As the owner of the Rapier planned to come down and have a look at his back axle this afternoon I carried on where I'd left off yesterday and, having removed the left side half shaft and associated parts, removed the differential. As you can see from the photo it is in some considerable state of disrepair, in fact I don't think I've ever seen anything quite like it. Whilst the crown wheel is complete it looks as if the pinion gear got so hot running without oil that it has seemingly melted, the lump you see on the crown wheel is from the pinion and is effectively welded to the teeth. It will have to go away for rebuilding as I am not happy that the side and differential gears are going to be ok having run with shredded metal bouncing around.
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