Quaife LSD Installation in R180 - With Questions About Installation Also

[inline6]

While it was apart, I cleaned all the yellow "paint" off of the gears.  WD40 does a great job with removing it.  But I didn't have time to reapply before quitting for the day.  I'll reapply and check it out one day this week.  As it sits now:

 

Edited January 29 by inline6

[Captain Obvious]

11 hours ago, inline6 said:

The shims came in the mail on Saturday. They appear to be high quality/strength steel, but I don't know if I can determine conclusively if they are suitable for this application

Well based on the application (king pin shims), I would assume they are relatively hard and would be suitable for the differential application. You can get a quick and dirty idea of how hard they are using a small hand file to see it it will cut those new shims. The corner of a small file will a) cut like butter, b) completely skate across the shim without cutting, or c) somewhere in between. You want "in between".

Another thing you could try is if you fold one of those shims in half... Does it fold easy and stay pretty much completely folded? Does it snap into two piece? Or does it fold but springs back a bunch when you let it go. I think you want the third option.

I know this is all just subjective words, but from a distance, that's all I got.

And I may have mentioned this already, but I can run a Rockwell hardness test on parts if necessary to determine the Rockwell rating. Although I'm not sure it will be accurate on something as thin as .005.

[inline6]

Welp... 😑

I thought maybe I was close to done with the shim issue until tonight.  First came some shim testing.  Folding one in half... and no spring back whatsoever.  Then, I took a small triangular file and made a few strokes with meaning behind them.  Even stacked twice as thick .010", four or five strokes was cutting through the shim pretty easily.  

  

Subjective... but not great signs based on the guidance.

Then, I put the paint on the ring gear to check the wipe pattern.  As a reminder, all three side shims are on the right, and backlash is .005".  

Start:

Coast side - contact is at the lower portion of the gear tooth.

A closer view and from a different angle of the same:

And here is the drive side.

Compare with the illustration from the Nissan differential manual:

 

I am beginning to think that moving the pinion shaft toward the ring gear is not equal to moving the ring gear towards the pinion shaft --- as it relates to contact pattern.  There is also as possible issue with cleaning the ring gear with WD40 - the paint may not be acting the same way as it was before with the perfectly oil free ring gear.  

I think my next step will be to remove the pinion gear yet again and take my best guess at additional shim thickness necessary to allow me to get about .004"/.005" backlash with the one left and two right side retainers in their original positions.  

Also, I am not comfortable with the hardness of these latest shims based on my observations today.  

Edited January 31 by inline6

[AK260]

Doing great work there - hang tough buddy, you’re making progress. It’s great to see you taking the time and giving it the proper attention it needs. This is why I didn’t take mine to a “specialist”. They would in no way give the time and attention you have to get it absolutely spot on. This will pay dividends down the road - literally! ;)

When I was playing with mine, I was using throttle body / carb cleaner to get the paint off, then wiping down with microfibre cloth. I agree, WD40 may be causing you some additional fun.

Not sure if this is helpful but the buddy doing my R200 received shims yesterday from the Zcardepot in Nissan packaging. They appear to be very decent quality - albeit a very different size to that which you require. Is it worth tapping them up for your shims to see if they have the size you need and comparing with the ones you have?



We spent £43GBP postage - at least you have the luxury of paying a lot less. I felt like holding them in my hand and exclaiming: “my precious”!!!!!

[grannyknot]

It might be worth shooting this guy an email, https://racingdiffs.com/

I changed my ring and pinion gears on a bmw and bought the diff rebuild kit from him, knowledgeable guy. He may have a lead on the shims you are looking for.

[Captain Obvious]

11 hours ago, inline6 said:

Subjective... but not great signs based on the guidance.

Agreed. Those look pretty much dead soft. (Annealed.)

If you dare, you could hit the edge of your original factory shim with the file the same way and see how it compares? I think you could do that and not affect performance. That could give you something to compare against as far as what hardness you are looking for?

[Zed Head]

4 hours ago, grannyknot said:

It might be worth shooting this guy an email, https://racingdiffs.com/

I changed my ring and pinion gears on a bmw and bought the diff rebuild kit from him, knowledgeable guy. He may have a lead on the shims you are looking for.

Another option is a local off-road shop.  The ones that support the guys that destroy things every weekend.  

Or one of the big online shops.

https://www.randysworldwide.com/shop/?q=shims&mode=autocomplete

[inline6]

12 hours ago, Captain Obvious said:

Agreed. Those look pretty much dead soft. (Annealed.)

If you dare, you could hit the edge of your original factory shim with the file the same way and see how it compares? I think you could do that and not affect performance. That could give you something to compare against as far as what hardness you are looking for?

I have two brand new R160 shims (I think) that are useless to me.  I could hit one of those with the file also to see how it compares... or send you one of them to see what hardness it is?  They are 3.5 ish mm thick.

G

[Captain Obvious]

Whatever works. If you want to send one of the R160 shims, I can poke it with the tester. I'm sure 3.5mm would be thick enough.

One would assume that the new 160 shims are similar to your old original, but stranger things have happened.

[inline6]

I worked on the differential again today.  I was surprised that upon taking the carrier out for about the 15th time, it "fell into" a different spot, I was able to remove it from the case with "more than enough" clearance where I had ground the case on the left side.  I feel like an idiot - I didn't have to grind as much of the case as I did.  Anyway, I'm not going to think about it anymore.  I'm not going to be abusing this car, so hopefully I won't have a problem with the case where I ground it.  If I do have a problem later, at least I will have the experience behind me of how to assemble one of these properly.  

I put another .015" of shims onto the pinion gear, added to the original .126" shim and the .015" of shims I had already.  With .030" of additional shims, I assembled everything again.  I put the side flange shims into their original positions.  I measured back lash at just under .009".  Disappointing.  It will need to come back apart and more shimming experimentation performed.  ☹️

I went ahead with checking the wipe pattern.  This time, I made the brush strokes perpendicular to the gear teeth, so it would be easier to see where the gears contact each other.  Drive side and coast side, respectively:

  

Drive side:

    

Coast side:

    

 

I learned today that when meshing the gears together to check the wipe pattern in the paint, there needs to be a light load of resistance.  In other words, when turning the pinion gear to drive the ring gear in the direction to move the car forward, dragging on the gear with one hand loads the ring gear teeth against the pinion gear teeth to show the pattern better.  If you don't load the ring gear, the gears "float" a bit more and leave a less visible impression in the paint.  Same is true for rotating backwards.  Apply some drag with one hand to load the ring gear against the pinion to make the pattern more visible on the coast side.

I think I see what has happened here since last time.  This time, the contact area on the coast side has moved more toward the heel end (outer edge) of the ring gear.  And, it looks to me like the contact area on the drive side has moved a touch more toward the toe end of the gear.  

If the pinion is either too "short" (needs to be moved toward the ring gear) or too "tall" (needs to be moved away from the ring gear), the wipe pattern will not be in the same area of the ring gear teeth on both the drive side and the coast side.  If the pinion is too "short", the contact area will be more on the heel of the drive side, and more on the toe of the coast side.  If the pinion is too "tall", the contact area will be more on the toe of the drive side, and more on the heel of the coast side.   

So... I think I have too much pinion shim now.  

Looking again at the pics from last time (.015" additional shim, and all three side flange retainers on the right side, which resulted in a  backlash of .005"):

    

 

I think the contact area is more centered on the coast side (first two of the three pics above).  And I think the contact area is a touch more toward the center of the drive side as well.  

I think what I will do from here is go back to the previous set up.  Regarding the contact area appearing lower toward the base of the tooth, I think that putting a load on the ring gear may help to show more clearly that the contact is actually more centered than it looks in those pics from last time.  The second pic above gives me hope.  We'll see.  

Also important to note is that there is some additional flexibility with the pinion shims.  Right now, I have a .3 mm on the left and a .4 mm and .5 mm on the right.  They are sold in the following mm sizes: .2, .25, .3, .4 .5.  As long as the combination I use adds up to 1.2, I will keep the pre-load where it needs to be.  So, these are equivalent options, but move the ring gear toward the pinion differing amounts:

• .2  and .5 + .5
• .25 and .25 + .2 + .5

The learning continues.

 

Edited February 4 by inline6

[dutchzcarguy]

5 hours ago, inline6 said:

there needs to be a light load of resistance.

That's what i was thinking! You need to have some load like holding the outgoing axle with one hand turn the ingoing with the other hand.

I wonder if after some wild pulls it will stay good when you have found the correct shimming..

(Hihi Wild pulls.. i remember that i was at the stoplights with my fireblade long ago..  I put every horse it had on the rear wheel.. i had to bow over the front wheel otherwise it would easely have been knocked backwards! 🙂  Later at the dealer he said: you must be a slow guy at the lights.. you have pulled 3 !! bushings out of the original HONDA-chain!  Hihihi ...)

What i mean is, as it needs to be exactly right, will it stay right even after some (abuse like) pulls?

It's a lot of work to install, test it and take it out to check but i would like to see if those teeth are still working spot on after some "use".

[dutchzcarguy]

Btw, your doing great work!!!