Theres a hole in my diff. dear liezer...

[shilo]

Now any chance of some advice, I took my series three down a local track and anded up wading her through some reasonably deep water (up to the foot wells), (all good but unfortunataly the next day i happened to noticed a omonus creamy yellow pool under the front axle,
There was a series off small holes around the edge of the front cover of the axle and these (i hope just these) let water in,

OK i've drained the diff, i've bought some of that 'plastic metal' and got some replacemet oil, now its still got emulsified oil in there, i'm thinking of putting some cheeper 20w50 oil in there and running in round the field and draining that out before filling the holes and replacing the proper diff oil.
sound sensible? a big no no or what?

[davew]

Won't do any harm to flush it out and I'd guess 20/50 is better than water !

You might find filling the holes is a bit of a short term solution, the standard pan is very thin and once it starts to go through in one place it'll go through elsewhere pretty quickly. You can get replacement pans to weld on, either standard thickness or ones that incorporate a diff guard.

[shilo]

how hard are they to remove and weld back on? i was under the impression that welding cast is rather hard? was i mess it up badly?

[davew]

No problem at all to weld with a MIG, removing the old cover is a 2 minute job with an angle grinder. It's easier if you take the axle off but can be done in situ, you just need to make sure you get a really consistent weld so you don't get any leaks, especially at the bottom.

[nicks90]

and seriously go to town cleaning out the axle case afterwards for any metal grindings and weld splatter.