[ddmckee54]

Yesterday I cleaned all of the god-awful smelling factory grease off the donor axle parts. I need to make several modifications to the axle shafts and I don't want to be smelling that crap all the time.

I know I need to find some clearance for the spider gears, but how much do I need? I knew that if I backed off the screws holding the ring gear to the spider housing the diff worked as advertised, but how to measure it? My idea was to use the M2 screws that held the spider housing to the ring gear as my indicator. If I count the number of flats as I loosen each screw until I find the sweet spot, that will tell me how far I moved the screw. Turns out that sweet spot is 1-1/2 turns out from tight. An M2 thread has a 0.4mm pitch, so 1-1/2 turns means the head of the bolt moved 0.6mm. I need to take 0.3mm off the back side of the bevel gear on each axle shaft to make things fit right. I think that's right, gonna need to try it and find out.

I also need to shorten each axle by 29-30mm. I'm not sure if that number will be affected by my fix to the spider gear clearance problem. I don't think it will but I need to try it and find out before I start whacking chunks out of the axles.