DIFF SEAL REPLACEMENT

[olivebdr]

Hello dear friends,

as my Elan+2 is now completely in pieces, everything is now easily accessible. Even the diff !
It is black of grease and i would expect i will have to change seals. I verified the slack and the only one i could notice is the free millimeter from one side when i rotate the other one...

I try to figure out how difficult is to change these 3 seals (In and out), but :
- the Elan+2 workshop is not really didactic
- I did not find any DIY is the web
- Nor in the beloved LotusElan.net

Is anybody would make me the great favor to explain how to do that, or where to find a DIY manual ?
I'm patient, i have some tools and some time, but never did anything on a gearbox nor to a diff...

thanks for your help
Olivier

[JonB]

Try this for the main seal:

lotus-gearbox-f37/pinion-oil-seal-t41056.html

[olivebdr]

Thank you JonB
I will carefully read this post for the front seal...

[jono]

Olivier,

Make sure you buy good quality seals for the output shafts. I recently rebuilt my diff and replaced all of the seals with unknown quality only to find one of them leaking after a short while. I have now replaced them with SKF double lip seals and am confident that I won't have further problems.

Pull out your output shafts using a driveshaft fitted with some long bolts and use it as a slide hammer - with some gentle heat on the casing they should come out okay. You may want to fit the new bearings swith some bearing fit if there is any hint of slackness as you don't want one to spin. I used the silver Loctite metal repair (609?) and this seems to be ideal.

The other thread will provide the lowdown on the pinion seal - I re torqued mine as per the manual and did a 'feel' test but I was installing a different drive flange as well so had no existing reference points to rely on such as marking the nut and putting it back to where it same off. I was probably lucky but my diff is quiet and no ill effects after a few thousand miles.

Cheers

Jon