Hi,
I recently purchased an OBX Lsd for my B16 trans. After disassembling the unit and fixing the mistakes that came from the factory, I began to prep it for installation. After hand-tightening the bolts holding the ring gear to the diff I began to torque down the bolts to the same specs found in my Honda manual. I reached the 2nd to last bolt, began to torque it down, but when I approached the proper torque, the threads let loose, and stripped out. I should be more specific in saying that the threads in the diff casing stripped, not the bolt itself. I took it to my local machinist and they told me that they couldn't repair it because the material that the casing is made from is too hard to drill/tap. My question is, can I run a bead about 1" long in the areea of the missing bolt, and weld the bolt in place to make sure there isn't any balancing issues? Will material hardness affect welding ability?
thanks in advance for the advice.


Modified by reactone at 8:02 AM 3/26/2008


Modified by reactone at 8:03 AM 3/26/2008

 

Pics of the affected area?

 

sounds like the only solution to me is to buy a quaife.

 

sounds very iffy.

my thought is if the threads stripped out that easy, i doubt that it cant be drilled-tapped-helicoiled. i would loctite the **** out of it going this route, but even still your asking for trouble.

i would do it and hope for the best on my car, but i am a friggin idiot too.

 

why not send it back to obx and get it replaced under warranty?

 

because it has been tampered with. its liek trying to install an aftermarket head on your car only to bend some of the valves because you forgot to set the motor to TDC and you want honda to repair it under warranty.

not going to happen.

 

I'll try to get pics up soon.
<TABLE WIDTH="90%" CELLSPACING=0 CELLPADDING=0 ALIGN=CENTER><TR><TD>Quote, originally posted by wed3k &raquo;</TD></TR><TR><TD CLASS="quote">because it has been tampered with. its liek trying to install an aftermarket head on your car only to bend some of the valves because you forgot to set the motor to TDC and you want honda to repair it under warranty.

not going to happen.</TD></TR></TABLE>
You're most likely right, although in this case "tampering" is the result of trying to fix the mistakes brought about by very poor manufacturing. Man, I was so careful, too.

<TABLE WIDTH="90%" CELLSPACING=0 CELLPADDING=0 ALIGN=CENTER><TR><TD>Quote, originally posted by jeffy &raquo;</TD></TR><TR><TD CLASS="quote">sounds very iffy.

my thought is if the threads stripped out that easy, i doubt that it cant be drilled-tapped-helicoiled. i would loctite the **** out of it going this route, but even still your asking for trouble.

i would do it and hope for the best on my car, but i am a friggin idiot too. </TD></TR></TABLE>
Yeah, it looks like theres no fixing the threads themselves. Thats why I thought welding the ring gear is my only hope. At this point, the bolt can only be torqued down about 20 ft-lbs before it just starts turning.

 

i would say that the ring is held on alot by shear force the bolts counteracts.

how tight can you get it?? how about tighten it as best you can, and tack weld the bolt head on....sure its ghetto, but it WILL work.

 

Post pics, Im pretty sure I can fix it for you. If its what Im thinking that happened.

 

usually when I remove the bolts from the factory ring gear/diff they are stripped (at least the majority of them)

 

<TABLE WIDTH="90%" CELLSPACING=0 CELLPADDING=0 ALIGN=CENTER><TR><TD>Quote, originally posted by weiRtech &raquo;</TD></TR><TR><TD CLASS="quote">sounds like the only solution to me is to buy a quaife.</TD></TR></TABLE>

Sounds like a good idea, but Quaiffe has not made a Honda differential since May of '07. They are still in the development stage of their next generation diff., which should be ready in '09. Until then, all Quaiffe units are second hand or overstock.

As far as the problem with the OBX differential. I've played with a few now, and every time I chase the threads with a tap and install new hardware. Fortunately have not had one strip out yet, but the threads were beginning to show signs of cross-threading on the last diff. I tore down.

You can try a Heli-Coil. As mentioned before, the fasterners operate in sheer stress with the ring gear, so you do not need to worry about bolt stretch, and a Heli-Coil might do the job fine.