Quote:
Originally Posted by gtipping
I was pondering the mounting of the brackets last night and wondered if anyone here had welded them directly to the chassis.
It seemed to me that separate brackets bolted to the chassis would just be another set of fixings that Mr IVA man would be inspecting.
Has anyone got any thoughts on welding the "book" brackets to the chassis or indeed a small redesign to make them more appropriate for welding?
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Hi,
Welding the diff brackets to the chassis does not work, because if you do so, you will not have enough room to slide the diff in the rear frame, your brackets will always be on the way somehow. The diff can't slide straightly from the stop, neither from the bottom in the rear frame, it has to move sidewards at some point and it will not be able to do so with the brackets attached to the chassis as they will always be in the way. I think it is the reason why they have designed bolt-on diff brackets in the book.
I know that because I had this conversation with a Haynes Roadster builder in Sweden, who wanted to do weld the diff brackets to the chassis. This guy hadn't started his chassis yet, and I was exactly at the point of my build where I was installing my diff in mine. So, to check it by myself, I actually tried to install my diff with the brackets bolted on the chassis. It is just impossible, believe my experience. Unless you modify the diff casing or the rear frame of course. As I said, you have to be able to move the diff in a lot of different directions to find the right position to install it. It is already pretty tight in there, and you don't want, on top of that, big brackets always in the way.
The diff brackets are bolted to the chassis with four 8.8 grade M12 (I even have M14) bolts with nylocks, I don't see how it could be a problem for IVA, I never heard anyone having a problem with that at the inspection (I'm sure other forum members will correct me if I'm wrong)
So bolting the brackets to the diff, and then installing the diff with the brackets on inside the rear frame is, in my opinion, the only way to go.
But it is just my humble opinion and experience of course
Hope this will help and stop you to do something you might regret later
