Hello there. My wife "bluegirl77" put me on to this site (great job by the way). She owns a 1977 L82 that I spend time working on. To make a short story long we were hearing/feeling an intermittent loud clunking noise and squeal from the rear of the car while driving. I was told it could be a bad universal joint, binding brakes or sticky rear end clutches. Well, it ended up being the rear end (unfortunately). I removed the differential and cover and wouldn't you know it, along with the oil out came chunks of metal - the remains of ring gear bolts and parts of the cover. Seems that the bolts were backing out and cracking off when they hit the case, chewing away the inside of the case and eventually causing stress cracks. The ring and pinion gears and carrier are in good shape though.

With that said, I have a few questions. Is it common for the ring bolts to back out like that? I paid $300 CA ($230 US) for a used case (only the case no guts) and have a guy scheduled to set up the gears for $150, is that expensive? What sort of Lock Tight and torque should I use for the ring gear bolts? The new bolts I have are normal grade 8 type, will that be suitable or is there a special bolt for that purpose? And finally, part of the inside of the cover was broke away, there seemed to be (it’s not there now) a ridge of metal running from top to bottom next to the vent hole, it would have been probably 5” long by ¼” wide and ¾” thick (guessing), would this warrant getting a new cover? Thanks for your help.

 

Yes it is common for those bolts to back out. Red Locktite and torque to 40 lbs. $300 is good for a case.

 

Thanks. Would grade 8 bolts be OK for the ring gear? Also, when I put the side yokes back in do they need to be offset a set amount of degrees from each other?