I’ve just finished a marathon job of swapping the two differentials over. It should have been an evening’s work, but it turned into about 18 man hours due to a combination of bad luck and stupidity.

The initial issue was that while the bolts holding the differential onto WOL are well trained, WGU’s were properly seized, so much so that I ended up rounding off a couple of the half shaft bolts. This left us with little option but to grind them off (the bolts that is, not the half shafts!).

Later, I managed to completely remove the rear section of WOL’s drive shaft without noting the alignment at the centre join. I tried five different alignments, all of which caused horrible vibrations. Each change between alignments required the diff out, and therefore took about an hour.

Robin then arrived and kindly pointed out the faint alignment markings that I’d failed to notice. Bugger! Still that done and all was good. Both cars are now back on the floor and driving – the single remaining issue before WOL’s sale is the leaking water pump. I’ve ordered a replacement that should be here before the end of the week.

So finally, big thanks to Ben Smith, Ian Haynes and Robin Willis for their assistance through this episode. Robin and I performed WGU’s kebab table initiation ceremony to celebrate our success!