Diff cover and ring gear clearance?

Does anyone have a Dana 30 sitting around with no cover on it to measure something? I need the measurement of how far from the diff cover mounting surface the ring gear sticks out.

With my new steering and panhard bar setup my Ballistic cover is way too big even with a channel cut into it. I want to see if it is even possible to build a minimum-clearance cover out of 1/4" plate that will clear my tie rod and low-mount straight panhard bar.

Can't help you on the depth of the ring gear. But are you using heims or TRE's? Ruffstuff has some neat offset TRE's that would could use for clearance.

Heims. See http://www.naxja.org/forum/showthread.php?t=1080144 for pictures. I have as much (or more) interference from my panhard bar as the tie rod, so just switching from heims to offset TRE's doesn't solve the problem.

Probably going to have to put a bend in the track bar. Doubt there is another way around it. Or just use your stock diff cover with a cage type diff guard around the bottom.

Check out like previously mentioned the offset TREs from ruffstuff

I found the ARB diff cover seems to be the best for clearance of steering components.

I wouldn't start from scratch, just cut the section you need to clearance off a bit at a time until you are worried about clearance :gee:

Be warned, different ratio R&P sets will have slightly different outside diameters IIRC... the thicker gears may have a slightly larger diameter. If you run into clearance issues later you can always clearance the inside of the cover wherever it makes contact though, it's not like the section you will be reworking will need the armor very much.