<VV> discovered 62 posi diff snout fractured

[Ramon Rodriguez III]

Hi guys.  Today we finally got to installing that 140 engine in Ben's
62 coupe, a job I had asked lots of questions about some time back.
Ben is a good friend of mine ( he is 27 years old) who fell in love
with Corvairs after riding around in mine quite a bit.  Ben rode along
with me a couple of years ago when I bought a cheap 62 PG Monza coupe,
black with red interior, and he fell in love with the car as soon as
he saw it and told me he wanted to find one identical but with a four
speed.  A year or so later we found him a barnyard 62 Monza four speed
coupe which he bought for $400 and we towed it to my house where it
has been for a year or so since while I helped him work toward getting
it put together enough to drive in what tiny bit of spare time he has.
 The car has some body rust and bad floors but the undercarriage is
actually pretty decent... for now it is destined to be a "rat rod"
with a 140 engine upgrade, but he does plan to slowly turn it into a
nice car as time and money permit.

We have had a couple of rotten luck setbacks which I've helped Ben
through, starting with the discovery of a shredded rear wheel bearing
that I replaced with one from one of my project cars without telling
Ben what they cost.  The one thing that made up for it was we got
lucky and it turned out the car had a posi diff which Ben was excited
about.  Today, while we thought we were within 24 hours of having the
140 engine installed and the car finally on the road we suffered
another huge setback... that posi diff turned on us!

When we separated the 62's engine and transaxle I found the snout seal
retainer floating on the shaft.  The seal is shredded and the snout
has a fracture at the bottom.  I've heard many mentions of the dreaded
broken diff snout, and I always use my threaded rods to protect the
snout when separating or assembling drive trains.  This discovery
explains the oil saturated clutch and rough engagement that made the
car essentially undrivable.

My first question is whether or not the part we need is different for
a posi than for a standard diff?  Next up is whether or not replacing
the part is any worse a job on a posi diff?  Ben was crushed by the
disappointment so near the goal of finally driving his Corvair after a
year of waiting.

I have never done any differential or transmission work, this will be
a new experience for me and I'm not 100% sure I'm up to the task.  Any
help and/or advice would be appreciated.

Ray Rodriguez III
Lake Ariel, PA