Many thanks for all the advice and offers of assistance. It is very much appreciated.
@ Stephaansie: No worries, no offense taken! I think you make a valid point, however I am pretty confident that the diagnosis I have been given is correct. The noise and vibration was fairly severe (i.e more than just an irritation when driving the vehicle), and on Friday my mechanic and I jacked the vehicle up and then ran it through the gears and there were a lot of unhappy sounds (rough rumbling sounds) coming from the diff. This prompted getting the current diff and gearbox specialist involved, who confirmed the suspicions of myself and my mechanic following a test drive, but subject to stripping the diff to check condition (at that stage we were all hoping that it was just carrier bearings). The current specialist does a lot of jobs for my mechanic, and I have also used him before and believe him to be trustworthy. That said I havn`t yet seen the insides of the Diff since its been taken apart, so I will make a plan to get out there tomorrow to have a look for myself.
@ Christo: Many thanks for the offer. I had always understood that the ARB unit replaced the diff carrier (think thats the correct terminology!), but that the original crown wheel and pinion were re-used in the ARB conversion. I may have that completely wrong though.....do you have a picture of the "spare parts" left over from your conversion?
Many thanks again,
Ross
