Just installed the Quaife in the GSR tranny and took it around the block a couple of times.. the car ran well.... then all of a sudden, there are no forward moving gears or reverse, so i had to push the car back home. We verified that there was fluid in the tranny, and there was enough hydraulic fluid, no leaks, and the clutch engages... what could it be?

 

When you reassembled the tranny housing, did you make sure you lined up the top washer on the main shaft? The washer has a tongue on it that MUST fit into the groove that is in the housing.

HTH.

 

I's bettin' sumpm broke. Just kidding...Well kind of. Two things to check: First, make sure that one of your axles didn't pop out. I know that it sounds simple and downright impossible, but I have seen it happen, more than once. Honestly, I would think that the LSD would keep one moving if only one popped out, but I am not sure. If you have a weak heart, you may want to stop reading. The second possibity that I can think of happened to me. I had the clutch center break loose from the rest of the clutch. The result was zoom, zoom, zoom, but no go. For your sake, I hope it is the first one. That is, of course, unless you properly installed a new clutch with a warranty. Even then, replacing the clutch is a PITA. On the axle: Check the set ring on the end of the splines of the axle on the differential end if it popped out. Honda says to replace it every time you remove the axle. This seems extreme, but this may be the reason. Also make sure that you put the right joint in the right hole (insert lewd sexual comment here). If you had the axles disassembled, the left tri-pot may have ended up on the right axle and vice versa. I believe that the GSR tranny has different tri-pots for left and right. I would be interested to hear what you find to be the cause. Please email me. Good luck!

 

Crescent,

Would that cause the tranny to not engage into any of the gears? We were able to push the car when it was in first gear, as if it was in neutral I'm going to drop the tranny tomorrow and take it apart again..... I was also told that when installing the Quaife, I needed new shims- which I didn't do.... any other thoughts?

Thanks

 

Is it making any noise at all when you are trying to go?

 

It makes no noise....

 

i know this sounds even stupider but check the shift linkeages believe or not ive seen that done too
let us know whats up
thanks
chris

 

Shift linkages are installed correctly, no problems shifting into gear.... just that the doesn't move when it's in gear

 

The Quaife (thru the tranny main shaft) is the link between the engine and the axles. If the Quaife sheared itself internally, it would do just as you described. Either that or you knocked all the teeth off the ring gear (highly unlikely). I suppose you could have knocked all the lining off the clutch disc but if u pushed it in gear, it should make some noise.

 

I pulled the axle out today, and immediately, I felt that there was something odd.... normally, I would have to pry on it in order for it to come out, but this time, it slid right out.... and upon further inspection, it seems as though the axle was not in all the way; it had only went in up to the axle clip- or about 1/4" (DOH!) it looks like all the splines on the "tip" sheared off.... well, I cleaned up the metal shavings left behind from the splines and popped the axle back in (fully this time)... gonna drive it around tomorrow and see if that was the problem.... another odd thing to note was that, when i spun one axle, the other axle spun the OPPOSITE direction... isn't that indicative of an open diff? And lastly, if one axle was not in, wouldn't the the power be diverted to the other wheel? Any thoughts?

Thanks all....

 

I don't want to freak you out too bad, but something is very messed up with your Quaife. I have a Quaife on my GSR and when I spin my axle, the other one turns in the same direction. With my original differential, if I spun an axle, the other axle spun in the opposite directon. There is something specific with the Quaife about not giving it gas when one or both wheels are off the ground while you are driving...........I cannot remember what it is, but it will hurt the gears in the differential. In your case, if only one axle was plugged in, it would be like driving with the other in the air. It sounds like you may have been driving with only one axle for a short time and then the Quaife broke. I would not drive it.....you should probably take it back apart before you do anything or at least call Quaife and ask them. I do not know if the warranty will cover someting like that. I hope everything works out.


[Modified by Farnsrocket, 6:04 PM 4/27/2002]

 

iam with earl on this one sounds mialligned .

 

Ok... after reading the message, I was a bit concerned (OK, VERRRRY concerned), so I went back outside, raised the car onto jackstands, and spun one wheel... at first, I spun it ~2" and there was NO response! Then I spun it some more, and carefully watched the other side... low and behold, it spun the same direction. I tried it backwards and inside out, and it spins the right direction. Earlier today, the wheels were not on the car yet.... I spun one axle, and had my bro check to see what direction the other axle was spinning, and I guess we he got confused as to which way "forward" meant..... so I guess everything looks fine now- or is there any other suggestions or comments? All this advice has been GREATLY appreciated.

Thanks

 

back to your shims comment.... you DO need to properly fit the differential in the housing with the proper width shims, this is to maintain clearance from other moving parts and the trannycase. My oem shims didnt work for my ITR LSD but I thinned one out at work and that did solve the problem quickly. Otherwise my LSD would have been in contact with either the case or a big gear I dont remember what its called, but you see it upon reassembly that a gear is almost laying on the edge of the ring gear.

man I am curious to hear how this ends... good luck!

 

when we put the tranny back together, there seems to be no tolerance issues... nothing touching the case or the ring gear at all.... hmmm.......

 

A happy ending! Isn't that special. I would like to know how the Quaife works. If it is a clutch type, I am guessing that the clutch slips when loaded 100% and that would make sense. I do not fully understand how limited slip works, so if it is not a clutch type, it would be interesting to learn why it would not power only one wheel. Smoke the tires!

 

Ha! Now that the Quaife is working.... I am having a problem with the LINK ECU! The car is very difficult to start, and it has no cold idle function.... but otherwise, I am as happy as a pig in ****

 

The quaife diff is not clutch type. From what I understand transfers a portion of the total torque from the slipping wheel to the other, but if one wheel is not experiencing any torque (ie, if the axle was not connected) it cannot transfer any torque. This is why lifting one of the drive wheels is not good with a quaife diff.

Anyway, that's my understanding of it, correct me if I'm wrong.

 

Quaiffe this: It is off of the SCC web site. Its a great article, worth the 3.95 if ya ask me (even though i know you arent).




Enough about our tire-spinning Focus, what you really want to know is how this mysterious box of gears actually works, right? Before explaining how the limited-slip action works, let's look at how the differential part works.

We'll start at the beginning: When you go around a corner, the inside wheels have less ground to cover than the outside wheels, so naturally, they spin more slowly. The differential's job is simply to allow the two drive wheels to turn at different speeds while still staying mechanically connected to the gearbox.

Imagine, for a second, that you're the differential. When the car is going straight, the differential itself spins at the same speed as the wheels, and from your point of view as an honorary differential, all the gears inside are stationary. When the car goes around a corner and one wheel has to go faster than the other, all you'd see, as a differential, is the two axles turning in opposite directions.

With your newfound perspective, look at the diagram of the Quaife differential and imagine the sun gear in front (the gears attached to the axles are called sun gears) turning clockwise. The pinion gears around the outside of the sun gear therefore turn counterclockwise. The pinion gears from one side of the differential mesh with pinion gears from the other side, so they turn clockwise, and those pinion gears turn the sun gear on the far side counterclockwise. That, if you've lost track, means it's turning in the opposite direction from the sun gear in front, which is just what you, as a differential, want to see when you're going around a corner.

Coasting around that corner, there's no load transmitted through any of these gears, but hit the throttle and things get complicated. Look closely at what happens when the differential tries to drive the wheels. Assuming the car is going straight and there's equal grip on both wheels, the differential housing turns, which forces the pinion gears, trapped in little pockets around the perimeter of the diff, to move with it. These pinion gears are meshed with the sun gears, and because none of the gears are turning (relative to the diff housing, that is), the sun gears have to follow along, spinning at the same speed as the differential.

The gear teeth can only push on each other with a force directly perpendicular to the face of the tooth, so if the tooth is angled, so is the force on the gear teeth.

Now, the pinion gears don't rotate on a shaft; instead, they sit in tight-fitting pockets, with the tips of their gear teeth rubbing on the inner walls of each pocket. When the differential housing turns and the pinion gears push on the sun gears, the pinion gears get shoved back against the walls of their pockets. Of course, the more torque that gets applied, the harder they get shoved against the wall.

That's going to be very important in a second.

When one wheel loses grip and tries to spin, all the gears have to start turning, just as they did when we were coasting around a corner, but now that the pinion gears are being shoved against the walls of their pockets, there's some resistance. This is just the beginning of the resistance, though. In the middle, where the pinion gears mesh and the pinion on the gripping side tries to turn the pinion on the slipping side, something interesting happens.

The pinion gears are cut with helical gear teeth that mesh at an angle. When these angled teeth push against each other, the angle of the teeth causes them to pull each other up against the end of their pockets.

The combined friction of the tip of the pinion gear teeth rubbing against the pocket walls and the ends of the pinions rubbing against the ends of the pockets actually creates enough resistance to prevent the inside tire from spinning.

When designing a new application, Quaife engineers can adjust the amount of resistance in the diff by changing the shape of the gear teeth and the angle of the helical pinion gears. To see how this works, just look closely at the interface between two gear teeth, starting with gear tooth No. 1 on the left. The bottom tooth is pushing up with a force represented by the little green arrow. At the gear tooth interface, the bottom tooth pushes up on the top tooth with that same force (but now the arrow is white), and if there's enough resistance on the other gear, the top tooth will push back with the same force.

The gear teeth can only push on each other with a force directly perpendicular to the face of the tooth, so if the tooth is angled, so is the force on the gear teeth (the white arrow). In gear tooth No. 2, you can see the white arrow is now angled. This same force can be looked at as two forces, one pushing up (green), and one pushing to the side (red). As the angle of the teeth gets steeper, as in gear tooth No. 3, the amount of force pushing to the side increases. The force shoving the pinion gears into the pocket wall comes, in part, from these little red arrows.

The majority of the resistance and virtually all of the tuning happens when the angle of the helical pinion gear teeth is changed. A steeper helix translates directly into bigger red arrows shoving the pinion gears into the end of the pockets.

It's important to note if there's no resistance from the gear on top, the gears will simply turn and there won't be any red arrows at all. No red arrows mean no limited slip, so if one wheel is completely off the ground, the Quaife will act as an open differential. This is why our Focus street car, which always keeps its wheels on the ground, uses a Quaife, while our Focus rally car uses a clutch-type Kaaz differential

Mike D

 

heres a blow up of that pic for ya good info