Installation of Differential armor

[LoneZuk]

Is it necessary to grind the differential welds for the armor to fit flush?

Also should the top edge of the armor be oriented horizontal in front of the cover, or rotated at a 15-degree angle so the armor does not rock back and forth on the bulge in the housing for the ring gear?

One installed and another to go.

[tattoo]

NO, you will not need to grind the weld on your diff. housing. Just cleant up a little so you can get get penetration on the weld with out cranking up the welded so much that you damage the housing. I fitted one just yesterday, looks real good. It sets on the housing real snug.
Also the filler hole is big enough that you will not have any problems there either. It sits real nice, almost 0 ground clearance is lost. Once you weld it on there will be a little tab at the bottem of the armour, you will go ahead and grind that down. The amount of gringing depends on where you position the armour. Some people may not have to grind at all, but it all depends on how you set it up.
If you have any more questions please give me a call here at the office or e-mail me. I love to talk about Toyotas and that is what Matt pays me for so don't hesitate to ask. there are no stupid questions. I personally have either broke or messed up almost everything on a Toyota, so I understand. Its not rocket science, but it does involve alot of trial and error to get a bad ass Toy.

[LoneZuk]

Used a grinder to clean up the differential at the points of contact.

When positioned, the sides of the armor contact both sides of the differential housing; the lower contact had an air gap and does not extend below the bottom of the housing.

Is the lower contact supposed to protect the drain plug on the housing?

[tattoo]

Thats great that it fits perfect from side to side. Yes there is going to be a small gap on the bottom. The reason for that is so that you wont lose any ground clearance. You can build it up with weld, or leave it alone, or to avoid it all together, buy tacking it on from the top and smacking it with a hammer and it will usually sorta flex up closer to the bottom of the diff. and then weld that thing on.
As for the drain plug to cover that with diff armour you would lose to much ground clearance. I am assuming that you are using our flat drain and fill plugs. That usually means that you don't need to anything around it because it is no longer sticking out from the diff. housing. I even put a little tac weld on my flat drain plug so that rocks wont loosen it.

[tanman2003]

should one worry about welding the top truss you guys sell and that full cover diff armor with the axle all in one piece and fluid still sitting in it?

[LoneZuk]

I put a small piece of stock (1x.25x.125) in the gap at the bottom and just welded it all together. That way it was not filled in with just rod.

I have been thinking about grinding the raised lip around the drain plug so that it was on an angle si it slides over rocks better.

[Chris Geiger]

Here is an installed photo of the diff armor on the back of our F-TOY...

http://www.trail-gear.com/images/diffarm9536-600.jpg


Here it is on the front of my FJ80...

http://www.marlincrawler.com/images/rockplate2_500.jpg

[LoneZuk]

Your photo is of the smaller unit.

The one we installed is the larger unit that you sell, it has round tube welded through a hole in to access the full plug.

[Chris Geiger]

For the larger unit, hold the unit up and tack one side with a small tack. Then stand back and make sure it's level. It's hard to see if it's level when you’re up close. Use a small hammer to tap it into position. Once it's straight, then you can put two 1" long welds down the sides of the armor. For the bottom sometimes I have found it necessary to use a 5 pound hammer to bend it into the housing flush. Once positioned, weld along the bottom. You can grind flush if desired.

[tattoo]

Chris didn't understand that you were talking about our large diff. armour. Sorry about that. To install please follow the above directions that I posted. If you have any more questions please don't hesitate to call and ask for John, I have installed one or two. Thank you very much. We are working on some install instructions for every part that we offer. This will really cut down on confusion and guess work. :?