I used to be able to rotate the front wheels a little with steady pressure on the breaker bar, but now it seems to be locked absolutely solid. Wonder if that's what my front diff whine is...? Anyway, there's a guy on eBay selling viscous couplings with the flange on the front, and it looks like they've just been taken off by undoing the six bolts around the outside. Is it really that simple?

Would I be better taking the front propshaft off?

Errm, well as the front propshaft bolts up to the flange, you've have a bit of difficulty changing it if you don't. Simple enough, changed one on my mates Classic a few weeks ago. Took the two of us about two hours and half of that was spent trying to work out how to get a gearbox mount back on (as it bolts to the side of the VC housing on a Classic). Came out easily enough with gravity and a crowbar, didn't want to go back in though. His was skipping at full lock, is yours doing the same or do you just feel that it's not right?.

I've been wondering if it's been skipping at full lock, but when I jacked it up there I found I couldn't turn the front wheels at all - then it "stepped" round with a bit of a clunk. Also, the front diff has been whiny as hell and I'm wondering if it's being heavily loaded by the VC.

Doing just what the Classic was doing. In fact, his wrecked the front diff so he got a new one from Ashcrofts who told him that front's rarely go as badly as his had and suggested his viscous was seized. He reckons it's a different car now.