I'd pack the back side covering the spring totally with heavy grease to keep the spring in place. I'd get a piece of pipe of the right dia & wide enough to cover a good portion of the seal face & use it to drive it in & get it started straight with a medium whack then continue to drive it home with as few strokes as possible as more hitting increases the chances of fubaring it. several good strokes is all it should take
That is a good to know tip. As a matter of fact my club had a diff clinic at my shop on Thursday and we broke down, inspected, cleaned and reassembled a 741 single track case with 3.23 gears. It had a 10 spline yoke with straps and the seal area was still good so we just cleaned it, greased it and reused the seal because the diff owner had not bought a seal, he thought we were just going to clean off the dirt and drop it into the housing, install the axles and set the end play. But the 3rd member was stiff, the spider gears would not turn and we needed to look at the bearings to be sure they were still usable. Since it is going into a '71 Charger cruiser/show toy it will be fine. We did adjust the backlash with a dial indicator so it should be good for years to come. And now the owner knows more about diffs than he did when we started.
