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So very sorry to hear this happened! It’s a shame about the garage not thinking but nothing can reverse that now. When reading this thread my immediate thought was: under prolonged hard acceleration, what little oil there was sloshed to the back of the diff and starved the pilot bearing / pinion shaft. I have to say what Mr @inline6 is saying is the most likely cause IMHO! Good luck and keep us posted. I do hope it’s just as simple as the bearings - nothing else in your photos seems to be obviously damaged and these diffs are pretty hardy / well engineered.

Only paid up members can see content in the members only area Ali.

I have a good trans tunnel jute to use as a pattern. I do not have any front floor or under seat jute to use as a pattern. I definitely have some interest in those. I scored a nice piece of jute, along with what I believe to be an original rear hatch area carpet from eBay recently. It is not perfect, but good enough to use as a pattern, I think. I will take a look for these. Thanks!

If you don't find templates let me know and I could make tracings of mine and snail mail them to you. The ones I have are OE from my 7/70 and are in surprisingly good shape. The only one that is not OE is for the right side front floor, so the one I have is traced from what was let of the original about 35+ years ago.

I hear you - me too ;) I should have initiated the thread way earlier in my ownership but it got started when I did the engine transplant. Ah, sorry, didn’t realise :( I’ll have a chat with our webmaster to see if it’s an error or if there’s a policy around certain content.

When the pilot bearing goes, the preload on the other bearings is no longer what it should be. Things are no longer locked in place. Note that the sleeve in this picture seats against the back of the pilot bearing: If the pilot bearing goes bad, I believe it introduces looseness, or another way of saying it: the bearing allows longitudinal movement after it is damaged. That longitudinal movement causes the rest of the stack of components on the pinion shaft to no longer be locked in place. Think of it this way: the pinion gear/shaft is engaging with the crown gear, which resists rotation because of tires on the ground. I think that when the stack of parts bearings and spacers become no longer "locked" in place because of the looseness introduced by the bad pilot bearing, the pinion gear can literally pull itself closer toward the crown gear. When everything is locked in place with tight bearings and correct torque on the pinion nut, the pinion gear is locked in position. It can't move forward or backward longitudinally. When the pilot bearing fails, the the pilot bearing inner race which is up against the sleeve in the picture above is no longer locked in place. It can shift longitudinally. This introduces looseness in the rest of the stack of components on the pinion gear. Then the pinion gear, acting on the crown gear, because of the way it is cut, literally pulls itself toward the crown gear due to the force coming from the engine/driveline. The looseness in the "stack" allows the pinion/shaft to pull itself - to slide within the front and rear pinion bearings (these are only a press fit). After the pinion gear/shaft has moved, then the pinion to crown gear relationship has gone all to hell vs. what it should be. And lots of noise ensues. Anyway, that is my attempt to describe what I think can happen. I am hopeful that replacing the pinion bearing and setting preload properly is all you will have to do to fix your issue.

The interior is coated with epoxy primer so it's sealed, I'll clean it up and apply the tar mat right over top of that and the original insulation over that. Yes, things are proceeding at a good pace, we are in a little warm spell at the moment for the next few days so it allows me to get the shop nice and warm, perfect for painting.

It looks like this link might be behind a paywall...

You're flying! Great progress!!

I usually wet sand down to 800 grit before paint but recently I was reading a thread on the autobody forum, this guy was having problems with with adhesion of the paint to primer. He was also sanding to 800, so this time I just wet sanded to 600 and so far it's looking good. I was afraid I might see some scratches but nothing is coming through. I started early this morning taping everything off so I could paint and clear the engine bay, underneath the hood, hatch and door jambs. Later this evening I'll removbe all the masking and let it cure over night. There is always a little ridge of clearcoat when the tape is removed so I'll sand that out before painting the exterior. Nice to finally have some colour in the shop again!

I so badly want to say that Nissan found one more roll of original jute laying around and I was able to source it! 😛 However, I was able to get it from martrim.co.uk. Here is my order info: That is about $186 given current exchange rates, and given how heavy and large it is, I would have figured just shipping would be that much! From the picture, it looks like it is dark colored throughout, however, it is only colored on one side and on the edges. On the opposite side, it is tan. But, it is the closest thing that I can find to the original jute after looking A LOT over the last few years. Now, I need some accurate templates for cutting the jute to match the factory ones.

Where is the positive terminal on the old battery? I prefer to get one that has the positive terminal away from the fender.

Got a clean bottom 😉 ... a few more sessions and she'll be clean! And she's surprisingly not horrible ....