[zook_ute]

Hey guys,

I have just purchased a vitara and it has a calmini 3" fitted. It come with a pair of diff drop brackets that were not fitted. The car has a steel front diff, the diff drop brackets are way off lining up....

Has any body else had these problems?

Any help or recommendations would be great. Thanks in advance

[Sco-tie]

Calmini often send out the wrong brackets, do they look the same as the stock ones? if they do you shouldn't have much problem fitting them.

[zook_ute]

They are completely wrong, I would have to use a crow bar to lever the diff to get the bolt even close to fitting :/

[atari4x4]

sorry i thought i'd replied to your PM, was having trouble the other weekend when the server kept going down.

you'll need to hot rod both chassis brackets to suit the extra width of the SV chassis... the other option is to pick up some diff drop brackets from bits4vits & use the 2 chassis brackets of his & the calmini pinion mount. the steel diff doesn't have the extra webbing that the alloys have for strength so you won't need to clearance the crossmembers.

Sco-tie wrote:

Calmini often send out the wrong brackets, do they look the same as the stock ones? if they do you shouldn't have much problem fitting them.

pretty sure you're the only one that's received the extra bracket & that was purely a GV/XL-7 confusion thing.

[zook_ute]

The vitara I have is a se416, I bolted the diff drops to the chassis. I had to tap the drivers side one up with a hammer. I had up some little tubes to go into the diff drop brackets for the bolts to go threw as there was about 3mm play in the bolt holes :/ I could bolt the drivers side up using force to move to diff but the passenger side is miles out. I might look at the bits for vits site maybe buy some better fitting brackets

[atari4x4]

ahhh, thought you had a SV for some reason...

have you got the RHS diff drop bracket bolted to the correct holes, it only picks up 3 of the 4 holes on the diff.

[zook_ute]

Yeah I am pretty sure. I will muck around with it a little more over the weekend

[atari4x4]

pics?

[zook_ute]

The car is at my parents place ao I probably won't get up there till friday. Ill take some pics then

Thanks for your replies

[atari4x4]

There are 4 holes on the rhs of the diff, you want to pick up the top 2 & the bottom one closest to the front.

[banga]

I had the same issue when I fired none but I got all the bolts in

[atari4x4]

yeah you want to fit the bolts in & leave them finger tight for wiggle room.

[DarkHorse]

Yeah, I remember it being a right bitch the first time. 6-8 goes later you kind of get the hang of it.

Loosen the two bolts that hold the pinion mount to the chassis cross-member right off as well.

[atari4x4]

i do them last

mount the bracket to the diff & lock that down tight with the rubber mount & calmini bush/crossmember bracket etc. get it in position & rest the mount on the crossmember, then get the left & right chassis brackets sorted & then pull the pinion mount down with some longer bolts first & go from there.

[zook_ute]

I had another go at fitting the diff drops over the weekend, had no luck what so ever. just couldn't get it to line up. I think it has the wrong steel diff in it, it hasn't got the same one that my last vitara had ? I am wondering if that's why

[atari4x4]

atari4x4 wrote:

sorry i thought i'd replied to your PM, was having trouble the other weekend when the server kept going down.

you'll need to hot rod both chassis brackets to suit the extra width of the SV chassis... the other option is to pick up some diff drop brackets from bits4vits & use the 2 chassis brackets of his & the calmini pinion mount. the steel diff doesn't have the extra webbing that the alloys have for strength so you won't need to clearance the crossmembers.

Sco-tie wrote:

Calmini often send out the wrong brackets, do they look the same as the stock ones? if they do you shouldn't have much problem fitting them.

pretty sure you're the only one that's received the extra bracket & that was purely a GV/XL-7 confusion thing.

post some f'ing pics... of the diff & the diff drop brackets.

[zook_ute]

I'll get onto it this weekend lol