Differential planet gear play

[johny]

I cant get to a workshop manual at the moment so can anyone tell me how much play there should be in the Spitfire 1500 differential planet gears. I can move them back and forth on their axle by a couple of millimetres or so and I wonder if this means their thrust washers are very worn?

Thanks

[Pete Lewis]

its 0.002/0.004" between a pair of gears  (thats tooth backlash)

and up to 1/8 turn of the short shafts is not a problem  it has little effect on any drive/overrun conditions as the load its equally spread to both sun gears 

play in the planets is not of great consequence 

if you can remove  the diff pin and exchange thrusts without removing the diff case carrier fine , any other needs a case spreader to get the pre load and crown wheel backlash 

shims is the dark art you need to be careful with

Pete

 

[johny]

Thanks Pete. The gears have quite a bit of play but the backlash of the short shafts is minimal so I'll leave them alone (also the thrusts dont seem to be available anyway)...