My quaife LSD arrived. However in the box came no documenation whatsoever.

No parts checklist, no installation instructions.

I have checked the Quaife website for instructions, however non there either. Have emailed Quaife and they asked where i got it from so doesnt help.

Any other people who bought Quaife LSD have same problem ? Or know where i can check that everything is in the box and also possible installation instructions.

 

Bad-Monkey posted this a while back. Hope it helps.........

http://www.outlawatvclub.com/u....html

 

if its your first time.......unless you are really good at installing these.....its kinda hard

you need some special "shims" to set it up too

gl if you are diy.....

 

I wrote a nice install article for hondaprelude.com, but that site went under and I don't know if the articles got mirrored or saved. Anyone know if these articles got saved or mirrored?

 

This link was helpful (except for the tapered roller to ball bearing swap) when I installed my OEM (Accord Euro-R) LSD in a 97 Prelude (M2Y4) trans. I couldn't find ball bearing replacements the right size so I bought new stock bearings from Honda. You can also check out my thread (in sig) for a few pics of my install. You'll need to measure and shim for the proper bearing pre-load (specs. in my thread):

https://honda-tech.com/zerothread?id=795700

Dave

 

let me have it

 

<TABLE WIDTH="90%" CELLSPACING=0 CELLPADDING=0 ALIGN=CENTER><TR><TD>Quote, originally posted by john d &raquo;</TD></TR><TR><TD CLASS="quote">let me have it </TD></TR></TABLE>

 

thanks guys i will give them a read and print out and reference the honda manual

 

I dug up an old draft of the article I wrote for hondaprelude.com. I didn't save the final HTML article before that site went down, but the text is still useful. Did anyone save the HTML article and pictures?


Installation of a Quaife LSD


This article describes my experience installing a Quaife limited slip differential (LSD) in my '93 Prelude VTEC with a manual tranny. There are different types of LSD's which use different methods to accomplish the same thing. The quaife does it better than most imho, and comes with a lifetime warranty. There are other brands out there, like the Kaaz, but the procedure for installing them should be very similar.

Basically, when you go around a corner, the outside wheels cover more ground compared to the inside wheels, so they must rotate faster. The differential (diff) allows the two wheels to turn at different rates while still being connected to the transmission. Most cars come with an "open" diff, which means there is very little friction between the right and left wheels. So if one wheel has more traction than the other, and you step on the gas, the wheel with less traction will just spin. A LSD prevents this, allowing you to get more power to the outside wheel while in a hard turn. They are also nice to have in snow and ice. Here is a web site with more a more in-depth description: @@ The quaife web page is also good to check out: @@
http://web2.iadfw.net/oldwolf/...k.htm
http://www.globalwest.net/tors...l.htm
http://www.quaife.co.uk/product/atb.htm
http://www.torsen.com/

I wrote this from memory after the fact, so some of the details may be missing, but I definitely hit all the high points and things I had problems with. This project can be done by the average joe in his garage, but it is still major surgery on your car if you decide to attempt it. I decided to do it myself, mainly because I've been screwed over by local shops too many times, and I just don't trust them. If you do it yourself, you have the satisfaction of knowing it was done right, plus you get the bragging rights.

If you are an experienced mechanic, you should have no problem with this upgrade. If you only know how to change the oil on your car, you might want to recruit some help. Just getting the transmission out of the car is something of a chore. So, if you've ever changed your clutch, you know what I'm talking about, but you were more than half way to installing a LSD. Conversely, if you are planning to do a LSD, it would be a good time to change your clutch/flywheel too. I needed a new clutch, so I replaced that while I had the tranny out. Actually, if you are behind on maintenance items, it would also be a good time to change the engine oil, front brakes, antifreeze, belts, hoses... but I digress.

There is also the problem of what you do for transportation while your car is in pieces all over your garage. If you have alternative transportation, great. If not, you /could/ do this all in a weekend, but this assumes everything goes along without a hitch. If you end up needing any parts from the honda dealer (like a bearing shim) it could be a week or more waiting. One solution is to buy an extra transmission. This is what I did. That way you can take your time and be sure everything is right with the tranny, before swapping it out. Also, should something go very wrong somehow, you still have your original tranny.

So, ready to get dirty? Be sure you have everything you need, especially if you are planning to do it all in a weekend.

Here's the list of tool's you'll need:
-the bible (helm manual)
-metric sockets and wrenches
-needle nose pliers
-screwdrivers
-bearing puller
-torque wrench
-brass punch
-oil pan
-pointy cap from a gear oil bottle
-clutch alignment tool (optional)
-wood blocks
-car jack/jack stands
-friend you can pay with beer and pizza (optional, but recommended)
-calipers for measuring shim thickness (honda dealer could probably help with this if necessary)
-impact wrench (optional, but handy)
-.45 caliber copper bore cleaning brush

Here're the parts you'll need:

actual parts:
-quaife LSD (duh.)
-new differential taper roller bearings from honda
-new taper bearing shim (depending on clearance)
-new clutch parts (optional)
-new cotter pins for suspension castle nut, shift cables (I reused my pins)
-new sealing washers for tranny drain plug and bolts (I reused mine)

msc. supplies:
-grey permatex silicone or equiv. honda part
-antisieze
-moly grease
-loctite (optional)
-tranny oil (mobil1 15w50 or equiv.)
-clean rags
-carb/brake parts cleaner

First read through the manual so you have a general idea what you're going to be doing. Then park your car so you have good access to the front (I back it into the garage so if I need a lot of room I can just open the garage door), set the parking brake, block the rear tires, loosen the front wheel lug nuts, jack it up and put it on blocks or stands. Support the car from the jack points, because you will need access to whole front engine area and suspension parts. Take off the right front wheel, drain the oil out of the tranny, remove the intake, battery, tranny side motor mount, axels, reverse light switch, clutch actuator, starter, shift cables, etc. This is all the stuff you normally disconnect to change the clutch. The hardest part about taking out the axels is separating the taper joint on the bottom of the lower suspension arm. This is where the bearing puller comes in handy. This joint is sometimes *very* tight. I take the castle nut off, flip it around, then put a piece of flat stock againt it for the bearing to push on. This prevents the puller from crushing the tip of the threaded taper part. Hook the puller on the sides of the lower suspension arm to either side of the rubber boot. Apply some torque to the bearing puller so that it is situated, then make sure the hooks are straight and the forcing screw is aligned propperly. Turn the forcing screw until there is a loud pop as the taper joint separates. A pickle fork can be used to separate this joint too, but it usually destroys the rubber boot. If need be, you can leave the taper joint in place and remove the upper A-arm. Also, when you are prying on the axel to pop it out of the tranny, be careful not to damage the rubber oil seal. If you can get two really big screwdrivers on either side of the axel, it pops out without much effort. Be sure you drain the oil before you take out the axel, or else you'll need more rags. Note: car alarms are VERY loud when you have your head under the hood. Also, I think the manual says to actually remove both axels. I only removed the intermediate shaft, and left the axels attached to the hubs, but propped out of the way. If in doubt, follow the helm manual.

Now take out all the large bolts and support brackets that attach the tranny to the engine block. The tranny won't just fall out because there are some dowel pins that keep the tranny lined up to the block, and the mainshaft of the tranny is sill in the clutch disk. Now try to work the transmission straight back away from the block. I had best luck doing this while lying under the car with a friend helping support the far end of the tranny from the top. The center of gravity of the tranny is towards the differential (rear side), so once you have it separated past the alignment pins it will tend to rotate on the mainshaft and smash your fingers. After you have it separated enough that the mainshaft is out of the clutch disk, you can tilt it some to get more clearance to pull it all the way out. The manual just says "remove the transmission" at this point, but it can take some wrestling to get it out. I've had the best luck by keeping the diff side high until the mainshaft is out of the clutch. If you are still having trouble getting it out, you can get some more room by loosening the other engine mounts and shifting the engine around some with a floor jack. Hopefully it will come out without any problems. By now it's time for a break and a cold one.

With the tranny out, you can replace the clutch parts, pressure plate, and flywheel if you want. To torque on the flywheel, the manual says you need a special tool to keep the flywheel from turning. I just put one of the long tranny bolts back in the engine block and wedged a small block of wood between the teeth on the flywheel and the bolt. There will be clutch dust everywhere. Clean up all the parts with brake parts cleaner or carb cleaner, and try not to breathe the dust.

It's time to open up the tranny. Clean up the outside of the tranny and find a clean workplace. The mainshaft protrudes slightly from the bottom of the bellhousing, so set out a few pieces of 2x4 and put the tranny down on them so you are looking at where the passenger side axel goes in. Remove the large endcap, the bolt holding the reverse idler shaft, the shift mechanism housing, the shift mechanism, the two bolts holding springs and ball bearings, and finally all the bolts around the perimeter of the tranny. Be careful not to lose the springs or ball bearings. I used a strong magnet to take them out and keep track of them. Now take a wrench or long extension and carefully pry between the bellhousing and the tabs on the back half of the transmission (don't pry on the sealing surface itself). You want to break the silicone seal, but don't pry it open any further. Now you need to get some needle nose pliers and separate the retaining clip on the countershaft bearing. You acces this through the large endcap you removed with a 1/2" ratchet. When you spread this ring far enough, the countershaft should drop down about 1/8". You'll be able to see that the snap ring is out of the groove in the countershaft bearing. Now just work the housing up and off the bottom half.

Try to keep dirt and grime out of all the gears and bearings as much as possible. Now remove the reverse shift lever, idler gear and idler shaft. You can now lift out the whole mainshaft/countershaft/shift fork assembly, and place it on some clean rags or paper towels. The differential just lifts out now too. You will also see a pair of magnets at the bottom of the tranny housing. These magnets grab little flecks of steel that wear off the gears and bearings. Take these out and clean them off. The magnets come out of the steel holder too.

With the old differential out, you need to transfer the bearings and gears to the new differential. First, inspect your new differential from quaife. Mine had some grey crud in the 10 threaded holes. The card that came with the diff says this is some kind of loctite. You should clean this crud out!! I didn't at first, and when I tried to put in the bolts from the old diff, it mangled the bolts and I had to buy new bolts from honda. Fortunately the threads in the diff flange were ok. Get a .45 caliber bore cleaning brush from a gun shop or from the sporting goods section of wally world. Using this wire brush and carb cleaner, clean out all the grey crud from the threads. The grey crud also seemed to have grit in it, so I sprayed out the whole diff with cleaner to be sure there was no grit left.

The huge gear on the old diff is a ring gear held on with 10 bolts. These bolts are on tight, so an impact wrench makes getting them out MUCH easier. NOTE: These bolts are left-hand thread! This means "righty tighty" is backwards. If you don't have an impact wrench, you might have luck with a setup like this: (see picture) With the bolts out, the ring gear should slide right off the old diff. The small gear runs the speedometer, and comes off with the bearing puller. I actually used two pullers togeter, because it's a thin gear and I was worried about bending it. The manual also says to use a bearing puller to get the bearings off. I don't see how you could possibly get them off without damaging them. There is no room to pull on the bearing itself, so you would have to pull on the roller cage. Maybe a transmission shop could get them off for you, but I just decided to buy two new bearings from honda (~$45).

Getting the spedo gear on the new diff was a little tricky for me. I finally got it on by putting the new diff in the freezer and the gear in a pan of boiling water. This made it easier to get it started, then I pushed it the rest of the way with a brass punch. Be sure to tap it down straight and even, and don't get the punch to far from the inside of the gear or you may chip or bend the thin edges of the gear teeth. The new bearings went on easy with the freezer trick. You can also use the brass punch to work them on. A short piece of 1-1/4" PVC pipe is also just the right size to drive the bearings on.

With the bearings installed, and the spedo gear transferred, the large ring gear goes on next. It's a close tolerance fit, but should slide on fine. If it gets cocked sideways slightly when you slide it on, you can eyeball it to find the high side and tap it lightly to get it straight again. Next put in the 10 bolts. I would be sure that they will each go all the way down finger tight to be sure all the grey crud is cleaned out good. The helm manual doesn't say to use loctite, but I used a liquid loctite from autozone for added peace of mind. Again, it can be tricky to hold the diff while you torque down the bolts. I had an old timing belt laying around, so I rigged it like this: (see picture) This worked really good. Nylon webbing, or an old belt would probably also work. Torque down the 10 bolts in a crisscross pattern in several steps. You're almost half done now, time for another cold one.

With the tranny all apart, you may want to check the syncros, clearances, bearings, axle and main shaft oil seals, etc. The manual has all the procedures to do this. The one thing you have to check though, is the clearance on the new bearings and diff. Since these are all new parts, there is no guarantee that they are exactly the same size as the old ones. With all the guts still out of the tranny, pull the old taper bearing halves out of the tranny housings, put in the new bearing races, drop in the new diff , and put the tranny housing back on. Put in the bolts around the perimeter finger tight. I like to use antisieze anytime I'm putting bolts into aluminum. Check that the differential turns freely and begin tightening the perimeter housing bolts. Periodically check that the diff still turns easily by sticking your fingers in the hole where the axel goes. If you're lucky, you will begin to get a little bit of drag on the bearings just as you get the bolts all the way tight. This means that the new bearings and diff are the exact same size as the old ones, and the bearing preload is the same. In my case, the new parts were ever so slightly smaller than the old ones, so the diff would spin freely even with all the bolts tight. With all the bolts still tight, I tried to move the diff up and down and side to side. It didn't seem to have any slop, just no preload on the bearings. So I took it appart again and pulled the shim out of the top housing behind the outer bearing race . They are supposed to have a little letter on them indicating which shim they are. The letter was worn off my shim, so I used some calipers to measure how thick it was. I then ordered the next largest shim from honda, which turned out to be perfect. It is also possible that the new parts assembly will be larger than the old one, so as you are tightening the perimeter bolts keep checking that the diff turns easily. If it starts to bind up before you get the bolts all the way tight, you probably need a thinner shim. There may be a little trial and error with this if the clearance is off by a lot. The manual has a more precise way to measure the preload, but it requires a special tool, and a very sensitive torque wrench.

It's time to put everything back together again. Scrape off all the old silicone on the tranny halves (but don't gouge the surface) , and spray everything down with cleaner to remove as much dirt/dust as possible. Put some grease on the mainshaft seal. Put the cleaner magnets back in. Put the new diff in. Drop in the whole mainshaft/countershaft/shift fork assembly. Make sure the spring washer on the mainshaft is in right (check the manual). Put in the reverse idler gear and idler shaft. Put in the reverse shift fork. Double check that everything is ready for assembly . Lay a bead of grey silicone around the edge of the lower half of the tranny. Drop the top half down on the bottom. The shift forks tend to fall in towards the center, so you might need to reach through the shift mechanism hole and jiggle them a little so they find their slots in the top cover. Be sure things are lined up right. The bearings will all be started in their slots, but the housing won't go all the way down (about a 3/8" gap left) until you spread the snap ring over the bearing on the countershaft. Once you do this, the housing will drop the rest of the way. Put in all the bolts and torque them in sequence. Wipe off the excess silicone that was squeezed out of the seam. Grease and install the shift mechanism with silicone, etc. Shift it through all the gears and turn the mainshaft by hand to be sure everything is together right. Make sure the snap ring is seated in the bearing properly (if you need to, you can turn the tranny over and drop it a couple inches onto a 2x4 to shift the counter shaft a little and seat the snap ring), install the endcap with silicone. Install the reverse shaft bolt, and the shift fork bolts, springs and *****.

Install your new clutch/flywheel/etc . Grease the clutch release fork pivot and release bearing. Install the tranny. Grease the axel seals and splines, then install the axels. You cleaned them off good first, right? Grease the end of the clutch slave cylinder. Put the tranny side engine mount in place before putting in the bolts to the rear engine mount; it won't work in the reverse order. Put everything else back together. You took it apart, so you know where everything goes, right? Extra pieces are not allowed. Don't forget to put oil in the tranny!! I put it in from the top using a gear oil container with a pointy tip. Put the tip into the vent on top of the tranny and squeeze some oil in, relax your grip and suck some air out, repeat a few times... I use two quarts of Mobil1 15w50. Check the manual for the exact amount to put in; it's a little more for an overhaul vs. just an oil change. If you can, hold off a while on filling the oil; it will give the silicone more time to cure. Go for a short test drive, then jack it up again and make sure things are still tight, no leaks, etc. For example, I noticed that my radius rod was loose still. Go for a longer drive, let everything warm up nice, take some hard turns on the gas to work the diif some, then when you get back home jack it up and drain the oil out of the tranny and refill it with fresh oil. This lets you check for metal bits in the oil(bad), and helps to flush out the last bit of dirt or grit still in the tranny. There will be some fine glitter in the oil from break-in of the Quiafe, but there should not be anything very big. There is no filter on the tranny oil, so any dirt in there just keeps running through the gears and bearings over and over.

I would take a series of short trips before driving off to grandma's house three states away, but now you have a spiffy LSD in your car. Next weekend head to the autocross and test it out! Job well done, time for the pizza!




Modified by flyrod at 8:05 AM 1/6/2006

 

Mods need to add this to the essential links - i'm bookmarking this.

 

Bits and pieces of hondaprelue.com are archived at:

http://web.archive.org/web/*/h...e.com/

However, I still have not been able to find the pics that go with the original article...

 

jesus christ, good writeup. Maybe i should get one of these lsd things...

 

great writeup for sure.

but: " The manual has a more precise way to measure the preload, but it requires a special tool, and a very sensitive torque wrench."

that part is rather important even if it is expensive.

 

Guys thanks for your input so far. Lots to read

 

<TABLE WIDTH="90%" CELLSPACING=0 CELLPADDING=0 ALIGN=CENTER><TR><TD>Quote, originally posted by RMS &raquo;</TD></TR><TR><TD CLASS="quote">that part is rather important even if it is expensive.</TD></TR></TABLE>

Maybe. I have installed 3 quaifes and one stock diff just doing it by "feel." None have had problems. One went into a drag car, and the others are thrashed on the track. As I mentioned, this is not a minor task. If you have doubts it might be better to take it to a shop that will stand by their work.

Also, a while back someone here on H-T used a piece of all-thread to attach to the quaife and measure drag on the bearings. One could also drop in an intemediate shaft or an axle end, or even make a tool I suppose.

 

this is for a big series but it may help

https://honda-tech.com/zerothread?id=795700