So what I thought was a gearbox whine isn't..
It now whines all the time. (after a good thrashing)
With the car on stands and the mrs accel/decel in 5 gear and me under with a screw driver to my ear the diff seems to be my prob.
There is play where the prop goes into the axle casing, can be moved up and down by hand.
Also there is a quarter inch turn in each direction before the wheels move.. this might be normal?
Checked for oil and oil dribbled out when I took the bung out.

Ive ruled out the rear wheel bearings by stopping each of the back wheels and the noise is still there, all universal joints have no play either.

I've seen atlas rebuild bearing kits on ebay, are these hard to fit, autodata manual says it should be sent off for repair

Or anyone have an 2.0 axle for sale??

English diffs have a crush washer that needs to be done to the correct torque or it fucks it in no time, easiest would be to put another diff in, 100quid max for a standard diff

the crush washers arnt that £££££ and tbh its not that hard of a job to do

If you need to ask then your number 1 best option is to get hold of another atlas axle (£ton tops)with either a 1.6 or 2.0 ratio (both will fit o.k. ) budget for a set of U-bolts incase yours snap (click photo below) and spend an easy morning swapping them.
This will get you back on the road for the rest of the summer hopefully without problems. If your replacement axle isn't super quiet then price up a diff bearing kit, gasket, new crush washer and new lock nut + p&p (£ton) then dive in and service the old one when you have time but read up on the job first and ask anyone who might know about them for their advice. Keep whatever spare you end up with for future use - they aren't planting the trees that they grow on anymore!
If you buy the bearings and take yours apart when they arrive you might end up with your car off the road for the rest of the summer!

sounds very much like both input shaft brg's have gone to me....constant whine at all speeds..increasing pitch with increasing speed...no knocking when on-off throttle...cheapest way is obviously to get another axle.....but i'd be tempted to sling a couple of new brgs in and refit...can give you a detailed low down on how to do it if you wish, but same info is most probably all over the net......easily within the scope of a fairly competent mechanically minded person...only specialist tool is a torque wrench..

So I took the axle off this morn. Realised pretty much straight away what the problem was.
The nut directly behind where the prop attaches was dangling on by a few threads.
This explains the movement in the pinion which I'm thinking was creating the whine.
Took it to a mechanic I found in a place called Muff in Donegal. He took the back off and had a look at the crown, looks to be worn evenly with no sharp edges. Thankfully I didn't drive around for much more than a week or so or it would be shagged.
Tightened up the large nut with some thread lock and I'm gonna stick it back in and see... fingers crossed. He also had an atlas gasket and new u-bolts so time to get dirty again..

Hey,

That nut should be torqued to 86 foot pounds. I had the same issue when I took it off to replace the oil seal on my laser and didn't torque it up properly afterwards.

Scary that it was only hanging by a few threads, I'm going to check the one on my new Capri tonight as its whining a bit and I'm off roadtrippin tomorrow.

Well I have it all back together again bar the oil in the diff cause it too late to get some... The oil that came out was pretty dirty so I MOT washed the whole plant to clean it out.

Is 86 lbs a lot??? It was tightened with an extension bar on the ratchet and one on the bar going the other way- so it's very very tight. The pinion is just about turnable by hand. Ok ye think?

How does the crown look to peeps in the know? First time ive seen wan so I dunno???

At the risk of sounding patronising.............it's exactly what it says.
Equivalent to putting an 86lb weight on an extension bar 1ft long........or a 1lb weight on a bar 86ft long, or 43lb on a 2ft bar.
You get my drift?

Bug I never knew that! I love learning stuff.

Yes I see... well it's defo over tightened then, fook it, it'll be grand.
Went a test drive there now and it's not making a peep..