milano rear end

[eedneco@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx (Neil Cotie)]

John,

If your gear whine from the rear end started out as being only there
when power was being put through the diff, then you have (probably)
only a relatively simple problem.  Whether or not it is too late at this
advanced state, I can't say.

There is a measured shim on the pinion shaft, which resists the 
forward push of the pinion shaft when torque is put through the diff.  
This shim is somewhere around the 4th gear cluster, I think.  
Especially for cars that have not been driven smoothly, this shim 
takes a beating and eventually gets reduced in thickness.  This gives
slop to the pinion shaft, and the pinion starts wearing incorrectly 
compared to the crownwheel.

If you take all this apart, you will see that the inner few mm's of 
the shim does not take any load and so is at (or should be, if the
shim is still there!) original thickness.  So one does not need any
of the exotic crownwheel meshing apparatus to do the replacement job.
Just measure the inside part of the shim and order the same size.

Stewart Sandeman wrote an article about this in his column in 
Alfa Owner many years ago (?90ish).

I haven't done the work myself, but I did force a dealer in Toronto
to fix this before I bought my platinum in 92.  It wasn't Maranello,
but the other one that deals with Alfas.  They had never done the
job before, but researched it, did it, and no problems.  I still have
the original shim.

Cheers,
Neil

Aachen Germany
74 gtv in progress
87 milano in storage in montreal

------------------------------