Solid pinion spacer~ (AKA crush sleeves)

Last week, my friend Arthur bring one of his AE86's axle 3rd member to me. And asking if i could help him fix it or not. For he had read that i had a few experience with my car's LSD/axle. And his was in really bad conditions. At first glance, the pinion and ring gear still in work-able condition which leave me to check out the crush sleeve's pre-tension on the pinion bearings. And the result~~ I was correct. The pinion gear is sitting loose in it's housing. which means a faulty crush sleeve we were looking here. 

After taking apart the 3rd member. i compare the crush sleeve with my 'reference' unit which i made with a new crush sleeve and lock the pinion bearing until 60lb/f.

And Arthur's crush sleeve was 2.6mm shorter, yaiks~ 

After discuss with Arthur, he agree that he will let me made a guinea pig out of him bt making him a Solid pinion spacer. 

that 's what i had made by boreing out the sleeve from a single piece of mild steel. 

the standard crush sleeve is 1.65mm thick with a weaken ring to let it actually 'crush' when it's under tremendous pressure.

And the one i made for Arthur is 3mm thick and no weak point. Now it's cleaned, installed and send back for Arthur to install and tell me the result in his next Taman Selat Drift day~

So~ you may asking y went through all the hustle doing this??? 

This is the explanation i copy from a famous axle specialist in US call-ed Weir Performance.

"What these parts do when correctly installed is set the distance between the inner and outer pinion bearings (bearing preload). At the same time, these parts also locate the pinion gear relative to the ring gear within the casing. So, why does the crush sleeve fail? It fails because it is too weak to resist deflection when high pinion loads are applied. This is why we often hear people say, “my ring and pinion finally blew up”. The failure is not instantaneous as it would be if the gears were over-powered. The failure happens over time, due to repeated hard driving. High pinion loads deflect the pinion gear over and over until the o.e.m. crush sleeve becomes “loose” and cannot properly maintain the bearing preload. This also allows the position of the pinion gear within the casing to move causing misalignment of the ring and pinion gears. Over time, this leads to “howling” gears followed by “ground up” gear teeth and eventually destroys the gears. Protect your ring and pinion with one of our high strength steel solid pinion spacer kits."

Mango revived~! for the dunno how many time :P~

Finish install the Zenki LSD and axle shaft. And let the LSD run in for a few days already. Today i finally give it a shot and see how it perform.

So far so good i would say. But it still makes a bit of noise when turning and with gear engaged. The *new LSD seems to lock-up fairly easy. I manage to start sliding mango's tail @ about 3800~4000 rpm (no clutch kick). Will drive for a few more days and see how's the cling-king sound will continues.

Btw, my custom rear traction bracket is almost done~ will post the image when it's installed.  (Prototype quality :P)

Finally my replacement axle shaft/half shaft and LSD arrived. Had to source another LSD for i wash't able to find a Kouki shaft so i had to compromise with Zenki one, Which on top is Kouki shaft with 25mm diameter and at the side is Zenki shaft with 24mm diameter.

Left to right, Kouki 2-way clutch type LSD, Zenki 2-way clutch type LSD, Zenki mechanical LSD (2-way as well) 

a close look~ the Zenki mechanical LSD uses 4 springs to pre-tension the clutches. 

Parts waiting to be clean-ed, oil-ed and install into mango. 

LSD- Fix?? or not.... (>_<)~

Finally i had time to took apart the LSD to see what's cause of the non-locking-up issue~

And as always~ there's a miss understanding where the non TRD type LSD on AE86 axle is 1.5 way~ 

But from Toyota website, there's only 2-way LSD and non-LSD type differential installed on AE86. And it was conformed by the two sloped side pressure plate.

And 3 tiny whinny clutch in it~ XD~ 

And i wanna test something on the LSD, as making some groove on it~ see if it will improved the 'clutch' power~ 

another view~

And 3mm spacer added to the spring to increase the pre-load on the clutches~

And where i found out that it might be the culprit which causes the problem. A shim which press on the pinion gear which press on the clutches system wasn't installed correctly...hm~ seems like someone had fiddle with this LSD before~ lol~ but with a little skim and hammer, it's back to it's good stage to installed back to the LSD~

Walla~ everything put back to it's own place~ hopefully can test it out on the next change i took apart mango's axle~ 

Will post the result by then~ stay tune ^^~~~ please bare with my bad narration~ hahaha~ 

T283 -AE86 Kouki Axle took-apart~

Selamat berpuasa  to all my muslim friends out there~ and with the month of fasting. Which means a small drop in business where i would have a bit of time working on my own stuff.

 As in the photo shown, i just took apart my spare AE86 axle. hoho~ 

 the drive shaft is 24mm shown that it's a AE86 Kouki.

 A shot before it was taking apart~ ^^

 And there's everything on the floor~ piece by piece~

 And the remain.......of oil~ XD

 A clear view of the LSD also show that it's Original AE86 2-way LSD

 Call-ed my bro to scoop out the oil manually~ XD~ wakakaka~ 

And finally the LSD was taken out from it's housing~ will took it apart tomorrow to see what's been faulty inside it to cause it not to lock at one side~ 

The T-18 LSD is going into the house~ ^^~

Received a call in the morning from McGuyver. He had removed his welded Differential, and only to remember that i want to see the LSD going in his axle. So he call-ed me to hurry to his place.

Both differential was on the floor when i arrived. And he already fix-ed the ring gear onto the limited slip diff~ say he it was a really tight fit, so no worries on the center alignment problem. 

 checking the bearing of the drive shaft if there's any abnormany~ 

 then we started the assembling~ ⋯⋯(^.^)

 The tedious part is to set the pressure of the bearing at the both side and at the same time giving a proper clearance between the drive pinion and the ring gear so it wouldn't press agains each others too hard~ and causes wearing at high rates.

 a shot of the old welded diff~ will keep it for future small fun thrashing car project~ ⋯⋯(^_^)

 secured the nuts when we finally gets the satisfying clearance.

A last look at it before it going in McGuyver's TE72's KE axle~ 

LSD for T-18??? can fix KE70 S axle???~

Just starting to throw out rubbish and in the first few boxes of ancient artifact, i dug this out from no-where~ XD~ 

  Was amazed by if a few year back. It is belong yo McGuyver where he pass it to me years ago when he cannot figured out what it is. 

 Ya, i know~ :P we were bored back then XD~ After much research, i found out that this bugger belongs to a T-18 axle with 6" rings and same 20 spine as KE70's ~

 And i took it apart to check were it's a one way~ 1.5 way or a 2 way~ and...... definitely a 2 way~  ^^

 All the clutches was still in good conditions~

 And the pinions as well~

20 spine~ will try to see if it would fit's McGuyver's TE72's(KE70 liftback) original axle~

Progress~ progress~

Going to McGuyver's place this morning~ and saw his car were on stands all 4 corners~ he had taken out all the brakes and links for servicing~

 And he slightly painted the rear axle (he is very picky on how the car looks

 And set everything in for a new sets of absorbers for the front~

 What else i would let him runs on? APM? Mando? NO~!!!! Surely it had to be a pure TKA breed~ lol~ Genuine Touge spec Special.Absorers.Modification absorbers from TKA~ XD~ (sorry for some self-AD here~ :P)

 Well... as we were planing to use the slotted rotor which was taken out from my AE86's knuckle~ but seems like it won't fit on KE70's knuckle so idea abandoned~

 We revert back to use the original KE70's brakes~ since McGuyver will still runs his 4K under the hood for a while, we think it should be able to deliver enough breaking power with a servo and pad upgrades~ And off we go to Penang island to pick up some 'nice' parts for his car~ ^^

 All and all~ it's time to fill up the tummy for it's pass lunch time~ And~ we drove to the only Burger King in Penang~ about the location...... sorry i can't tell the places's name. Just let you know it's close to M-Power's shop and in between the sea and Jelutong highway~

 Love their burgers but there's only one outlet in the island~ non off-shore around north malaysia~ (>_<)

 McGuyver~ giving the 'what you wan?' stare~~~~ XD~

 With a full stomach we set to the designated location we were heading~  My old friend Yus's place~ @Lorong KG Rawa near Volvo service centre~

 And pick this bugger up(i had bought it actually)~ a AE86 T285 axle with a faulty LSD~ will try to open up later to check for the problem~ (though my true intension was to took the ring gear set to use for my Mango (^^) )

And after a few hours of chit-chat and going around a few friend's shops (also chit-chatting) and taking a hefty dinner @ Char Ling Park~ and we head for home ~  a tired but enjoy-able day....

*p.s. actually feeling a bit bad to had my bro handling the factory for a whole day (>_<) ~~~