exactly wards, the first 2 diffs i made i actually pressed the axle tube out of the centre and then cut it down and pressed it back in...so if that needs straightening afterwards then i'd be mighty surprised
but yeah actual outlay of money was only $200 but it took a good day of grinding to get all the mounts off and the tubes smooth, then about the same to drill out the original welds that hold the tube in, then i was lucky that we had a hydraulic ram that would fit inside the tube, but more time was spent making up jigs that would hold it in there and make sure it was going to press the tube out. also took alot of heat at the same time to get it to move

then theres the time sourcing the diff, then measuring it up and figuring out how much to cut it and where to cut, then mounts have to be made and time spent to get the pinion angle right and so on
thats why i feel after all that $1000 is an acceptable price to be asking for them

reply to datodude, i've been resplining axles for some 20 years and seen it all good and bad , the best way i have seen is to use a special grade of carbide insert in a tip cutter and always climb mill, i can do 10 to 15 31 spline axles with one corner, and as for cost with turning and resplining $150 per axle should be plenty . It's the rest of the mods that are time consuming and therfore expensive , measuring the car, cutting and reworking the housing , straightening the housing after welding on the brackets , then all the basic rebuilding of the center and the cost of bearings and seals , it is critical the housing is straight or it will eat wheel bearings and/or chew out the spline in the side gear of the center, its the old saying "you get what you pay for"

I reckon your mate's dad is thinking the same way I am. A dedicated splining machine must be easier to do it for those prices.
I reckon people could almost make a decent business collecting a load of R31/gmh/ford diff and getting them shortened ready for a datto/mazda/toyota.

my original r31 diff cost just over $200 all up shortened and in the car with rebuilt calipers

like i said, the place i got axles done kept putting their price up as they said that the money barely covered the labour cost of the machinist doing the work.
but dattodude, this is a shop that has regular axle resplining business. a bit different to a one off in a mill. ive got a mate of dads that said he could do the resplining on his mill but siad the time it takes to do it isnt worth it and its batter off going to someone with a splining machine...which is what i did

I know how much the tooling costs to trade. I did my axles at home and I went through a set of carbide cutting tips to cut my splines on a mill with an indexing head. even with some heat normalising of the axle end, it still is very tough on the tools. Whoever can do splines for under $200 has to be cutting corners someplace.

Sending the axle off next week to Final Drive. At the end of the day only paid $100 for complete diff, then new rotors and pads so it owes me $250.

Shortened housing myself so depending on handbrake cables it is do able for around $500 But you need to tools and the time.

For the thou, you really are stuck for choice. I dont think that there is anything that swaps into the H145 though rear end. i ended up shortening a r31 lsd rear, and cutting both axles, shortening the housing and making new spring perches cost me from memory around the $800 mark. Plus the cost of the diff to start, $350, plus the cost to rebuild the centre, $500ish.

So a cut n shut rebuild r31 lsd for a 1ki comes to around $2k. hmmm seems to be the majic number.

Well considering these prices, is there anything that interchanges between the h145 and h165 (or even h150) in terms of axles and housings or is it a all-in-or-nothing job? The 1000 has a more narrow rear end, just looking for a solution.

looking at doing some r31 diffs to suit
1200
s/hand diff as is shortend to fit
shortend axle tubes with new billet ends
pinion centerd , one axle shortend and respline
sping pads welded on bolt in.
as is second hand discs,pads,calipers,bearings,crown& pinion,ect
just need to sus out hand brake cables to suit
around $1000
depends on cables

absolutely... that $1k i mentioned is retaining the existing centre, brakes, etc... a diff swap is a $2k job