Somebody is selling a 'factory fresh' 2022 seven-seater UAZ 452 locally, for approx. £15k (click here in case you find yourself irresistably tempted) Never quite seen the appeal myself - looks somewhat like a Five Year Plan Committee's attempt at copying the Alfa Romeo F12 using redundant tractor parts. Paul

Can relate. I recorded hours of messing around but turning it into something coherent would be a full time job. And i've already got one of those

This ^^^ These are what I have for the Spitfire for the bigger flanges. And yes they also have the collapsible spacers.

Yrp! I think it's his thing, judging by the Commer camper...

You may well be right that all Spitfire 3.63s have collapsible spacers, but I think some 3.89s do as well! Sounds like it’s got to come apart anyway…..

Seems like an odd choice. From what I’ve read, although simple and tough, they are definitely not built for speed and road manners are “interesting”!

Dunno if it’s the camera position foreshortening….. but that looks like a ridiculously fat beam for its length! (Colin did remark earlier on the building regs lot liking fat beams) This unfortunately. I’m sure they won’t be offering to contribute to the work made necessary by their utter failure! Yes, as they all are . Have had similar in the past with Western Power, though that turned out in my favour as their previous work was so very shoddy and affected a neighbour as well, so they ended up putting it right and taking most of the cost of the modification I needed in the process!

One semi-certain way to tell, if it has a castle nut on the pinion, which denotes a solid preload spacer it will be a 3.89. I think all 3.63s had a collapsible preload spacer, which had a nyloc. Of course modifications are possible but not very likely. There are also some odd ball configurations (4.55 or 4.11 from Marina or Dolomites), but 3.89 will be by far the most likely option for a round flange Spitfire diff with a castle nut.

Progress has been slow this week as time to spend on the car has been limited. Not helped that I picked up a diff from ebay last night.  A bit of a gamble as it has an unknown history other than being sat in a garage for 20 years.  I think it's the correct original unit for my car and the flanges match with the unit currently installed.  At the very least I should be able to clean, paint, drill a drain hole, then rebuild my diff into this case with new seals and hopefully no leaks. A quick search online suggests it's a type D marked and with FH so from a Mk4 spit, and so better than 1500 i have fitted which is a bit long for me.  If this is the factory internals then it should be a 3.89 ratio which will be slightly more peppy than the 3.63 I currently have and I think it should correct the speedo readout.  One issue is that I can't confirm the ratio as the driveshaft input is seized as least as far as turning by hand.  I think I'll have to take it apart whatever happens so I might just do that and see what's what.  Definitely a job for after the car is back running again!

Extra places for festive lights! I'm entirely with you on not involving the powers that be. It's not fallen down yet, you'll make it better than it was, and you have the piece of paper saying it's fine.  The only advantages I can think of in engaging with them would be either to acquire evidence with which to sue the original builders (probably not worth the bother, assuming the builders even still exist), or if you were looking for the correct way to repair it.