Rumbling noise ? Differential ?

Bearing retainer and press fit onto shaft as per standard Jimny. Same as the how to guide, which I have studied.... All came apart easy enough. Just got to get bits and grind the retainer and split before pulling bearing off. Note mine are not as bad as the photos in the how to guide.

John_S_RAA wrote: I am assuming the rear wheel bearings are plain roller type so should have no detectable sideways movement ?

They are single row ball races, and will have a frightening amount of endfloat - the manual allows upto 0.8mm!

They must rotate smoothly though, you will feel any roughness. It won't hurt to change them, but don't expect the noise to go if they don't feel rough, or make a noise as you rotate them.

Well done on removing the handbrake cables - that is tricky, a 10mm (I think) ringspanner pushed on the front will compress the expanding springclip so the cable pulls out. (if you spent half an hour rolling around with two screwdrivers like I did the first time I did it )

To get the diff out, you only needed to pull the halfshafts out a couple of inches, and all the brake mechanism stays assembled. (When you change the brakepipes, you leave a little slack and bend the pipes, so they can straighten out and allow the backplate to pull off enough to get the diff out )

Be careful reassembling the brakes, the magic* adjuster has to go exactly the right way round or it won't work, and I think the diagram in the manual is wrong. (the forks are not symmetrical, and can be the wrong way up)

If you change the wheelbearings, and the diff together, and the noise does go, then you won't be sure whether you have taken out a good or faulty diff, so you will have to replace the wheelbearings, and then may need to pull the halfshafts out again to change the diff.

Have fun

* magic in the sense of I can see how it works, I just can't figure out why- it doesn't if there is too much slack in the shoes.

Thank you again Facade for your precise advice. Very practical.
My order from the big jimny shop for new bearings is on its way. Will now replace both sides and initially leave the original diff in place so IF the noise has not gone away I can then refit the new diff.
You are right the hardest part was getting those pesky handbrake cable springclips to compress.
I have done rear brakes many times so have learnt the pitfalls but still think there must be an easier way fitting the springs.
Lift to work next week so episode 2 won't happen till after next week end............

Tried taking the old rear bearings off the drive shafts after carefully grinding the bearing retainers and removing these but struggled with my improvised bearing puller. Would have worked if I had high tension chain. So in the end took Martins' advice, as in the how to guide, and took my shafts and new bits to my local friendly garage who removed old bearings and pressed new bearings and retainers into place for a very modest fee. Just completed reassembly in the dark. Picture just taken before road test. Pleased to say it all sounds normal again thank goodness. Moral is before jumping to conclusions get a second opinion.