I got some updates coming very soon, but in the meantime, I've finally gotten around to getting the differential ready for powder coat.
-So, I pulled it apart and inspected the bearings. The main bearings for the diff look to be in good shape, so I'm going to consider reusing them. The ring gear bolts are 12mm shanked bolts typical to standard R200 diffs, so I need to pick up a set of the 13mm shouldered bolts for securing the standard ring gear to the HLSD.
-Before pressing the pinion gear out, I made a makeshift pinion height tool. This way I can shoot a reference height to the pinion gear and make sure it's set accordingly on reassembly.
-I marked up where I took the measurements, and made some install markings to make the tool more reliable for shooting measurements.
-The pinion gave up a bit of a fight in my press, but once it started, it popped out with relative ease.
-The same can't be said about the outer races. Getting them out was a pain the a**. After a few failed attempts with a set of drifts, I took a piece of steel tube, set the diff on the ground, and whacked the ever loving s*** of the races. They came out, even though they managed to completely deform the end of the tube.
-Now I remember why I hate working on pinions.
-But it's good I popped them out. The smaller race had deformations from the roller bearings. I'll replace both while I have them out.