• Welcome to the Contour Enthusiasts Group, the best resource for the Ford Contour and Mercury Mystique.

    You can register to join the community.

Bad Diff

S

SVTMiG

CEG'er
Joined
Oct 31, 2008
Messages
353
Location
Laingsburg, MI
Soooooo...I've been tearing my trans out for the past couple weeks, an hour or so as I can spare. I figured my differential was shot and boy was I right. I got some good pics to demonstrate to anybody like myself who is new to the concept of how F'n soft the spiders really are. Note the before and after shots of the magnet sitting next to the diff.:nonono:

Diff-Close-up.jpg


Diff-w-dirty-mag.jpg


Diff-w-clean-mag.jpg


Yeah...I'll be cleaning the whole case out on this one :cry:
 
starjammir said:
Miles? Just curious because I am probably going to buy another svt with a stock tranny.
Click to expand...
Ummm...off the top of my head, 96k +/-. I would add that on top of less than gentle driving from PO's, the last guy installed a spec stage 3 clutch. I think despite a stock motor (air intake only) he thought it was cool. But all that power goes somewhere when there's zero clutch slip.

Thinking I'll order up a Torsen Monday unless anybody has alternate suggestions for a guy who really shouldn't throw the money around while laid off.
 
Mine went out with 177k. I didnt have much money when mine went out either. So I put another stock diff back in. I would search up a little on pre 98 diffs. I know I saw a thread around here somewhere about how they tend to take less damage from abuse.
 
if you dont care about having the LSD and are just going to stay mostly stock, then i would find a pre98 diff. at one point i had 2, 1 with about 100K miles and one with 241K miles. both were perfect and both had been beat on pretty hard.
 
SVTMiG said:
Thinking I'll order up a Torsen Monday unless anybody has alternate suggestions for a guy who really shouldn't throw the money around while laid off.
Click to expand...

yeah luckily when I was installing my 3L I realized the diff was trash
30Duratecengine039.jpg


Luckily Reebs helped me out with a low mileage SVT diff it has been great my svt had 135k miles on it..


good luck
 
Obviously the pre-98's are the preferred stock units, but on another subject...
Can anyone tell me what differences the Focus MTX-75 has? Are any of the mechanicals lighter duty being for a 4 banger? Same FD ratio as Zetec Contour? I've seen some nice ads ranging from a diff to a whole trans from late model foci.

Thanks for the encouragement on a used unit. If things went well, I'd like to build a 3L in a couple years but then the trans would be back out anyway! As long as I can reasonably expect 50-60K on a used unit I'll go that route since that will buy me 2+ years when I'll likely upgrade/modify or sell.
 
The focus trans wont bolt up since its for a zetec. the duratec and zetec have different bellhousings and, IIRC, different length input shafts. also, im pretty sure their diffs arent any better than ours.

if you rnot having any problems with the syncros or anything i would just install a used pre98 diff. they can be had for cheap. if you want the Zetec final drive you will have to install the matching pinion gear from the output shaft as well to go with the ring gear.
 
striker2 said:
The focus trans wont bolt up since its for a zetec. the duratec and zetec have different bellhousings and, IIRC, different length input shafts. also, im pretty sure their diffs arent any better than ours.

if you rnot having any problems with the syncros or anything i would just install a used pre98 diff. they can be had for cheap. if you want the Zetec final drive you will have to install the matching pinion gear from the output shaft as well to go with the ring gear.
Click to expand...
Thanks, the different input shaft was all I needed to hear. The thought was there are so many very low mile trannys out there, I could stuff the internals in my case and have a semi-new trans. But I also read after more searching that the synchros aren't as good. So yeah, I'm off that train and I'm shopping diffs only.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top