 15 year old gear oil that will probably dump out on un-suspecting people haha
Wish I could. I’ll just experiment with this until I can afford one.
Thanks for the info dude, it’ll be very helpfull when I get around to doing this!
I haven’t really looked at an S14 undercarriage, but I know on S13s the rear ARB gets in the way a lot. You’ve got to monkey the diff over it then play around to get things lined up.
exacally
The best part is the sloppy mess that gear oil and the grease from the boots along with the years of road goop will combine to form.
You roll out from under the car with Ace Vetura hair and spend the next 3 weeks explaining to everyone around what that smell is.
It’s not fun, but if you do it enough times, it’s not a big deal.
Just when you go to do it, jack the car up by the diff, then put jackstands under the frame. That way you literally can just lower the whole unit by the jack.
The pumpkin is heavy. I smashed a finger between mine and the ground trying to put it down. FYI don’t try and hold it by the output shafts. They kinda turn and then send the diff spinning …
hey MR, hahah how much would you charge Walter to do that for him?
What are you getting at? I do my own work.
What are you talking about Walter? I saw you at Crappy Tire, getting an oil change. :-s