Well I installed a Quaife ATB into my tranny. Everything went perfectly. The only thing I ran trouble with was the differential thrust shims. I've read how important they are, especially for taper roller bearings. Luckily, I have the enclosed bearings. Anyways, when I installed the Quaife, I reused the old shim, not sure on thickness. And when I put the gear housing onto the clutch housing, the two mated perfectly. No gaps what so ever. I tightened it down then checked the shim clearance to find I have 0 clearance. maybe negative clearance? I couldn't even fit a 0.004mm feeler in there. So that got me worried that the shim in there right now is SLIGHTLY too thick, considering it still allowed me to mate the two cases with ease. The tranny is still off the car, but I ended up deciding to seal it all up anyways as it's the weekend... but now the more i think about it, the more I worry. Does anyone know the long term effects this may cause? premature bearing failure maybe? I found only ONE thread on all of honda-tech which talked about too little clearance and it actually broke his gear housing side around the differential from constant pressure. Sounds to me he musta used the bolts to suck them together where as mines mated perfectly, just left me with no gap. Think I'll be okay? or should I take it all apart again? Luckily, it will only take me 30 mins to pull it all apart, but the fact that I have to measure it then wait and order the part is what makes me not want to.

PS: Since the tranny is all bolted and sealed up right now, I spun the mainshaft to make sure the differential spun freely. And it spun perfectly fine and made no noises in every gear including reverse. Although obviously I may not be able to spin it fast enough to make it make a noise if it does, but I definantly didn't feel bindage.

 

TTT

 

id test drive it and see how it runs. and drain the tranny oil to see if there is any shavings.

 

"check for shavings" is a pretty foolish mentality for a transmission rebuild. quaiffe's are usually narrower than a stock dif in my experience. if the two mating surfaces of the case sat completely flush on their own without being drawn down by the bolts,, and if you can rotate the dif in the case with your fingertips after its snug youre probably OK.

when you checked for clearance did you remember to push the diff all the way back toward the case manually before inserting the feeler gauge?

 

i think the spec for that clearance is 0 to .004 you might be perfectly fine but it also might be a little on the tight side also.

if you had the tranny on the work bench still then i would say just rip it apart and put in a new shim or modify the original shim.

since you already installed in into the car its allot of work to pull all that apart again.....choice is yours...it might not cause a immediate bearing failure but maybe a few thousand miles later?

 

Thanks for the help guys. I had the tranny on the bench still adn yse the diff was seated all the way. I ended up taking ti apart, removing the shim, and orderd a few shims from Honda. I figured it'll taske me 30 mnis tops to take it all apart and put it back together so why not... betetr safe then sorry. After measure the sxisting shim. it looks as I had about .1-.3mm shim too large. Give or take. Oh well. it'll all be fine in the end. thanks for all the help guys

 

let us know how it turns out. I'm in the process of rebuilding my tranny. I might need to ask a few questions.