I got hung up on the bushings install, so now I have to wait until I return from family vacation (today through Monday) to work on the car again. The only bushings that were really bad in the back were the rear differential bushings.
Here's
a picture of my dirty differential (I cleaned off the sticker, don't ask me why):
Wire-wheeling the sleeves that have to be kept:
Polyurethane differential bushings installed!
I took off the back cover of the differential and brought it to my friend's shop for him to have a look at it. Overall, the condition of the gears seemed to be very good, especially for 200k miles. With a mechanic's stethoscope, we determined that the front pinion bearings seemed to be louder than the carrier bearings, so that's probably the source of my whine at-speed. However, my friend did not want to take the differential apart because his shop didn't have the right tools or the know-how, and Ultimate Z wanted $300-400 just to take it apart and look at the bearings (not including replacement and reinstallation). I'm scraping off the old paper gasket and reinstalling the differential in the car for now. Judging by the very high cost of labor on the differential, I may just opt to purchase a sub-50k differential in the future.
Does anyone have any suggestions for removing the outer sleeve of the subframe bushings? It's driving me crazy, I have to have spent at least 1 1/2 hours on this sleeve, and it's showing no signs of moving.
I even broke a new chisel on it (granted, it was a cheap chisel):
Any tips on the subframe sleeve would be appreciated
I was going to cut it with a Sawzall until I read that the bottom flange that is part of the subframe can't be damaged. It's driving me insane.